Mountain bike fun in Park City

It's the middle of winter, why am I mountain biking in the snow instead of skiing? Cause I'm stupid.

2.74 miles of single track followed by 8.2 miles of "easy" groomed trail riding. I needed another near death experience and Elton was there to administer it. His sidekick Stan was his usual self, trying to make light of my misery as he laughed under his breath.

Admittedly it was a gorgeous day in Park City, the weather was a perfect 18 to 35degrees during our biking time, and the company was great as always. We even visited the World Cup super pipe event at the Park City resort then refuelled at Squatters.

Less than 7 days to the 2009 Frozen Hog. Ruh roh.

Big thanx to Elton, his wife, and Stan for preparing the singletrack by snowshoe during the past week.

Test ride: 2007 Trek Equinox TTX 9.9

Thanx to Preston from Guthrie Bicycle in Salt Lake I was able to test ride someone else's 2007 Equinox TTX. It is unfortunate that I am not trying to purchase a 2007 Equinox TTX nor can I reasonably test a 2009 Equinox TTX since there are no such small-sized bikes anywhere within 50 miles of my home. I called all Trek dealers. According to Preston there are no new small 2008 or 2009 Equinox TTX bikes available in the country. In the country, from Trek, nowhere, until March-ish. There are plenty of medium-sized ones, even one in stock in Ogden.

I had extremely high expectations of this bike as I am a loyal Trek fan and this bike got many excellent reviews. My expectations were met: this bike was great. I got a dumb smile on my face from the moment I settled in the aero position until I began to breathe too hard to smile as I was flying down the road. The first word I came to as I rode away from the bike shop was: Stiff. For some reason looking at the bike I didn't think it would be solid, but it feels rock solid yet comfortable to ride. My second thought was "wow this bike is so much lighter than the others I tested". Wrong: 20.7 lbs with my pedals on it. I was shocked when the bike was weighed, it certainly felt lighter than the other bikes on the road, but I am kind of a fan of numbers, so it is actually the heaviest, and this is the 9.9, I believe the lightest made in 2007. I should mention I was told this specific bike had heavy wheels and tires on it due to the owner's desire to train. In my viewpoint it matches the low end wheels that come with the other bikes I tested.

I rode a little over a lap around Liberty park where there are a few really wide speed bumps to play with. I also purposefully did some tight turns and ran through some bumpy areas such as manhole covers to feel things out. (I hope the bike owner never reads this) The bike handling was great. Power transfer felt great. Explosiveness / quickness was good; I tried a few times to see if it was as good as other bikes I recently tried and put it in my head that it was, and I now think I rationalized it because I seriously thought the bike was lighter so I figured my legs weren't up to the sprinting challenges. This bike is not as explosive as the Felt B2. Damn.

I really enjoyed this bike and feel it would be an excellent purchase. Taking emotion and loyalty out of the equation and looking only at numbers such as weight and price the Felt B2 wins. Taking bike age, components, technology, price, and value into account: Depends.

In preparation for the Frozen Hog

Today I mountain biked at Snowbasin to see just how crazy the 2009 Frozen Hog is going to be. It turned out to be quite a bit of fun, says the Canadian snowsports junky.

Temperature: 34° Fahrenheit
Weather: Cloudy
Course: All of the Snowbasin groomed cross country trails
Mileage: 3.73 miles
See uploaded details on Garmin's site

Lessons learned:
- Liquid Wrench lubricating oil on complete drivetrain worked well
- 20 psi in rear tire, 42 in front.
- Rear shock locked
- Pedals / cleats are problematic due to snow. Duh. Consider using clipless. Nah.

Maples campground


The best mountain bike ever made, slightly snowy.


If you're going slow enough you walk away from this.

Test ride: 2007 Felt B2

Why 2007? Because it was in stock at Canyon Bicycles in Draper, it is discounted to $3000, and it is new. Lastly because Biker's Edge wouldn't let me take any of their bikes outdoor until spring due to salt on the roads.

This is my third test ride of a time trial bike. Feel wise I had a tough time differentiating it with the P2C. This thing was awesome; it was so quick and so responsive. The first adjective that came to mind when I stood up on it is Explosive.

Ok, now, I rode this directly after a pretty disappointing test ride. Once I got over the "this is more like it" feeling I started trying to compare to the P2C I rode a few days prior. The two are so similar to me I could not go wrong with either. The Felt was extremely quick, felt nice and tight, and feather light. It took most of the 1.5 miles on Pioneer road to think this bike was possibly lighter than the P2C and it turns out I was right, it weighed in at 19.0 - 19.1 lbs without pedals. After realizing my Icon mountain bike pedals weigh in at 0.75 lbs the bike comes to 19.85 lbs, very close to the P2C.

This bike is quite appealing even if it is over two years old. Yes the frame technology changed in the new 2009 B2. This bike comes with Dura-Ace components, a FSA carbon crank, and slightly better wheels that I could probably keep as spares, namely the Easton Vista SLs. I feel it is worth the $300 premium over the P2C.

Why don't I own this bike by now? I have to test at least one more bike as a loyal Trek fan.

Test ride: 2008-9 Specialized Transition

I had a great phone discussion with Scott at Canyon Bicycles in Draper and decided to make the 80 mile round-trip to visit their store for some test rides.
The first was the Transition. Beautiful bike. But sizing wise they didn't have exactly what I needed. Even though I had a lengthy discussion and we talked about the 54 cm bikes they had in stock, once I got there I was further educated.

It turns out 54 cm doesn't really mean the same size. I understand every manufacturer has different ideas on geometry, frames are not all created equal, blah, blah, blah. Turns out for time trial bikes I should look into sizes closer to 51 cm, which I believe translates to small in Specialized terms, and Canyon had a medium. Being stubborn, I tried the medium to feel it out anyways, and asked to drop the saddle as low as it went, which was our first indication of trouble because it was still way too high.

I took a short one-ish mile ride on Pioneer street just south of 12300 south. First I stood up on it to get going quickly. It didn't feel very responsive. I immediately wondered how heavy this bike was and later found it is 20.0 to 20.1 lbs without pedals. Then once I got rolling the bike felt skiddish to me. I mean even if I wasn't pushing it felt uneasy through potholes or any uneven road up to the point of making me nervous. The ride also felt sloppy, meaning I didn't feel very comfortable the bike was listening to my pedal strokes or even my handlebar movements. Compared to the P2C - my only point of reference - this bike is huge, bulky, sloppy, and skiddish. Even if price was a large concern, this bike comes in at $2600-2700, same as the P2C. No deal.

Unfortunately most or possibly all of this may be due to the wrong size bike. I really wanted to be impressed by this Specialized product because again, if you know me, you know I seem to have a bias against Specialized. I really don't, really. This experience was truly a bummer.

My theory that time trial bikes come with basic wheels stands. This bike comes with Mavic Aksium wheels value priced at around $250. Canyon is definitely open to replacing these with a better set, and they are a CycleOps dealer so PowerTap is a good option there.

Test ride: 2009 Cervélo P2C

I have been considering a time trial bike for awhile now. Today for lunch I rode the P2C, and since this is my first TT bike to ever ride, this will be the baseline for others to reach. Good luck Felt, Trek, and others I may come across. If you know me you know Trek has an advantage here, but we'll see.

This ride was awesome. I really felt like the bike was a knife on wheels. It was quite comfy in the 5 or so miles I traveled. I even got some climbing and tight turns in which were nowhere near as bad as cycling commentators make it seem. This bike feels extremely solid and comfortable at the same time, which is odd to explain but quite natural while riding. Put it on a straight (ish) flat (ish) road such as Washington Blvd in Ogden between The Bike Shoppe and Harrison and it goes like mad. It glides actually, an attribute I also admire of my Madone. There is definitely a sense of excellent power transfer.

This gorgeous blue and black machine seems to be value priced at $2700, mostly due to slapping on Shimano R500 wheels which are quite basic. Those wheels can be taken off for a credit of approximately $200 (hint), and The Bike Shoppe gave me an option of a Bontrager Race X Lite rear wheel with SL+ for $1500, making the wheels $1300, making the bike with decent wheels $4000. This bike weighted in at 19.9 lbs with my Icon SPD mountain pedals. TT bikes are typically heavier. This one has Ultegra drivetrain with the exception of a FSA crank.

Stay away from Camperworld.

First let me clarify that there is a difference between Camping World and Camperworld. Camping world sells RV stuff. Camperworld is a bunch of bastards.

I strongly suggest you stay away from Camperworld. Really. I shall elaborate as I did for case 22067332 with the Better Business Bureau.

Yearly dues misrepresented. We were told the two-park membership was specially designed to avoid the larger fees, and that fees hadn’t increased in many years. In the 4 years we have been members the fees increased from $195 yearly to $400.

Membership value misrepresented. We were originally sent a document mentioning a $3000 discount due to our recent RV purchase. The two-resort membership was sold to us for $1690, said to be a $4600 value, and the value of these exclusive memberships increased yearly. In November 2008 Mike Hatch told us the value was $1400-1600.

Coast to Coast membership misrepresented. We were told this was part of the Camperworld membership, but is another membership and set of fees. We were told purchasing Camperworld gave us two weeks worth of Coast to Coast every year, but once we contacted Coast to Coast we were told about a $99 yearly membership fee, then we need to buy our two weeks of time.

Cancelling within the first 30 days. Within the first 30 days of membership we realized we did not want this membership and requested details on cancelling this membership via phone. We were told there was absolutely no way to cancel; there was no lemon law to this membership.

Pets. We were told dogs were welcome at all Camperworld locations. There are deposits for dogs which is fair. We have one dog. Every time we arrived we were treated as second-class citizens for having a dog. Now in 2009 dogs will require an additional fee.

Reselling to Camperworld. Was told in November 2008 by Mike Hatch that Camperworld does not purchase memberships which is contradictory to their resale document, and that the $495 transfer fee applied. The resale document is also worded to make one infer the $495 transfer fee does not apply when reselling to Camperworld.

$495 transfer fee. There is no reason for that high of a cost. Adding the $495 transfer fee as part of reselling to Camperworld is a rip off.

Multiple attempts to resell. Many intents to sell were sent to Camperworld in a time span of over one year, reducing the price to $700, which, including the $495 transfer fee, would reduce the price of the membership to $205. Many weeks are taken between responses and the length of response time increased as the end of year approached, likely to secure another year’s dues, and all intents to sell have been denied.

Damn, and I forgot a few others...

Fees up the ass. $30-50 to transfer to another park. $25 to replace your membership card. If I remember correctly, $25 to bring another person with you. Upcoming pet fees. Did I mention the $495 to transfer the membership? How about $400 just to keep the stupid thing?

Rules up the ass. Must give Camperworld first right of purchase, so they can waste your time. Cannot cancel. Cannot sell before owning for two years. Cannot change "home" parks too often. Cannot visit other parks that are not in your membership, not as a one-time scenario on your way elsewhere, not even for a fee - and they LOVE fees. You can bring someone with you, but you must tell the location at least one week in advance. And the usual RV campsite rules: Cannot show up after 10:00 pm, cannot have more than two vehicles. Cannot have more than x people, cannot...

The feeling we have is of being handcuffed. We are stuck. They make it obvious they control the relationship and they do everything possible to force you into being recurring revenue for them, under their full control. Many forum posts confirm this feeling, including some people saying they just pay the yearly fee because they are so discusted they won't have anything to do with the place. I received an email from my KSL ad to sell this membership that said:

Good luck selling. They are a crooked organization and I am so glad that I am done with them. I do hope that you can sell your membership. The owners of camperworld should be sued. The owner will have to answer to his actions some day..... here or up their.

I repeat. I strongly suggest you stay away from Camperworld. Of course given my dealings with these assholes they will likely sue me for this post.

Cross country ski day #2

Beautiful day. I covered most of the groomed cross country trails, but since The Woman and her dad came along for snowshoeing, the dog decided to not cooperate and was an absolute pain in the ass. He thought we were leaving them, decided to have a separation anxiety attack, and wouldn't keep going with me as we obviously needed to go save them. He did everything possible to piss me off and it worked. Still a nice day, so there.






Posting date is backdated to the activity day.

Montréal for the holidays

What an adventure. I can say that now that we've been back for a few days.

Why did I go to Montréal? Family. Spending time with sisters, mother, grand mother, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces was actually great. Hadn't seen most of them in 3 years, some in 8 years, some in 20+ years. It was tough to remember French but well worth it. I need to keep it fresh in my mind though.

Our adventure is explained in detail elsewhere so I won't go into too many details. Losing a laptop bag containing a bunch of junk including a company laptop and our passports was no fun. Getting passports and documents to make it home in one day was a f@#$@#$ miracle.

I sooo enjoyed the food - poutine, St-Hubert BBQ, feuilleté Vachon, cherry blossoms, kit kat noir, tourtière, dinde, buche de noel, porto ét fromage, etc. Mmmm, manger!


I admit I miss the place. There is a lot of culture there, obviously plenty of memories, and Montréal is a gorgeous place.






I am glad to be home. I need to go back more often.