niceI I like hearing about firsts, it inspires me to get out and try new things. My main novelty these last few years has been gentle offroading with a cycletruck which is fun with the kid but not like, optimal from a performance standpoint
2022 was the year I figured how to properly bleed a Magura disc brake and the year I learned that riding from home to camping overnighter is pretty cool. I’d sum it up as localism for my riding with the lowest % of drive-to-ride I’ve done in past decade.
My riding-as-a-hobby started in the early 90s riding a steel hardtail for 45min before hitting the singletrack and it feels like I’m coming full circle with my 2022 turn of events.
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I just want to stay healthy and be able to ride bikes consistently in 2023
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lots of excellent riding out in Licking county. HMU and I can make you some routes that I fondly remember
Rode about 3500 miles this year, including 1000 commute miles.
Got the fit on my BMC - MCD to finally feel good after two years and I love it
Bought a singlespeed, air fork OG karate monkey and put about 500 miles on it.
Mostly developed a 200 mi gravel route in Virginia, that I’m still waiting to do a final lap of and am quite proud of it.
About half way through developing a 350 mile off-road bikepacking route through the Carolina sandhills that I think is going to be really unique and fun - a big focus of the route is visiting habitat patches of rare and endangered plants.
A big focus of my riding this year was using a bike as an ATV to access interesting habitat fragments and do photography of rare and endangered species, and I need more tire for my sandhills riding so a friend is building me a 29x3 touring bike so I can do more of that. Hopefully it should be done by the time spring blooms are going off.
My prediction is that we will see increasingly more proprietary parts, including electronic features that serve as a kind of DRM for the market - and that these standards will be supported for 18-month cycles. Not that that’s anything new.
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Broke out of the deadender path and got a more up to date CG–loving it.
Still not riding as much as I should but got better at dealing with warm temps.
Finally hit that point of needing to clear out the stable. Giving away one bike to my brother and selling others. Anyone want the noodly Falcon or cheesy Cinelli SSCX?
Up next–hopefully some more adventurous backroads exploration. Not really ready for things involving camping, but it’s a good part of the country to explore.
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This sounds cool as hell! You got a site or blog or something for this?
Okay, I stuck a toe out of the deadender path.
Still more 9 speed setups than anything else…
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I can’t get the bot to understand that “tarck” is not a misspelling.
What size are these?
Neighborhood of 54
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mild, not super serious, interest but I wanna see pics & prices. Especially if on the smaller end of 54.
I’ll put some things together in a day or two.
Edit–check out the what’s it worth thread.
not really. my IG is @pinuspungens , which is mostly microscopic pictures of slime molds and micro-fungi.
All of my plant photos go onto iNaturalist. I’ve only been taking serious pictures for 18 months or so, so I’ve still been developing a lot of my technique. Basically, I cut a flower in the field , stick it immediately into an ampoule of water and then I set up a little 6-inch square studio. Most all of my pictures are focus stacked, so I have a rail I mount the camera on to keep z-axis movement steady.
The big challenge for all of this has been perfecting all of the technique, then loading all the shit onto a bike, taking it way out into the field and trying to take pictures in the wind with bugs swarming. Most of the cool flowers are simply too fragile to travel, so most of them have never been photographed in detail.
Here’s Trichostema nesophilum - described a few years ago. Trichostema is known from sandy areas, mostly out west and is in the mint family. This species is known from the outer banks, primarily in NC. It inhabits a very narrow habitat zone, inshore behind the first layer of dunes, but before the maritime forest, about 2-3 feet about the freshwater table, several hundred yards from back-dune ponds. Smells like dill pickles. Check out the really thick sticky trichromes on the stem for sun protection.
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thats great. followed.
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what’s your favorite thing about the bike you ride to do that?
That it’s a singlespeed karate monkey - very low maintainence, utilitarian, fits me great. I don’t love the OG KM geo on singletrack, but its really lovely on a gravel road. Some times I put a bob trailer with 15 pounds of shit on it, and then drag it for miles through loose, sugary sand, and that makes me feel alive.
Actually, its fun as shit on rolling XC trails and way faster than most of the full sus bikes people are riding on that around here.
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how does the Bob fare in sand? I’m picturing it kind of wandering around a lot
yeah it sucks. But I don’t see any other trailer being any better really. It’s less violent to fall over in loose sand with a bob than with all the weight on the bike itself IMO. These areas are often no motor vehicles, and even if the ride is 1/3 trudging through sand, the other 2/3 might be half-rideable so its worth it. Its a funny feeling to cover 15-20 miles in a day on a bike and come home feeling like you rode a 200k. Even in areas where motor vehicles are allowed, the bike is better because you can see so much more than from a car and you can lift it over deadfall, which you couldnt do with an ATV.
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