The Genr'l heads to the pump track

As Chris indicated, he and I both recently purchased cruiser BMX bikes (with 24" wheels as opposed to the standard 20" rims). Since BMX bikes are the very pinnacle of cool, and the Dukes of Hazard are like the coolness pinnacle's pinnacle, the DK General Lee in Hazard County Orange was basically the only choice for us.

We've spent some time learning some of the basics on the streets of Durham over the past few weeks. It might be an exaggeration to say that we're masters of the shred at this point, but we're getting better, and by last Thursday we thought it was time to try the Genr'l on the dirt. After a few miles on the mountain bikes with JD, Dave, and Ben, we convinced the guys to head over to Crabtree, where we traded the 29ers for 24s and hit the pump track.

It's safe to say that the experience was (almost) everything that I'd hoped it would be. The Genr'l is undoubtedly faster on the pump track, despite weighing over thirty pounds and sporting tires that could generously be described as sketchy. We weren't able to quite manual the rhythm sections like the pros, but even in our short stay I think we were able to get considerably better.

Of course we insisted that others get in on the action. I wasn't able to get a good picture of Ben on the little bike (it looked like some sort of clown bike, needless to say), but JD was happy to pose with the orange wonder.


We weren't the only ones into bermed track fun: it was a big night at Lake Crabtree, and JD figured out how to use my camera to capture a video of the action. (Note to self: always hand over the hardware to the computer guy.)



So we weren't exactly flying around the track, but after JD and the rest of the crew left Chris and I did stay to work on our skills a little longer, and we were looking a little stronger by the end of the night. Pros? Of course not. As good as most 14-year-olds? No. But closer.

World Premier Video

If you haven't figured out how excited all of us here at Bull City Cycling are to have our brand new kits, check out the following videos and photos from yesterday's mountain bike ride in Raleigh.

What you are about to watch are the first world premier videos of Bull City Cycling in action.

The first video was shot while we were rolling through Umstead State Park.



Pirate, Ali and Dave rollin' through Umstead.


The second video is of the Crabtree County Park pump track.




Ben on Chris' bike spinning around the pump track at Crabtree.

Here comes trouble

That's right: the new kits are finally here!!!

With anticipation of taking our new suits to the catwalk that is Umstead Park, Ali, Chris, Brian, Ben and I loaded up this morning and headed down to the Morrisville trail complex, where we met up with JD and Dave in his newest, Raleigh-housed incarnation. Mr. JD "I've got the" Powers hadn't had a chance to check out the new threads, and with a little cajoling we were about to get him to strip down in the parking lot. As you can see, it was pretty much like Christmas morning for him. Because we're all pretty sensitive to others' feelings, we stood in a circle and were sure not to make fun of him at all while he transformed himself in Bull City style.

Feeling rather fly, and with the smell of new lycra wafting behind us, the quorum headed out on the trail for what was a little more than a three hour tour. We hit one bandit trail, then cruised happily through Umstead Park, where we thought we could get the most attention. I think in NASCAR this is called "recognition for your sponsors," but as the Professor displays, it's basically just showing off:


Brian's black Stumpy might be the best complement to the yellow kit, Chris certainly gets some extra props for (unknowingly) matching his bike to the jersey. Now if we could just get him an orange helmet...

While we were stopped for water we caught B-Swad doing his best Andre the Giant impersonation, and it seemed like as good a time as any for a team photo. Eat your heart out Slipstream!


Oh yeah, look at all that Lycra! OK, so maybe our coolness doesn't totally translate to the (digital) image, but trust me, these things are hot, and Linus should be proud of all his designing work. (This coolness is so cool, in fact, that it makes Chris yawn.) I -- and anyone I ride with -- am a little concerned about the near-transparency of the white panels on the shorts, but as they're in a relatively non-lewd position, I don't have to be worried about breaking any state or federal laws when I wear them. (No one else seems to have this issue with the bibs, by the way.)

After spinning through Umstead, we worked our way back toward our cars on some singletrack. Dave and JD took off before we hit the Crabtree pump track for some good rippin' fun, during which I fell on my face (as usual), Chris was wicked-smooth, and Ali was in fine photog form. Brian has some more, um, 'innovative' pictures of our time at the pump track that he'll post later, so I'll just include one snap of Hollywood for now.

All-n-all not a bad day. It was my first time on the bike in a couple of weeks and I felt like I was being punished for my slackerdom. Back in Durham and fully refueled in the way that a good dosing of Cosmic only can, my legs are mud, and I'm pining for the days when a good Saturday leg-breaking wasn't so utterly destructive to my body. Ah, youth...

Bo knows dirt

Ignoring the smoke in the air and simply happy that it wasn't 100 degrees, Adam, Chris and I loaded up the Subaru and headed down to Morrisville to hit some trails. If you know Adam, you know that he's hell on two wheels (and that he suffers no fools), but you might not know that he actually mountain bikes, too.

Well, occasionally: he showed up at my house with a broken front skewer, a noticeably dust-covered bike, while mumbling something about how the last time that he rode his mountain bike it was in a 'cross race. Whatthehaile? How can you do that to an IndyFab? We decided to correct that shortcoming, posthaste.

Unfortunately for me, whatever Adam lacked in trail-handling skills he more than made up for with his bulbous thighs of steel. You think I'm kidding? Try this on for size:


All told, I think that he dabbed once on a local bandit trail, and that was it. OK, so he did wreck as we left Crabtree, but we'll cut him some slack on that since it was almost fully dark at that point. Nevertheless, it did result in some carnage:


As no trip to the Crab would be complete without some pumpin', we spent some quality time going around in little banked circles. Chris has this thing figured out, and while I thought I was really getting it down, I blew a curve and landed with my face planted squarely in the dirt. Along with the rest of me. Thanks to the humidity, I turned instantly into Pig-pen. I have no idea what it is that Adam's doing in this first picture. Nor do I know why I'm showing jazz-hands.

Chris was smooth, as always. Would you expect anything less from the Professor? Ya gotta like the way he works it. (No diggity.)

Crabtree Fundraiser

The work on Crabtree continues, but now they need a little love from the community:


You can find a little more info here.

Wednesday = Pump Day

Yesterday Brian, JD, and I saddled up and headed to the Crabtree trails for a quick mid-week, post-work spin. We were clearly not alone in this plan: as we pulled into the Old Reedy Creek parking area we were met with more fat-tired freaks than I think have ever been assembled in the Triangle. Undaunted by the numbers and excited about the chance to show off our big guns in our sleeveless jerseys Team Dicky-style, we hit the trail on a beautiful spring day.

Crabtree was doing its best to pose as I-40 at rush hour: you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting any manner of mountain biker, from old-school canti-braked cruisers, to full-bounce weekend warriors, to even a cameo appearance by Willie B living large on a jump bike. Even so, we were happy to find the skills area and the pump track relatively free of users, if occasionally surrounded by a silently heckling group of observers.

This was Brian and JD's first time on the pump track, so I took some time to show them how it's done. It took me almost a full minute to teach them what little I knew about how to attack this bad boy, and soon they were rolling around to figure things out for themselves.

I think this was my third or fourth trip to the pump track, and as hesitant as I was about this thing at the beginning, and as clearly as it does not represent my best skill set, I am really starting to love the little circle in the dirt. I'm not exactly showing people how it's done out there, but I think I'm starting to understand the appeal. As an added bonus, the more body english that you use, the fewer laps you can do without getting exhausted. (Admittedly, that might just be me.)

We didn't take many pictures, and those that we did get aren't great, but here they are for your pump-viewing enjoyment.



Finished giving our love to the pump, we hemmed and hawed about what to do next long enough that the setting sun sent us home. All things told, though, it wasn't a bad little mid-week ride.

'Doin' it and doin' it and doin' it well'

Disappointed by our lack of dirt in the past week, and with an eye to the sky for fear of storms, Ali, Chris, and I headed down to the Raleigh/Morrisville trail complex this morning to get our roll on. Happily fueled by way too much coffee, we started with a spin around Umstead and some nearby trails. The pace was conversational and the mood was light, though Chris and Ali were both quick to point out that I was going soft: of the three of us, I was the only one with a suspension fork. Suitably unmanned, I mumbled something about their moms, and hoped that they wouldn't continue to call out my miserable bike handling skills.

The ride was uneventful -- if fun -- until we hit the Crabtree trails for some quality pump-trackin'. I felt a little bit better on the tight confines this time than on my last effort, but I'd be lying if I said that I had this skill figured out. Chris picked it up in no time, and was soon flying 'round the track with the greatest of ease. But the big revelation came when Chris and I jumped on Ali's bike for a couple of laps: not only is he on a 26"er, but it's also a small (15"?) frame with a short, tight wheelbase, not to mention a rigid fork, and we were able to whip it around the curves a lot better than our long tall steeds. (Of course it helps that his bike is wicked-light, too.)

*In an attempt to try a different format and save a little bandwidth, I'm just going to post the link to the pics on my Flickr account. The photos are in order though, so if you scroll through them you'll get the chronological pictorial chronicle of the day.

Ali was in fine photojournalist mode: be sure to check out his close ups of Chris as he leans into the last curve. It didn't take us too long to wear ourselves out and exhaust our (admittedly modest) skill set, so we headed over to conquer the assorted "skinnies" and the teeter-totter.

This is only worth mentioning in order to contextualize some of the pictures, as I was determined to get as much height as possible off of the (again, rather insubstantial) teeter, and Ali was poised to catch me in flight, however brief. I hit the thing repeatedly in an attempt to launch my rather earth-bound hide into some modest orbit, and with some tricks of his lens and an eye for timing Ali was able to make me appear much more aggressive than I actually am. In truth, I rather hew to the "Go medium or go home" motto, but one of the pics makes me look like I'm really jumping. (I'm sending that one to Mom.) Sweet.

Bizarrely, when we rode away I had my tubes explode python-like out of my tire. They didn't pop, mind you, they just got tired of being held down by the man (in this case, the man is the tire, I think), and left the casing to twist bizarrely around the frame and spokes. Chris thinks this means that I was running my tire pressure too high; I think it was probably too low. Whatever, something was definitely wrong, as first the front then the rear went squiggling free.

Tubes reinserted and wheels planted firmly on the ground, we headed back to the car and back to Durham for refreshing beverages and (in my case) the hard-fought war against the seduction of an afternoon nap.

There's never a bad day on the bike

While the hardcore among us (or the rather insane, as the case may be) headed to Tennessee for the Cohutta race, Ali and I loaded up the truck this morning for a spin around Lake Crabtree and some other nearby trails. It was truly a beautiful day to be on the bike: clear skies, temps in the 70s, and the trees in the first leaves of spring. We weren't out to put up any big miles or record-breaking speeds, but instead contented ourselves with a nice spin in the woods.


That's not to say that there weren't obstacles, some inanimate...


Others a little more, well, ill-tempered:


Over on the Crabtree side we were able to spend a little time on the newly-built pump track. I'm still not entirely sure that I understand the point of this particular exercise, but it's definitely well-built, and was fun to do a few laps on while others coached from the side.

As Ali was in prime photog mode, here's a series of yours truly getting medieval on the pump. Like I said, I'm not at all sure that I've got this down, but here you'll see me rocking from side to side...


Then entering the turn...

Whipping it around...

And then popping out...


Hell if I know if I was doing it right. After a half-dozen laps or so I was definitely a little winded, which is odd since you're not supposed to pedal while you're on the track. (And yes, I think I am turning over a pedal in the last picture, but we'll ignore that for the time being.)

The day was not without it's casualties, though, as I was able to send an unaware Ali into a teeter-totter that I'd tripped, leading to the day's only injury. Not bad, though: his prognosis for recovery is good.

Here's hoping Brian, Dave, and JD are rocking it out in the volunteer state.

Edit, 3:17 pm: I just got word that JD has finished the 65 mile version of Cohutta. He had no info on the whereabouts of either Dave or Brian, but it's a little early to get worried. Rescue personnel will be dispatched at the appropriate hour.
Edit, 7:12 pm: All Cohutta warriors are now accounted for. Alive, at the very least.