Bushwhackin'

This is bare creek bed in Black Hawk Creek. That's ice not snow.

 Wednesday I went out and did a little 'tune-up' ride on my Salsa Cycles Blackborow DS just to make sure it would be ready if we ever get weather conditions that warrant 4.8" tires on 100mm rims. A tune-up on a dingle speed drive train is pretty easy. Things go roundy-round and the wheels are propelled forward. You can steer and brake? Good? Then you are done. Simple.

But you know you just cannot go around the block and go home. You have to go 'bushwhackin'' if you don't have snow. You know, find the sand, the duff, the places where other bikes cannot go, and you go there. So, the best place for that near me is the Green Belt, and I don't have to go very far to get there either. 

Sand is available in copious amounts around Black Hawk Creek which runs through the Green Belt. Right now that creek is so low that many sand bars and the actual sandy bottom of the creek itself is open for some great fat biking action. Most of this is grainy sand, compacted, and easily ridden upon. But there is sand that is nearly impossible to navigate by bicycle out there as well. 

This sand is the stuff that gets filtered out during floods in the faster moving water. This then gets deposited wherever that water gets slowed down enough that the weight of the sand is pulled out of the rushing flood water by gravity or its inertia, if the water hits an object, or gets turned suddenly by an object like a fallen tree, a big rock, a embankment, etc. This sand can pile up two to three feet or more in depth and is as fine a sand as you could wish for. It's akin to 'hour glass' sand, if that helps to visualize this loose, unconsolidated stuff. 

So, you have those two challenges which are perfect for the Blackborow DS, but there is more. You have your regular paths, of course, and any bicycle can try those, but there are a lot of wooded areas with a ton of brambles, downed trees, and brick-a-back of all sorts, such as you might find in a wooded flood plain.

You have to wonder from how many miles away did this old stove come from.

You just never know what you might find down there along the creek. Plus you just never know where it may have come from. With the frequency and ferocity of floods through here, it could be flotsam and jetsam from upstream. Or it could simply be just stuff dumped off there by someone who should have known better than to discard their junk in such a manner. Either way, there are interesting discoveries to be made on a regular basis due to both of those reasons. Maybe others as well. 

I probably walked my bike a fair piece while bushwhackin' and that's all part of the fun in my opinion. That and figuring out how to cross muddy, water runs that cut across the flood plain here and there down to the creek. I had one that had me doing some pretty fancy gymnastics with my bicycle as a tool. It can best be described as a moveable stepping stone! I like figuring out that end of things while bushwhackin' as well. 

So, the Blackborow DS is all ready to go now. Plus, I got a ride in and that's never a bad thing. Now the Blackborow will await the opportunity to do battle with Winter, once it decides to come around with its snow and ice.

Bushwhackin'

This is bare creek bed in Black Hawk Creek. That's ice not snow.

 Wednesday I went out and did a little 'tune-up' ride on my Salsa Cycles Blackborow DS just to make sure it would be ready if we ever get weather conditions that warrant 4.8" tires on 100mm rims. A tune-up on a dingle speed drive train is pretty easy. Things go roundy-round and the wheels are propelled forward. You can steer and brake? Good? Then you are done. Simple.

But you know you just cannot go around the block and go home. You have to go 'bushwhackin'' if you don't have snow. You know, find the sand, the duff, the places where other bikes cannot go, and you go there. So, the best place for that near me is the Green Belt, and I don't have to go very far to get there either. 

Sand is available in copious amounts around Black Hawk Creek which runs through the Green Belt. Right now that creek is so low that many sand bars and the actual sandy bottom of the creek itself is open for some great fat biking action. Most of this is grainy sand, compacted, and easily ridden upon. But there is sand that is nearly impossible to navigate by bicycle out there as well. 

This sand is the stuff that gets filtered out during floods in the faster moving water. This then gets deposited wherever that water gets slowed down enough that the weight of the sand is pulled out of the rushing flood water by gravity or its inertia, if the water hits an object, or gets turned suddenly by an object like a fallen tree, a big rock, a embankment, etc. This sand can pile up two to three feet or more in depth and is as fine a sand as you could wish for. It's akin to 'hour glass' sand, if that helps to visualize this loose, unconsolidated stuff. 

So, you have those two challenges which are perfect for the Blackborow DS, but there is more. You have your regular paths, of course, and any bicycle can try those, but there are a lot of wooded areas with a ton of brambles, downed trees, and brick-a-back of all sorts, such as you might find in a wooded flood plain.

You have to wonder from how many miles away did this old stove come from.

You just never know what you might find down there along the creek. Plus you just never know where it may have come from. With the frequency and ferocity of floods through here, it could be flotsam and jetsam from upstream. Or it could simply be just stuff dumped off there by someone who should have known better than to discard their junk in such a manner. Either way, there are interesting discoveries to be made on a regular basis due to both of those reasons. Maybe others as well. 

I probably walked my bike a fair piece while bushwhackin' and that's all part of the fun in my opinion. That and figuring out how to cross muddy, water runs that cut across the flood plain here and there down to the creek. I had one that had me doing some pretty fancy gymnastics with my bicycle as a tool. It can best be described as a moveable stepping stone! I like figuring out that end of things while bushwhackin' as well. 

So, the Blackborow DS is all ready to go now. Plus, I got a ride in and that's never a bad thing. Now the Blackborow will await the opportunity to do battle with Winter, once it decides to come around with its snow and ice.

Bushwhacking

Post flood flotsam and jetsam along the Black Hawk Creek.

Sunday I awoke late......very late! I had slept in since I arrived back home with my son so late at night from our adventure to Iowa Speedway. The family wanted to go do different things, so I was left to my own devices later in the afternoon. I needed a bicycle ride stat!

I grabbed the test Borealis rig and decided to plunk along the Green Belt to see how things had fared post flooding. The flood was a bad one, by all accounts, and the Black Hawk Creek in particular had risen very high before receding back into its banks late last week. I wasn't even sure I'd get back in there at all, but initially I was rather surprised to find it nearly dry and only a few odd logs and branches to show for the deep water's passage.

That changed though as I turned in on the creek itself. I found large log piles not navigable on a bike and I was dismounting about every 50 yards on average to crawl over, walk around, or circumnavigate a section to avoid the wreckage left behind. In between I found damp, wet spots, but really- there was little mud. Usually the mud is heinous back here after higher water events. There was sand bars a plenty! Those were easily dispatched by the 29+ wheels on the Borealis.

Not going any further here!

I had one tight spot where trees had been uprooted and branches were tangled in such a mess that I had to pass the bike over as I found another way to get over to the other side to retrieve it. That was compounded in difficulty by the swarms of hungry mosquitoes that were hounding my every move. As long as I kept moving, I was okay.

I decided to ditch cruising the creek and head over towards the lake to see if I could find some open trail stretches longer than I had been. I mean, cyclo cross is okay, but I wasn't in the mood, nor did I have the right bike! I finally reached the turn off, and I was looking good as I rode toward the lake and then......

Dead end! The West side of the lake had overtaken the trail and beyond. I ended up having to bushwhack my way through some tall grass only to find myself forced to make my way through someone's back yard to avoid the waters. I didn't like having to do that, but there seemed to be no harm, so no foul.......this time. Hopefully there isn't a "next time"!

I gave up! The water wins this time.

I tried then to see how far around the other way I could get and was stopped about a third of the way around. Dang! I do not remember this being so bad since 2008, and that was a really bad flood year. Seeing as how it is mid-July now, I don't see this getting any better for awhile, and of course, that depends on how much it decides to rain.

The one thing I did have fun with was the 29+ tires on the Borealis. They seemed to roll better than a full on fat bike set up but had that bushwhacking, roll over garbage effect that 3.8"ers do without the weight and inertia in steering. This set up feels like a 29"er on steroids, for lack of a better analogy, and as I am pursuing a similar set up for the titanium Mukluk, I feel it is going to be a really fun set up once I get that completed. In fact, it may become my favorite rig to date.

Whenever this B+ thing hits, I feel it will also be a similar deal as it is with 29+. Things are going to get real interesting come Fall, I bet, and I feel once something non-Surly becomes available in bikes, tires, and rims, a lot of folks will step up and find out this is the way to go for fun, adventurous mountain biking, bikepacking, and just general goofing around on bicycles. Don't get me wrong- fat bikes are really fun and capable, but I'm really digging the 29+ feel and I see a ton of potential here.

Bushwhacking

Post flood flotsam and jetsam along the Black Hawk Creek.

Sunday I awoke late......very late! I had slept in since I arrived back home with my son so late at night from our adventure to Iowa Speedway. The family wanted to go do different things, so I was left to my own devices later in the afternoon. I needed a bicycle ride stat!

I grabbed the test Borealis rig and decided to plunk along the Green Belt to see how things had fared post flooding. The flood was a bad one, by all accounts, and the Black Hawk Creek in particular had risen very high before receding back into its banks late last week. I wasn't even sure I'd get back in there at all, but initially I was rather surprised to find it nearly dry and only a few odd logs and branches to show for the deep water's passage.

That changed though as I turned in on the creek itself. I found large log piles not navigable on a bike and I was dismounting about every 50 yards on average to crawl over, walk around, or circumnavigate a section to avoid the wreckage left behind. In between I found damp, wet spots, but really- there was little mud. Usually the mud is heinous back here after higher water events. There was sand bars a plenty! Those were easily dispatched by the 29+ wheels on the Borealis.

Not going any further here!

I had one tight spot where trees had been uprooted and branches were tangled in such a mess that I had to pass the bike over as I found another way to get over to the other side to retrieve it. That was compounded in difficulty by the swarms of hungry mosquitoes that were hounding my every move. As long as I kept moving, I was okay.

I decided to ditch cruising the creek and head over towards the lake to see if I could find some open trail stretches longer than I had been. I mean, cyclo cross is okay, but I wasn't in the mood, nor did I have the right bike! I finally reached the turn off, and I was looking good as I rode toward the lake and then......

Dead end! The West side of the lake had overtaken the trail and beyond. I ended up having to bushwhack my way through some tall grass only to find myself forced to make my way through someone's back yard to avoid the waters. I didn't like having to do that, but there seemed to be no harm, so no foul.......this time. Hopefully there isn't a "next time"!

I gave up! The water wins this time.

I tried then to see how far around the other way I could get and was stopped about a third of the way around. Dang! I do not remember this being so bad since 2008, and that was a really bad flood year. Seeing as how it is mid-July now, I don't see this getting any better for awhile, and of course, that depends on how much it decides to rain.

The one thing I did have fun with was the 29+ tires on the Borealis. They seemed to roll better than a full on fat bike set up but had that bushwhacking, roll over garbage effect that 3.8"ers do without the weight and inertia in steering. This set up feels like a 29"er on steroids, for lack of a better analogy, and as I am pursuing a similar set up for the titanium Mukluk, I feel it is going to be a really fun set up once I get that completed. In fact, it may become my favorite rig to date.

Whenever this B+ thing hits, I feel it will also be a similar deal as it is with 29+. Things are going to get real interesting come Fall, I bet, and I feel once something non-Surly becomes available in bikes, tires, and rims, a lot of folks will step up and find out this is the way to go for fun, adventurous mountain biking, bikepacking, and just general goofing around on bicycles. Don't get me wrong- fat bikes are really fun and capable, but I'm really digging the 29+ feel and I see a ton of potential here.