Sierra Nevada, I survived!

Together with a fine bunch of chaps, I’ve just returned from a weeks guided riding with Ciclo Montana and feel the need to blurt about it.
What a lovely week of riding it was! Marko and Jackie’s setup up was spot on, and the trails gave fantastic technical riding that we wouldn’t have hoped to find without Marko’s time served in finding and clearing.

My local hill seems little more than a load of fly-tipping at the moment, as I recalibrate from 1700m ridge rides and 1000m descending runs to out max of about 331m.

Ho hum. Theres always next year!

How did Marky Mark and Bryan cope, as they were my mates out last week? I havent called them yet.

They did good. I think Mark struggled with fitness a bit, and although I didn’t see it, he suffered a wallop to the head on Tuesday on the way up from ‘lost bridge’. I have some half decent pictures of them.

Marky’s like a bolt of lightening , then conks out. As long as his Turnip stayed together, as I did his cables before he went !!

Good to hear it was a good week. Going with them in October for the first time.

Well, it kind of stayed together…

He is as mechanically minded as a bog brush. I could have spent 3 nights on it. Guess he showed my ‘adjusting video’ ?

Glad you had a fab time – and, most importantly, you are all in one piece still! 😀

Wish I could have joined you 😥

No, not at all!

To be fair, he was far from the only one with mechanical problems. our tally of the week is something like as follows.

Broken seatclamp,
worn crank splines,
Loose steam bolts,
Rim so dented the intrusion went through the bead well.
Blown mech spring
Loose headset
at least two cut tyres
multpile punctures
Cracked New carbon frame (just found that one out today)
Blown Bearings on the rear

Glad you all had a great time, wish I could have made it too 🙁

Heading out there with ciclo Montana next week, great to see you had a good time! Any last minutes tips/essentials to take with you?

Glad you had a good time… Quite jealous. I haven’t been for a couple of years and with a wedding next month and then a raft of home improvements once that’s out of the way then I’m not sure I’ll be back for a while.

Add to the tally:

Destroyed dérailleur and hanger
Unseated brake lever
Bent rotor

It was a rough week on bikes and riders. Some superb trailside bodging went on. You don’t get that kind of sustained intensity very often. Or such excellent weather.

Cracked carbon frame? 🙁

Ibis or SC?

SC

Warranty job?

yep

Marky couldnt have killed those tractor tyres he bought?

he tried to by skidding everywhere and running at about 50psi, not bad for a dual ply sticky DH tyre????

Oh, yeah, he likes skidding………… a lot :roll

Heading out there with ciclo Montana next week, great to see you had a good time! Any last minutes tips/essentials to take with you?

Take some Crunchie bars for Jackie, you’ll gain extra food for breakfast 😉

They love crunchies Mark took a pack of seventy. Jackie said they had eaten thirty in a week between the three of them!

Holy crap! Crunchie Monsters!

Tips from my perspective would be:

Make sure your elbow armour fits just right – mine contributed substantially to arm pump on the longer descents – wasn’t a problem in the UK! Fortunately I had another set with me that were more adjustable. That said, temperature and effort contributed too – I had to loosen my watch strap twice as I puffed up in the heat.

If you have somewhere local to practice riding a little exposure then do it. It will help with your composure.

Practice hair pin turns – tight as you can make them.

Take trail food. Breakfast is early, coffee is mid morning, lunch is between two and three, sometime a bit later. For me, being a fatty, the gap between breakfast at about 8:00 and lunch at 14;30 was too large to bridge, given the energy we were using. I found I ate all my energy bars before lunch and was fine after lunch, because it was so late.

Practice some technical climbing if you have any.

Ciclo Montana is in the stix. There are bike shops about 1.5 to 2 hours drive away, but we were advised they’d only have basic stuff. If you have have any specialist or proprietary equipment. Expect to be able to fix it yourself, or bring spares with you.

142×12 rear axled hub? If you need a new back wheel, as one of our party did, you’ll be out of luck. He blew his stans rim and because it was low profile and straight pull, the spokes wouldn’t fit the mavic rims that Marko had spare.

practice riding a little exposure … It will help with your composure

He’s a poet! 😀

Thanks for the advice scienceofficer, what sort of temperature was it when you were there?

Was everyone riding with elbow pads? I know they recommend them but I’ve never used them, was thinking of getting some but will probably never use them again in the UK.

Whereabouts do you normally ride in the UK? Would be interesting to know how it compares to rocky lakes/peaks stuff. I know there are some uplifts, but what was the climbing/decending mix like?

We had one day where we rode out from the house, the rest of the time we were dropped off further up the mountains and traversed further up by our own means, make sure your backpack can carry your pads and you will be fine as Marco will advise when you need to “pad up boys”
We normally ride the mendips so for all of us the length of rocky trails was quite different, one trail was 1000 metres descent over 7km, you did need the pads for that one.
Temperature wise it was between 18-23 deg cel

Hi Duner

Me and mrs have stayed with Mark and Jackie 3 times and wouldn’t hesitate to go again (twice where they are now, once in the early days on the coast where we did a 2 day trip from top of Veletta pass, through current area and on down to the coast).

We’ve never ridden with pads, rode everything thrown at us* (on hardtails) and it was usually only the full sus + padded riders in the group that “needed” pads. If you are experienced, confident and ride within your skills then pads aren’t essential, but don’t moan if you puncture a limb on the first day 🙂

The rocks are generally slabby rather than excessively loose – like the roughest slabby bits of Parkamoor to Nibthwaite decent in Grizedale if that means anything to you. Just much much longer.

The hardest bits are very tight hairpins (almost trials riding in places) and danger of death exposure (rough tracks with big big drops). Some of the riding is actually quite flowing – the singletrack on GR7 from Trevelez to Busquistar is one of my favourite bits of trail anywhere.

*Discalaimer – mrs has ridden elite at 2 UCI world champs, so maybe not an average punter 🙂

Thanks, thats exactly the kind of info I was after. Rode Parkamoor-Nibthwaite for the first time a few weeks ago as it happens. Loved the natural stuff around Grizedale so I went back last week to do Parkamoor-Satterthwaite + Breasty Haw etc again last week! I guess the hairpins are more like Nan Bield/Gatescarth but with a bigger drop?

If I get decents like those but longer all week I’ll be very happy!

Cheers

Stayed with Ciclo for a week last month ( 4th time there since Oct 2010 ). One word to describe everything about all my times there: BRILLIANT!

If you want hairpin bends, ride ‘Tourettes’ ‘Elephants Tail’ ‘Lanjaron 70’ (so named ‘cos there’s 70 hairpins…) & a few more trails whose names escape me.

This year we did the overnighter in Granada which featured an evening street ride in the old town up & down steps of varying degrees of difficulty. Good fun.

I wouldn’t be riding there without pads. One fall can totally balls up your holiday.
And it’s just rocks followed by rocks followed by rocks.
Been there 3 times and not seen anyone ride without pads.

I wouldn’t be riding there without pads. One fall can totally balls up your holiday.
And it’s just rocks followed by rocks followed by rocks.
Been there 3 times and not seen anyone ride without pads.

Sorry I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to all of you lads, but just wanted to say it was great fun riding with you! I learnt a ton about bikes and bike riding. Feels like my riding’s come on in leaps after just a week and Strava confirms it too! Massive grin on my face walking into work today and every time I think about the week.

I think you boys more than survived it to be honest. Looked like you were all killing it!

I’ll drop Buzz an e-mail. Hopefully we can ride together soon if you’ll have me along in the Mendips.

P.S: Dave, you’ll be happy to know I’ve dropped the pressures on all my TL tyres to almost single figures!

Hi duner, see you out there… I’m heading over there on Thursday and some friends of mine will be joining your group on Saturday by the sounds of it.
Any questions fire away…I’ve been going regularly for more years than I care to remember including the odd stint of helping out with the guiding.

Definitely bring pads. Most wear elbows and knees, strapped to bike or pack when not in use. The terrain tends to be rather unforgiving in the event of serious pilot error.

Jez

the gap between breakfast at about 8:00 and lunch at 14;30 was too large to bridge,

I second that. They ride to a different schedule than I’m used to. I failed to take enough snacks and regretted it.

I wouldn’t be riding there without pads. One fall can totally balls up your holiday

I third that. There’s a lot of hard schist bedrock and also very loose schist blocks, gravel and dust. I tumbled numerous times at low speed because I was trying hard on the tech stuff, which is the point of a trip like this. If I’d lost out due to a silly avoidable injury, I would have been gutted. I did sustain some painful rock strikes on my shin due to high speeds on loose, rocky terrain and it’s making me think that knee pads with an integrated shin guard would be more sensible.

the singletrack on GR7 from Trevelez to Busquistar is one of my favourite bits of trail anywhere

Barry Knows Best 2? Awesome fun fast trail. It caused the most carnage on our bikes, with burping, punctures and wheel wreckage; due to the high speeds. It felt really good, like being in a mountain bike movie.

I reckon Lakeland/Wales mountain passes might be a your best bet for preparation. Anything with lots of steep, awkward, steppy corners, carefully picking lines, that sort of thing. Riding down curved concrete staircases with landings might help too.

I’m sitting at my desk today, but only physically. My mind is out there. It’s a trip I’m going to remember for a long time.

With regard to the snack thing – we’ve always done a shopping trip up to Pitres with Jackie taking our supplies down in the van for us.
We’ve always bought a selection of bananas (get a bit bruised) and cereal bars etc in the shop to take with us. Wouldn’t bother specifically packing stuff to take with you.

buzz-lightyear – I ended up getting some pretty full-on knee/shin pads for the reasons you mention. Second year I went I fell on my knee and my 661 pads had slipped down slightly offering no real protection. Cue egg shaped kneecap and very painful pedalling for the remainder of the holiday.

It is definitely a good idea to get in as many rocky rides/descents as you can before you go. As well as practicing switchbacks (up & down, but mainly down) with obstacles on the actual corners, rather than groomed switchbacks at trail centres. I often found on technical descents that once I had stalled on a switchback, the following section was too technical to get started on, so I would then struggle until the next smooth-ish section.
Perhaps if I could trackstand better this would help!!

You’re welcome anytime our way Dhana.

You’re welcome anytime our way Dhana.

Indeed you are. A pleasure to ride with you.

Barry Knows Best 2?

Dunno – not many of them had names when we went – just “elephant’s tail”. And the “danger of death steps” which are very exposed running down the lhs of a waterfall at the head of a valley.

Pads are a personal thing – in view of the remote location it is safest to take some and decide out there due to complete lack of shops (ebay them on return if not required). I’m more worried about dislocated shoulders and falling a long way off something – neither of which are remedied or avoided with pads 🙂

The key to switchbacks was using all the available space on entry so you are positioned OK for the next turn. Get a bad line out and you are screwed before you even begin the next one and it just gets worse.

Absolutely love the area – even the smell of the pine forests is unique. Did you see any other groups? Always worried that the influx of new companies would spoil the place. And as you guys have found out – we always returned home with new friends.

Did you see any other groups?

We saw no other cyclists on the trails, at all. And just the occasional hiker. There were some coach parties tourists just visiting the villages.

And the “danger of death steps” which are very exposed running down the lhs of a waterfall at the head of a valley.

You really wouldn’t want to get those steps wrong!