JJonas


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  • in reply to: Tubeless or Tube #72289
    A lot of pinch-flatting has to do with the tire you run as well…. Tires with thinner sidewalls and tread seem to pinch-flat easier than say, my Continental Gravity tires. There’s been more than a few times when I was sure I had pinch-flatted after a particularly hard hit, only to keep rolling no worries.

    Yeah, that’s what I thought too…I guess when it rains, it pours…BTW, it was the Conti Gravity that I had all the trouble with. A nice tire, but a rock at treeline was just too sharp and punched a hole through the bottom of the tire…Stan’s was squirting everywhere…I tried sealing it by pushing a bunch of dirt on the hole to help it congeal but it didn’t work…So I opted to throw in the tube but I guess it just wasn’t my day and all the jeep roads around Montezuma, CO were a bit too rocky. I ended up with the pinch flat I’m guessing because I didn’t have the pressure up high enough to begin with…Then it was those sticky patches failing…and I finally conceded defeat after 40+miles above 10k feet (the first flat happened at about mile 15). I ended up walking my bike back through Keystone because I was so tired of taking that Conti on and off the rim.

    Sounds to me like they should have just called it what it is…Edge 305 Cx…I would highly doubt that they are going to use a completely new software platform for these new Edge units. It is more likely that they’ll function more like the higher end eTrex units with the added functions that the Edge is known for.

    As far as basemaps, you can build and load your own with software such as Global Mapper in conjunction with cGPSMapper/MapEdit using the homebrew techniques listed at various blogs and forums. OR you can buy the software on DVD/CD or preloaded onto the microSD cards.

    in reply to: Tubeless or Tube #72285

    I hear ya! It was those sticky patches that were the reason for the third flat of the day…They just wouldn’t stick and I ended up walking the last couple of miles because I was sick and tired of trying to fix flats for the day.

    in reply to: Tubeless or Tube #72283

    After all that talk the other day, I ended up flatting out the tubeless even with the Stan’s inside. I tried pumping it up and continuing but the Stan’s just kept spraying out of the hole. I eventually had to cut my losses and put a tube in…Then I ended up with TWO MORE FLATS before the day was over.

    in reply to: Tubeless or Tube #72274

    The amount you put in depends on the tire size but it’s roughly 2-4oz per tire.

    in reply to: Tubeless or Tube #72272

    I was really skeptical about getting rid of my tubes but I got an opportunity to ride on borrowed tubeless rims for a month or so and I really like them and I’m converting my newest wheelset to tubeless using Stan’s.

    I like the fact that with the tubeless you can always take out the valve stem in the field and put in a tube if necessary. I’ve been running the Stan’s fluid in the tubeless and I haven’t had any problems (300+ miles on this setup so far). I’ve heard that if you’re running Stan’s fluid you’ll want the valve stems that you can easily remove the valve to clean it out and refill it.

    I agree with the weight savings that Bomb was talking about. I run 2.3/2.4 tires on my Kona and the correct tubes weigh a ton!

    in reply to: CLEAR CREEK COUNTY CHAPS MY HIDE! #72078

    I hear ya lostcause…And thanks for showing me around up there! It sucks when someone decides to take sole credit for a group effort.

    Fruita locals should feel lucky that the BLM even decided to work with them. Building trails on public land WITHOUT PERMISSION should have been all the justification the BLM needed to immediately close the trails and fine those that built them. AND THEN the clandestine builders complain when the BLM legally leases the surrounding land for oil & gas development (and the BLM even put stipulations on those plots that only allowed directional drilling to reach those plots from others further away from the trails so that there would be no ground disturbance in the area). I think the BLM has bent over backwards for the Fruita mountain bikers and still they catch a ton of flack.

    I remember talking with the FS in Idaho Springs about trail building quite a few years ago and maintenance and they seemed very interested in getting outside help from organizations.

    in reply to: Powders #71923

    Hi Vanboy,

    Have you tried Emergen-C? It will just add a little flavor to your water without the higher carbs and salts that you find in Gatorade or Cytomax.

    I’ve used Cytomax in the past but now I’m back to Gatorade. Most of the time I don’t mix it at full strength. I sweat a lot so I not only need the salty Gatorade, I also take Endurolyte tablets to keep my electrolytes high enough on extended rides. After a ride, I’ll often drink V8 (again, I think the craving is due to the high salt content) or orange juice mixed with soy whey.

    When it comes down to it, everyone is different so each person’s choice of drinks, gels, and solid foods will be different. First and foremost, it’s got to be something you like…A LOT. Then look at the nutritional contents of the drink/food and find other things you like to complement it and make a balanced riding diet (carbs/protein/fat/salt). The longer you’re out on a ride, the more important diet becomes…sometimes it’s difficult to even keep up on your caloric intake/consumption balance. I’ve got a book called "Eating for Endurance" which I thought was useful for the basics but my body doesn’t seem to like some of their recommendations so I’ve modified my riding diet to fit my likes/dislikes.

    Forgot my riding gear for the last race had to wear my street clothes.

    Image

    The bowtie’s a nice touch! 😆

    From the look on the guy’s face behind you, it seems like the ‘shock and aw’ strategy may work to throw your competition’s mental game off! LOL! Hmmmm…might have to use that in the future……….

    in reply to: Got a "home" trail? #69115

    My home trail is White Ranch. All sorts of variations can be done from the east parking lot and you’ve always got the difficult sandy rock garden at the start.

    Here’s what I usually end up doing:
    Up Belcher, down Mustang, Maverick, Longhorn, Whippletree back to the bottom of Belcher.

    I recently used White Ranch to access Golden Gate State Park and let me tell you, that was a KILLER loop. 45 miles and 9,500 vertical feet. The stats don’t give it justice because the technical trail for most of those miles is arduous and relatively slow going.

    in reply to: Downloading gpx tracks to my Garmin GPSmap60Csx #71967

    Hi Mike,

    Download Topofusion from http://www.topofusion.com

    It was written by a mountain biker and has a lot of cool features. You can download a demo version that is fully functional (it just has some of the area shown with ‘demo’ overwritten on it. I can share more later, but its time for a ride 😃

    Let us know how it goes!

    JJ

    in reply to: Walker Ranch Closed? #71896

    I doubt that the status is currently correct. I bet the person putting that up there back in April was trying to keep people from tearing up the trail as the snow melted. I honestly doubt that BCOS actually closed the trail. I’ve noticed that BCOS has put up more trail condition signs discouraging riding when the trail is muddy but they don’t normally close trails. I waited for months to ride the relatively new High Plains Trail because they had it closed due to mud, but I thought that was an oddity for BCOS to keep it closed for so long.

    Off-topic…Looks like there’s snow again in the high country so a lot of stuff above 9,000ft will be sloppy the next couple of days.

    in reply to: Which mountain bike trail map do you prefer? #70059

    Thanks guys for all the feedback. I’ve tried to incorporate your ideas into this next version:

    Image

    Its got full shading turned on, bigger trail, bigger label text. Plus I’ve added a scale and a North arrow (we could make a nice one out of the singletracks logo…trek7–you got it handy as a jpg or bmp you could send me?). The only thing I see missing is a lat/long grid on the border. This is actually a pdf document exported to a picture. The pdf is MUCH better quality.

    Trek7: All of these layers were manually downloaded. All the base layers for this map came from 2 websites:
    http://seamless.usgs.gov/
    http://nhdgeo.usgs.gov/viewer.htm
    There are more and more ‘WMS/WFS’ layers available that can be used by linking your maps through the web, but they are sometimes difficult to find and I currently find it easier to use the USGS and NHD geospatial databases.

    It’s hard to compare Global Mapper to ArcGIS. Unfortunately, they both have their strong points. Global Mapper is better at:
    –file type conversion (very handy for gpx->shapefile or shp->gpx)
    –contour generation (you choose the interval and you can even simplify)
    –tiling big vector and raster maps into smaller files (great for reducing page load times)
    –hill shading
    Global Mapper’s biggest downfall is the poor quality labeling and limited ability to query the data layers.
    ArcGIS is much better with labels and producing good quality maps but the $1500 price tag is a bit much (Global Mapper is ~$400) and if you want to do hill shading and contour lines you need to purchase the $2500 extension.

    I created this by downloading the NED (1 arc second resolution), Canopy Cover (2001), and BTS roads layer from USGS. Hydrography was from NHD. I generated contours in Global Mapper and exported the hill shade layer from GM too. Pulled all of it into ArcGIS and defined the symbology.

    RemfSS: The layers you’re talking about is exactly what you could do with a website running MapScript. The user has control over which layers are shown and can zoom in and out plus pan around. The creation of the map is done ‘behind the scenes’ and gets spit out as a picture on the website. Very easy to ‘save picture as’ when you have the map looking the way you want.

    Keep the ideas coming!

    in reply to: Which mountain bike trail map do you prefer? #70049

    Thanks EZ-E for the feedback…I need more:

    Is this better?

    Image

    I’ll start the bashing (and please join in):

    I think it still needs bigger road and trailhead label text. The trail line could be thicker. But I like the faded background better and I think the labels are better too.

    Question: Is there actually a lake to the south of this trail? The aerial imagery shows one, the elevation shows what looks to be a dam, but the topo doesn’t have it AND the hydrography available on the web has it missing too.

    in reply to: Suggestions for Grand Lake to Idaho Springs #71891
    We’ll be coming from Pittsburgh in July and looking for tips for easier trails anywhere between Idaho Springs and Grand Lake (Winter Park, Eldora, etc.)

    We’re late 40’s, will have two 16 year old girls, and we’re novices, though we do ride around. Interested in either mountain bike trails or paved trails.

    I would recommend Winter Park. (see summer WP map in link) There’s the paved bike path from Fraser to WP, there’s plenty of intermediate singletrack and doubletrack between the two, and there’s always an epic trip up to the Continental Divide at Corona Pass. You can even pay to ride the lifts at WP if you don’t feel like climbing.

    Unfortunately, there’s not much easy biking around Idaho Springs. Mostly loose, rocky, and well abused jeep roads. Great for a challenge, but it can be frustrating if you’re (a) not used to the altitude or (b) are in CO on vacation for a limited amount of time and want to hit the ‘best of the best’.

    Have fun!

    in reply to: Which mountain bike trail map do you prefer? #70045

    Here’s a quick version of the trail map produced via Global Mapper.

    Image

    It’s got elevation shade relief, roads, contours (10ft), and canopy cover. It’s still missing hydrology but I’m working on getting that.

    Global Mapper is a lot cheaper than ArcGIS but it does have it’s limitations. I thought I’d try by making the map using the cheaper software first. I’ll work a similar one up in ArcGIS next.

    BTW, anyone else having trouble with downloading from terraserver over the past couple of days? That’s the problem with Topofusion and ExpertGPS…If Terraserver goes down, the software can only use locally cached map tiles.

    in reply to: Which mountain bike trail map do you prefer? #70032

    I’ve got some time to take on the challenge, I’ll play around with the Crabtree file along with Global Mapper and ArcGIS. It’ll be interesting to see what we all come up with.

    I actually prefer the simple maps for the website because it gives a quick overview of the trail. It’s easy to get a quick view of where the trail is with respect to major roads and landmarks. Sure it doesn’t provide enough to really study the trail but since I download and view the gpx files on my own favorite software (ExpertGPS or Topofusion), I don’t need a detailed map downloadable from Singletracks. My software can produce the more detailed maps if I need them, but usually I just upload the gpx file to my GPSr and carry a BLM or FS map along with a compass on new rides.

    I agree with EZ-E on alot of the comments he makes. I was drawn to Singletracks because of the availability of GPX tracks. So many other websites and forums feel that trails should be kept ‘secret’ to keep the riffraff off. I completely disagree with that philosophy. If we want more of a voice in the public forums when it comes to construction of new trails, mountain bikers need to be more of the public land visitors. Getting people the correct information on what will be a suitable trail for various skill levels will get more people excited about hitting the trails. The more trails posted doesn’t necessarily mean your favorite trail will be noticeably more crowded. In fact, it may have the opposite effect and actually spread users out more. Being able to download a trail before I go certainly eases my anxiety about getting lost or running out of water, etc.

    I think that quality and completeness of the GPX tracks are what will keep people coming back to Singletracks as THE source for mountain biking trails. I think that we as GPX users should have some way to provide feedback as to the quality of posted GPX tracks and continue to provide improved tracks.

    The progression from static maps to a MapScript/MapServer based application is the next logical step in making Singletracks more user friendly. Having the ability to scroll around a map and see all of the trails that are near each other would be something very useful. Since these types of applications allow the client side to manipulate the layers shown on the screen, we can all create maps that we want to carry while on the trail. MapServer is more time-consuming to develop an app than ArcIMS, but IMO its not worth $10K for a project like this. With more and more WMS/WFS (raster/vector data) layers available on the web (including Terraserver) you don’t need to store as much locally reducing your server footprint for this app.

    Trek…I’ve got experience in developing these types of web-based maps and I’m willing to volunteer some of my time and resources to help get Singletracks set up. It’s been a while since I’ve done one, so it might take me a little bit to get back into writing php/mapscript. At the least, I can help you get going with it.

    I really like Singletracks and all those that regularly post on the forum seem to be genuine and sincere. I hope I can help take it to the next step.

    in reply to: Black Hills best trail #70350

    Boy, you’ve got a lot to choose from if you’re coming through on I-90.

    Deadwood Bicycles has a bunch of trailheads listed.

    Here’s a couple to choose from:
    Centennial Trail @ Alkali Creek
    This trailhead on the Centennial Trail is less than a mile from I-90 just east of Sturgis at the Cemetery. The campground is on a creek, there’s a host, and there’s lots of cottonwood trees. You can head either north or south on the CT with south being one of the local favorites. This section of the Centennial Trail is known as ‘Bulldog’. It starts by going under I-90 and then climbs

    Rimrock Trail
    Beautiful camping spots with a very unique trail. The last scene in ‘Dances with Wolves’ was filmed here in Little Spearfish Canyon. It’s probably a 20-minute drive off I-90 out of Spearfish up Spearfish Canyon until the turn-off for Little Spearfish Canyon. The campground is a couple miles up the dirt road past the turnoff at the restuarant. The trail goes through the middle of the canyon and also climbs up the north rim. You can do a short 5-10 mile loop or ride on trails on top of the rim all the way back to Spearfish on parts of the Dakota Five-0 race course

    Centennial Trail @ Dalton Lake
    The Centennial Trail from Dalton to Elk Creek is one of the tougher sections of the Centennial Trail but one of the most beautiful too. The campground is sometimes busy and right by a little lake. It takes a little longer to get here compared to the other locations (maybe 45 minutes from I-90) by getting off at the east exit of Sturgis and heading south out of town on Vanknocker Canyon Rd. After about 20 winding miles, you’ll see the brown sign for Dalton Lake. Turn east and go about 5 miles down a dirt road.

    Sundance, WY
    The campground is on the edge of the prairie and the trails have very little traffic. So little, in fact, it’s hard to find the trail at times. If you’re looking for solitude come here. But if you want to camp in the shade, go elsewhere.

    Those are my picks, maybe others will chime in too. Speaking of picking…don’t forget it’s tick season in the Hills. 😆

    in reply to: Singletracks socks? #70238

    I’d have to say I like #1 or #3. Probably #1 would be my pick.

    in reply to: How many GPSs do you own? #70333
    I have played around the MapEdit but I find having to draw each contour line to be way too tedious. Is there any way to simplify this process?

    No need to trace…use computing power and existing data.

    Get the digital elevation model (DEM) data from the USGS as a GeoTIFF for your area at: http://seamless.usgs.gov/

    Download and install DEM2TOPO and IDL Virtual Machine
    Convert the DEM to contour lines in polish format (*.mp)
    Convert to Garmin *.img format using GPSMapEdit or cGPSMapper directly

Viewing 20 posts - 1 through 20 (of 42 total)