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I’ve posted about riding road bikes on dirt and gravel roads here before (HERE, and HERE), but last night I took it up a notch and rode some singletrack 😛
I had a good reason for doing this. I rode my bike to work, but I also needed to go do some trail scouting to see if the trail would be dry enough to run our time trial on it the next night. So I got in touch with my buddy Trent who had just recently bought a ‘cross bike, and he agreed to go ride the trail with me on skinny tires.
Trent gettin’ it on his ‘cross bike.The trail was in better shape than I expected, but still a little wet and slick in some of the corners. The little tires were a handful to say the least!
Muddy rim brakes make me really appreciate the disc brakes on my MTB! These are just fine on the road, even in the rain, but throw some mud on there and they really suck.The front end actually stuck like glue, but the rear was all over the place. The trail has a few very short but very steep climbs, usually with a couple of big roots to get up and over on the way to the top. I actually made it up all of those, but bobbled and had to put a foot down on a much more mellow climb that had some deep sand.
Not an ideal set up for singletrack, but works better than you might expect.I’m riding some relatively new tires, Hutchinson’s Secteur. It’s a 28mm wide tubeless ready tire, and I’ve got it set up tubeless on some wide Pacenti rims. This is my first experience with tubeless on the road, and I’ve got to say – it rocks!!
The ride is unbelievably smooth on pavement, even rough chip and seal pavement is like butter with these things. Dirt and gravel are much smoother than with smaller tubed road tires, and there’s no worries of pinch flats, even if you do something stupid like ride a MTB trail on them 😆 I’m using 80psi in the rear tire and 75psi up front.
Found this short bit of dirt that’s on my commute home, pretty stoked about that!A few of us are talking about possibly organizing a 100 mile gravel grinder type ride (with a shorter 50-60 mile option as well), with lots of dirt and gravel roads, some pavement, and even a little singletrack here and there. Hope to start doing some scouting rides in the near future. How many people would be interested in doing a ride like that?
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Looks like a fun time rolling on two wheels.
Not an ideal set up for singletrack, but works better than you might expect.Heh, depends what trail you’re riding….
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"dgaddis" wrote
Muddy rim brakes make me really appreciate the disc brakes on my MTB! These are just fine on the road, even in the rain, but throw some mud on there and they really suck.
That’s the reason I HAD to have discs on the cross bike I just bought….it really narrows down the options, but I’m really happy with what I ended up with. Looking forward to trying it out on some singletrack!
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A few of us are talking about possibly organizing a 100 mile gravel grinder type ride (with a shorter 50-60 mile option as well), with lots of dirt and gravel roads, some pavement, and even a little singletrack here and there. Hope to start doing some scouting rides in the near future. How many people would be interested in doing a ride like that?
Gives me an excues to get a cross bike. I’ve been shopping around, but haven’t bit on anything yet. Depending on where you all ride, I’d be game!
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"PSUtuna" wrote
Gives me an excues to get a cross bike. I’ve been shopping around, but haven’t bit on anything yet. Depending on where you all ride, I’d be game!
It’ll be out in/around Sumter National Forest, so not too far from you at all! I’ll let you know whenever we do a scouting ride, you can always bring a MTB. Two guys did about 35 miles this weekend, but I wasn’t able to join them. Looks like they had a good time tho 😃
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"dgaddis" wrote
[quote="PSUtuna":3ujt3g3g]Gives me an excues to get a cross bike. I’ve been shopping around, but haven’t bit on anything yet. Depending on where you all ride, I’d be game!
[/quote:3ujt3g3g]
It’ll be out in/around Sumter National Forest, so not too far from you at all! I’ll let you know whenever we do a scouting ride, you can always bring a MTB. Two guys did about 35 miles this weekend, but I wasn’t able to join them. Looks like they had a good time tho 😃
Sounds good! Long Cane would be a great area. There are about 30 miles of singletrack, countless miles of dirt roads (not heavily traveled by cars), and the OHV trail. All of these areas connect. The tricky part (or fun part) would be trying to find a route. I don’t ride out there often due to horse traffic, but FYI the southern end towards Greenwood doesn’t see a lot of horse use. The other end towards the Fell Hunt camp does.
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"PSUtuna" wrote
Sounds good! Long Cane would be a great area. There are about 30 miles of singletrack, countless miles of dirt roads (not heavily traveled by cars), and the OHV trail. All of these areas connect. The tricky part (or fun part) would be trying to find a route. I don’t ride out there often due to horse traffic, but FYI the southern end towards Greenwood doesn’t see a lot of horse use. The other end towards the Fell Hunt camp does.
Right now we’re looking closer to Augusta, in the Modoc/Turkey/Wine area, ’cause that’s what we’re most familiar with. But if we do it, we’d likely do a different route each year.
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"dgaddis" wrote
[quote="PSUtuna":3qvzissu]Sounds good! Long Cane would be a great area. There are about 30 miles of singletrack, countless miles of dirt roads (not heavily traveled by cars), and the OHV trail. All of these areas connect. The tricky part (or fun part) would be trying to find a route. I don’t ride out there often due to horse traffic, but FYI the southern end towards Greenwood doesn’t see a lot of horse use. The other end towards the Fell Hunt camp does.
Right now we’re looking closer to Augusta, in the Modoc/Turkey/Wine area, ’cause that’s what we’re most familiar with. But if we do it, we’d likely do a different route each year.[/quote:3qvzissu]
Wine to Turkey, Turkey to Modoc, Modoc to Bartrum, all the way to Washington Rd. That is a hell of a ride! Not sure I could do it on a mountain bike, let alone skinny tires! 😆
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"PSUtuna" wrote
[quote="dgaddis":2fqe4ope][quote="PSUtuna":2fqe4ope]Sounds good! Long Cane would be a great area. There are about 30 miles of singletrack, countless miles of dirt roads (not heavily traveled by cars), and the OHV trail. All of these areas connect. The tricky part (or fun part) would be trying to find a route. I don’t ride out there often due to horse traffic, but FYI the southern end towards Greenwood doesn’t see a lot of horse use. The other end towards the Fell Hunt camp does.
Right now we’re looking closer to Augusta, in the Modoc/Turkey/Wine area, ’cause that’s what we’re most familiar with. But if we do it, we’d likely do a different route each year.[/quote:2fqe4ope]
Wine to Turkey, Turkey to Modoc, Modoc to Bartrum, all the way to Washington Rd. That is a hell of a ride! Not sure I could do it on a mountain bike, let alone skinny tires! 😆[/quote:2fqe4ope]
Hehe, we’ve done that and then some. We started in the Keg parking lot, rode Keg, Mistletoe, Bartram, Modoc, Turkey, then Wine. 80 miles, mostly singletrack, about 8hrs moving time, over 9hrs total. Biggest MTB ride I’ve done so far. Excellent day on the bike!
The gravel grinder ride will be mostly dirt/gravel road, with just a few miles of singletrack here and there.
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Sounds great! Keep us posted on when and where! I’ll start shopping for my cyclocross! 😄
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