Closing with this shot...

One of my favorite trails.  This is Cedar Rock which is basically east coast slick rock on Cedar Mountain in Dupont State Forest NC.  See you in the spring NC.  Bring on the Assault on the Carolina's.

A few shots from the trails in and around Pisgah National Forest

Have Bike Will Travel...

The 6ix - Urban Playground Explored

Toronto really does have a pretty diverse cycling scene.  From great technical trails in the Don Valley to Gravel roads and routes in and around the portlands to several road clubs running early am rides pretty much every day of the week and oh of course  ' The Donut ' still reigns strong on the weekends.  So no matter what wheel size your running The 6ix has you covered.

It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep from going under.....

It was like kind of summer in the city.  Rain, rain and more rain.  Its hard to believe there is singletrack under all this growth.

Scapin Kalibra

This summer I spent way more time on the dirt & gravel than the roads in and around the GTA.  However it was enough to really enjoy the new bike build and road discs.  I cant wait to get back down to NC / SC and test this on actual mountain descents.

October in the 6ix...

Canadian Slickrock

" The Knoll "

Don Days of Spring..

Mowtown Trail Heading North in the Don Valley

Shimano XT 1x11

Decided to go the 1 x 11 route that I have set up on the Santa Cruz without dropping the coin on the SRAM group.

Enter Shimano and the workhorse group in their line up.  The trusted XT.  They have since released pricing on the XT Di2 but honestly can't see the need for electronic shifting on any of my bikes so far.

The parts I put on are the XT crank with a 32 ring, the 11/46 cassette, XT rear der and shifter and the e13 xcx chain guide.

I was concerned about the chainline and rubbing as this seems to be the complaint for people running guides.  e13's mounts between the frame and bb and comes with spacers to shim if needed.  Mine went on with the 3 mm spacer and on either end of the cassette there is more than enough clearance.

Have about 6 rides on it so far and I am liking it a lot.  The only place I think I will miss the rings is on the road  or on long downhills as you will spin out but the flip side of that is getting up the hills and I was fine on any trail so far.   One thing to note if your running bar lockout or levers the shifter has a gear indicator window that is quite big and there is a replacement dummy plate that will be released in a few weeks by Shimano for a few bucks.  I guess people realized bar real estate is key.

Shots from the trail...

NAHBS is next month in Sacremento. Steve Potts is confirmed.

Full show info and exhibitor list can be found here.

2015 another one in the books.....

Pave before Pave became trendy.....Glory Days

T.W.'s Lake Ride. Brought to you by tapwater....( that sh&t's good )

Saturday turned out to be the perfect bookend to a pretty solid week on the bike.  2 Don Valley training rides and a pre-tour of the new Dagmar trail with Jeff & Co. 

So the plan was hatched.  A Lake Simcoe ride via Zephyr and Jacksons Point.  Throw in 2 flats ( yours truly ) 1 throw away Vittoria Open Corso tire, 1 km of gravel, a boatload of headwind and that's what the 120+ km route had in store for us.

We started out Saturday at 6 a.m. in the hopes of beating the heat and salvaging some of the long weekend for non riding commitments.  It seems everyone was pulled in one way or another.

The day was perfect, the route was somewhat new and we hit a few roads that I had not done before.  2 flats, fresh butter tarts and coffee equals good times. 

As you can see from the picture the wind strung us out pretty good coming back from Lake Simcoe but that is nothing new it seems for the summer of the changing headwind.  For whatever reason it is a curse and leg destroyer.  What doesn't kill you makes you stronger or something like that...

All in all a solid lake ride with talk of getting another one in this fall.  This weekend is the Ride For Karen and the long range forecast looks perfect.

DAGMAR.... Is finally ( almost ) back. I week to go SEPT 12th

One of the old school G.T.A. mtb destinations has been resurrected.  Official Press Release:

Uxbridge: September 1, 2015: The Durham Mountain Biking Association (DMBA) is pleased to announce the Grand Opening of the Dagmar North Trails on September 12, 2015. The new 13 km of trails in the Dagmar North Tract (DNT) are the culmination of eight years of planning and 5 months of building. The building was accomplished with over 200 volunteer builders investing over 5,000 hours of sweat equity in the project. This is one of the largest volunteer trail building projects in Canada. 

In the meantime here is " some " of the trails sped up into a 18 minute sample video.  There is a lot more and tons of options and can't wait to add this to the mix... officially


 

Maple Syrup and Butter Smoooth Roads.....

Road Riding in Oro County ON.

Harold, Pete. Pete, Harold...

Pee-tar-bur-oh has a nice little trail system that goes by the name of Harold...  Harold Town Conservation Area to be specific.  

We decided to hit this on the way back from a week chasing trails in QC and got rained out of a full recon ride.  

Got a hour in of sliding and clipping trees in the pouring rain sliding around on Scwhable Thunderburts ( which suk in the wet ).  It was a fun little place though and definitely want to get back out there and check it out properly.  
 Maybe a Ganny ride in the a.m then lunch followed by a drive up there ?  The only thing is the distance vs. abundance of trail.  Hard to make this a go to outing when your driving from T.O.  If you want to check out a small sample of the trails there is a 2 min video here.

Wheelie Wendnesdayz in the Gatineau Parc

They do a really good job not making public the singletrack outside of the Camp Fortune end of the park.  So much so that you almost get the feeling they don't want you to find it.  They don't know how determined we are when it comes to finding the good stuff.  Gatineau has km after km of mapped and marked double track and the stuff on the north end ( Wakefield QC ) where we just were but if you step off the beaten path, commit to bushwack, you find gems like this.  This was probably one of the most scenic singletrack stretches that was well hidden and obviously ridden and we really enjoyed these..