Firelane 5.
I shot this video yesterday morning. I think it came together nicely. I place all the shots, ride them, then retrieve the camera afterwards like Les Stroud (Survivorman) would.
The goal is to show the essence of mountain biking. The ride to the trail, the sounds for the trail and forest, the click of the free wheel. I hope you enjoy it.
I make these videos to make my wife smile, if they make you smile send me a tweet, facepage, or plus let me know what you think of it.
Titus FTM Aluminum, ride it.
As you may know from my previous post, I took out a aluminum FTM from Titus yesterday. I got a maiden voyage on her today. I was really impressed with this version of the bike. Firstly, this may dominate my whole line of thinking, but the bike is sized as the Large instead of the Medium I was riding. The fit was spot on and felt immensely better. Dare I say that the Medium was too small for me? I guess so.
The other HUGE difference is the suspension duties performed by Fox on this bike whereas the carbon FTM demo had Rockshox. The Rockshox Monarch was new and needed more time to open up but the Fox RP23 is in prime condition on this frame since it has been around the block a bit. The RP23 also has more of a lockout which is really nice feature for gravel grinding in Forest Park.
The shifting experiment also went well, but I would rather have XT or XTR than the XO shifters. The shifting was precise and great, but I am just use to the Shimano trigger shifters over the SRAM ones. Kind of a personal choice decision more than a technical decision.
The ride was pretty sloppy, so I scaled the speed back a bit to maintain control. There were some fallen trees and debris from our last couple storms so going balls-to-the-walls was not recommended. You may run into a tree if not careful out there.
All in all, I have to admit I like the AL version of the FTM and was thinking that you could go either way and still have a pretty nice bike setup. The AL version will save you some cash which you could invest in a few more road trips. I don’t think I have to give this one back for a while so I may go get some extended rides in.
More to come later.
J
Classic “leaning on a post” picture for bike forums.
Did I ever mention I am getting tired of this mud?
FREE FOREST PARK! Stickers are in! They look AWESOME. Thanks @stickergiant!
Buy now at the Zendoughnut store. http://store.zendoughnut.com/
Free Forest Park! Stickers will be available next week on the store.
Here at Zendoughnut we love our dirt.
Whether it be riding around in circles in the fall listening to cowbell and drums or flying through the woods in the summer listening to the bees. While it is great to drive out to Sandy or to Tillamook State Forest to ride we would really love to have something closer to ride. Forest Park in Portland is one of the nations largest city parks and covers an amazing amount of land (5100 acres). We want to ride it and enjoy it like the other trail users! There have been many attempts to open up the trails to cycling on multiple occasions. All of which failed due to random stalling or NIMBY’s blocking access.
This sticker is a venting and an awareness tool. We could just ride the hiking trails at night like los banditos. But in the end that just gets us cyclists bad press and actually works against the cause. A simple sticker won’t change the world, but can be an effective tool to affect change. One of the cores of ZD is to affect social change. Here is one way we can help.
75% of the proceeds from this sticker go directly towards the NWTA our local IMBA chapter. They have fought for and have built some sweet trails for us. Please help out and put a cool sticker on your car, bike, or dog. Or click on the link and donate to the NWTA directly.
Focusing on the doughnut,
Jeremy
NOTE: After the stickers sell through. I will donate the moneys earned to NWTA and then I will be releasing the image above as Creative Commons Commercial Use License so others can use it.
Free Forest Park! by Jeremy Schroeder is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
I pulled the trigger and ordered up a bunch of Free Forest Park! stickers. Check out the zendoughnut store to order. 75% of sales goes to the NWTA for trail building and access rights.
Please contribute and get a sticker.
Jeremy
note: Sticker are designed for indoor/outdoor use.
Source: zendoughnut
Forrest Park, Oregon. My ride down Firelane 5 produced these photos today. I love this park.
Humpday Hillclimb consisted of running in Forest Park on Firelane 2.
Finally captured some speed with the camera. Set the point and shoot to a high ISO settings.
Forest Park. Super Green.
So I just had to get out this morning.
It has been too long.
At work, we are building something very technical, and as a startup it is just really important to continue battling and knocking projects out. Unfortunately that means more time in front of the computer screen and not in front of the handlebars. BUT eventually you have to take a break and do something different. Today was that day. I realized if I kept going and hammering on the systems I’d burn out. Heck, I may already be burnt out. So I went on up to Forest Park to ride Firelane 5 and Saltzman road.
It was time for the mind refresher. My mind refresher is Mountain Biking. To get out in the woods and flow. Smell the trees and taste the dirt. I do it because I love it.
That is all.
J
Spring start in Forest Park
Today I snuck away from baby duties to clear the mind and get some dirt riding in. It was dirty and a little wet. The new gearing worked flawlessly and it felt smooth. Last picture sums up my feelings after the ride. Here is the daily mile data
It is good to have spring,
Jeremy
Happy face!
Bike Geek, Cancer Survivor, and geeky dad. Writes about cycling, two wheeled culture, and the bicycle industry.