After attending the Pac-12 Championship game I did some mountain biking west of Las Vegas. Never done any riding in Nevada before. It was quite interesting. I made a new friend who showed me around and we did almost 20 miles of trails.
The ride started in the Blue Diamond area, which is a neat spot.
Flew my racing drone and captured some very cool mountain bike jumping footage at Corner Canyon.
I’ve been suffering bad blisters on my old Technica Cochise 130 touring boots. I tried everything to resolve the blisters from tweaking/molding the liners, Squirrel’s Nut Butter, athletic tape, moleskin… None of those things addressed the problem, which was that the boots were too big. I finally did it right, and got some new boots completely fitted, molded, orthotic-ed (just made that word up), and every possible customization and adaptation to my feet possible. I have faith in Technical and that’s one reason why I chose them again with the Zero G Tour Pro. That at the fitter said these boots are the best of the best.
Above: note the alternate buckle. Interesting.
This walk/ski mechanism above is very hot right now.
I’ve done one tour with them so far, then the snow melted. The tour was a success. No blisters on the achilles. I had a little bit of rubbing on the right ankle bone, but I think I need to change socks to a less abrasive pair.
I felt great in ski mode. My feet and my skis were connected. My foot wasn’t floating around in the boot. My toes didn’t go numb either, which was another issue I had.
This is way too early to come to a conclusion and I may need another tweak or two to the boots, but they’re already a huge improvement.
The Lesson
Do it right the first time. Get the right boot. Get the right size. Get fitted by a pro.
While replacing my tires I also have the need to replace my very worn grips. The local shop only had the Deity Supracush in stock, so that’s what I’ll be testing out!
I’ve been using them now for a couple of months and so far I’m really liking them. Full review soon.
My gloves have been super worn and I’ve desperately needed new ones. Stopped by a couple of bike shops and found the selection to be very limited, and very overpriced. So naturally my next stop was Amazon, where I found these Moreok gloves, one pair at about $7.00 and the other at $15.
It’s so hot here right now that I’m using two pairs of gloves per ride. One pair I use on the sweaty climb. The second pair I use on the downhill to insure I have a clean and solid grip.
So far the gloves are well worth the money and have more padding than my previous gloves. We’ll see how long they last. Stay tuned for a possible follow-up report on that.
Needed some new tires for my 29-inch Stumpjumper, so I decided to try out some Maxxis ones. Maxxis seems to be the hip choice right now, so I’m going to find out what all the fuss is about.
I’ll post a follow-up review after a few months of testing.
Tubeless
I’m also going tubeless with these tires, and doing it myself. This is the first time I’ll have done the tubeless install myself. I plan to document that process as well.
Stay tuned.
I’ve been riding my mountain bike regularly and seriously for over a year on real mountain bike trails. I had been riding an old bike for many years prior, but just on a flat, paved trail. After a year of some hard riding my rear break was worn out. It was nearly down to the metal. In the spring around here in Northern Utah, bike shop services are booked out weeks in advance. So I decided I’d take a shot at replacing my own break pads. How hard could it be?
Not hard at all.
After watching a couple of YouTube videos related to my brand and model of breaks, I ordered some replacement pads on amazon and did them myself. It was super easy.
I had to take the break mechanism off by unscrewing two large hex bolts. Then a smaller hex bolt released the pads.
Being careful not to touch the pads with my fingers and transfer harmful skin oils and dirt to the pads, I replaced them with the new ones.
Once on I loosely put the two larger hex bolts on and lined up the mechanism with the break disc so it wasn’t rubbing and the wheel could spin freely. Once I found that spot I tightened them them down.
Done.
Here’s one of the videos I used as a reference below. This is a Tektro video. Tektro is the brand my bike currently has.
I’ve been eyeballing Little Apron at Alta Ski Area for many years. Little Apron is a small coulior in the Devil’s Castle area. It is located next to Castle Apron which is much larger.
The hike up would usually be about 10 minutes, but it was easily 20+ because the snow was not cooperating. The top layer was a breakable crust and underneath was powder. Once my foot would break through too far, I would sink. Each step took three steps to complete. By the time I got to the top I was drenched in sweat.
What a day. February has been an amazing month of skiing with a large amount of new snow.
My season pass includes one Brighton Ski Area, one Deer Valley, and one day at Snowbird. With Little Cottonwood Canyon experiencing a closure and avalanche danger, I decided to use my Brighton day.
I expected there to be powder with the huge amount of snow we’ve gotten in the last few days, but there was literally none. All skied out. Still, I had a terrific day, mostly tree skiing.
