Cycling

I am an enthusiast mountain bike rider, but because I seem to be affected by a number of injuries associated with slow recovery times (my old age plays a big part here, as it is physiologically proven that is faster to recover from a broken bone when you’re 20 than if you’re approaching your 40s), I don’t get as much time riding my bike as I’d like to.

So that’s why I enjoy mountain bike movies; and I’m pretty sure that I’m not alone here, and plenty of other people like watching this sort of things because, apart from professionals, nobody really rides as much as they like.

Beatiful photos here: http://nsmb.com/3326-dorado-tested/.

They convey an intense idea of action with those blurred backgrounds and the rider not quite in focus above the panned trails; I also like the tight shots and the washed-out colour palette.

And speaking about the ’look’ of these images, I couldn’t help but noticing what the rider was wearing: mean-looking full-face helmet and menacing dark goggles, a simple t-shirt, shorts and the diminuitive 661 knee-pads. And I remember similar photos of a british competitor to the Mega-avalanche (Dirt #79, September 2008): old shirt, shorts and a pair of mud-encrusted skate shoes.

Training with my fixie at the Idroscalo. In the foreground, my red San Marco Concor; back there, the mountains that you rarely see from this very polluted and hazy city – the Grigne. Training was: 15 series of friggin’ fast spins (around 100 rpm), 15" each, followed by 45" of slower pedaling. Well the idea was this but since I had no speedometer, nothing to measure the number of pedaling strokes per minute, and just one fuckin gear, I did what I could. I hope it’s effective (my legs were certainly feeling it).

Sunday evening: I buy myself a return ticket to Finale Ligure.

Monday morning: I wake up at 5:30, pack kneepads gloves helmet and take the early morning train to the place where summer never ends.

To be honest, today finale was a bit cold but I still ended up in (baggy) shorts.

The idea was to do maybe a couple of runs on the “DH Donne” (a beatiful trail that hangs over Varigotti) but at the end I did 75% of the Enduro race course.

Altro video onboard girato sul San Genesio. Rispetto a quell’altro di cui ho già parlato, questo è venuto fuori un po’ peggio. Le riprese sono traballanti purtroppo (colpa del poco nastro americano che ho usato per fissare la bullet camera al casco), c’è poca continuità d’azione (colpa ovviamente mia; non sono un improvvisatore, e quando mi trovo su un percorso difficile ho bisogno di studiarlo per bene prima di farlo tutto in sella).

This is a helmet-cam video that I’ve recorded a few weeks ago on a trail which is known among locals to be one of the most fun and technical; it’s also known as the ‘classic’ or ‘1-3-2’ (because it links up sections of established – and numbered – hiking trails).

I have also the full ride, with no music:

…and here’s the backstage:

I love my Preston. Very, very happy with it, but I realize it’s not the state of the art from an engineering perspective. The following post appeared a few days ago on the mtbr.com Transition forum, and I totally agree with it – even if I’m not going to trade in my Preston anytime soon.

I made the change from a 2007 Preston to a 2008 Nomad a couple of months ago and my only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner. IMO the Nomad is superior in every way. Lighter, more travel, and you can really tell with every pedal stroke that the suspension design is more sophisticated. Where the Preston was harsh and I could never get it dialed in to eliminate bob and still feel plush, the Nomad feels amazingly plush and bottomless but is rock solid under pedaling. The real wheel moves back slightly when it hits obstacles, so you just glide right over them. The difference is enough that I regularly find myself cleaning technical obstacles I never did on the Preston. I too was worried about the longer chainstays and slacker angles on the Nomad, but like the Preston, the Nomad has a relatively short toptube which keeps it nimble. It doesn’t feel “choppered out” at all and climbs better than the tank-like Preston. By all reports, the Nomad is just as strong as the Preston too (well, stronger really, with all those broken Prestons out there lately. In fairness it sounds like that was probably just a bad batch of welding though).Don’t get me wrong, the Preston’s not a bad bike. I like that Transition is a small grassroots company with a cool reputation (rather than the yuppie association that SC has) and their bikes are a great value, not to mention better-looking than the weird humpy Nomad. But if you can afford the Nomad, it has a whole world of advantages with no real disadvantages. I hated the Preston at Whistler, it just didn’t have enough travel. Then for smooth XC trails, it felt too heavy. The range of riding it was well-suited for was a lot narrower than the Nomad, which can be ridden at the bike park and XC trails and everything in between. I mostly credit this to the VPP suspension, along with the lighter weight allowed by engineered, hydroformed tubing, which Transition really does not have the resources for. I think Transition’s engineering is more experience-based than technology-based, which doesn’t really give the same degree of sophistication IMO.

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