What did you do TO / WITH / FOR your bike today!

Haakon

Keeps on digging
Short lap of Stromlo. Met a young Scottish fellow who just arrived for a few days riding before heading to thredbo.

Nice guy, played tourist guide for a bit and he was polite enough to wait for me!
 

Oddjob

Merry fucking Xmas to you assholes
Maydena day 2. Did a half day yesterday, and did the Park 101 course on the Pole.

Did a mix of green, blue and one black trail today. Spent the morning re-acquainting myself with body armour, neck braces and down hill bikes.

Banshee legend I picked up secondhand and have fitted a Float X2, Saint brakes, Shorty 27.5x2.6 front and HR2 27.5x2.4 rear. All of which have been great for Maydena.

As everyone has said Maydena is high and steep. Even the green trails can be challenging at speed. The trail surface ranges from rock to hardpack clay to soft loam. Big spikey tyres are reccomended. The Shorty / HR2 combo has been ideal.

The trails tend to be tight with lots of berms, kickers the odd rock garden and they get steeper and have gaps on the black trails. Definitely suits a 26 or 27.5 dh bike. The Pole was just a bit too long for some of the switch backs. The Legend feels just right. More advanced riders might enjoy a 160-180mm park or enduro bike, but mere mortals will appreciate a dh bike.

Would highly reccomend hitting the gym before coming. I managed 3 runs today and my legs are flogged. Will try for 5 tomorrow but this place is hard on your body. Also bring compression gear for recovery.

Bring the biggest brakes you can and run sintered or high friction race pads. Almost found the limits of the Saints with Shimano metal pads today. Rotors have the blue ring of death. Would reccomend floating rotors. If I had solid rotors they would almost certainly be heat warped.

Cornering has definitely improved a couple of notches. Might do learning to fly course tomorrow to start hitting the freeride and black runs more confidently.

Sent from my SM-G900I using Tapatalk
 

Minlak

custom titis
So Mrs Minlak is not much of a shredder and her Giant Lust has not had a lot of use but she has been riding the fire road training loop with me a few weekends in a row, The bike developed an annoying squeak that is also present when just rolling not pedaling. Spent two days pulling the bike down and checking all the suspension bearings etc. Put it all back together and squeak squeak squeak. Turns out when I was compressing the suspension and hearing the creak I was also pressing on the saddle. took out the seat post greased it up re mounted it and squeak gone. I guess it was time I actually did some looking after the bike anyway.
On a side note when I removed the front chainrings (still 2x set up) she has some how managed to break off two teeth on each chainring at the front. I bought a one up 30t for the front to replace the 2 of them and she did a quick road test this afternoon. Just cost me another $170 bucks for a goat link and wide range cassette lol.
 

Lazmo

Old and hopeless
Day trip to Wilsons Promontory, such amazing beauty in our backyard. Rode Foster, all 5.2kms of it. Good fun though. Rinky dinky good fun. Camped at Yanakie... nice.
 

Chriso_29er

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Finally got out to a trail I've been meaning to visit for ages.
'Hey Hey My My' in the Yarra Ranges near Warburton.
Excellent trail, nice techy off camber climb followed by very steep techy and at times fast run back down.
Had an off the trail moment, but somehow managed to keep upright lol. (Off trail at 5:21) (Downhill starts from 1:54)

 

smitho

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Headed out to Eumerella again. Rolled my bars back a bit on the 29er to help with lower back pain I've been getting. It worked. Had an absolute blast. Finally made it up this little bitch of a climb on Track 5!

View attachment 350201
It’s sandy and dry as hell out there at the moment!

Rode the You Yangs over the weekend. Turns out 3 weeks of drinking and nil exercise doesn’t do wonders for your aerobic capacity. 3 runs in the middle of the day and I was done.

Still treated myself to a sausage roll at Freshwater Creek on the way home though:




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Oddjob

Merry fucking Xmas to you assholes
Maydena days 3, 4 and 5.

Did the learning to fly course and had a private lesson. Finally started to get a clue with jumping. Definitely need to hit some more dirt jumps and practise, practice, practice.

Started hitting more of the black trails. The freeride black runs (Super Cross and Local) are freaking awesome. They are also where I had the most mechanicals and stacks due to the speed and g outs.

The technical single blacks are pretty much where I hit my limit. They are steep and require perfect railing of berms. I also figured out that the key to Maydena is cornering and trailing brake control. Once I figured that out I had a much easier/better time.

The double blacks and pro lines require perfect cornering and jumping. I met a young gun Victorian dh racer who was at the pointy end of u19s who wiped out on one of the double blacks and needed a new helmet. He reckoned that Maydena was next level compared to his regular runs and Thredbo and would defiitely improve his skills.

Spent my final day chilling out on some of the green and more natural blue runs. Still had a ball just railing berms, pumping and doing the odd log drop. No mechanicals or diggers.

Overall had a great time and definitely improved as a rider. Definitely reccomend big brakes and big spikey tires. A dh bike for mere mortals will be easier on the body, lots of experienced riders on 140-160mm bike were still having a ball.
 

DMan

shawly the least hangeriest guy on rotorburn
Maydena days 3, 4 and 5.

Did the learning to fly course and had a private lesson. Finally started to get a clue with jumping. Definitely need to hit some more dirt jumps and practise, practice, practice.

Started hitting more of the black trails. The freeride black runs (Super Cross and Local) are freaking awesome. They are also where I had the most mechanicals and stacks due to the speed and g outs.

The technical single blacks are pretty much where I hit my limit. They are steep and require perfect railing of berms. I also figured out that the key to Maydena is cornering and trailing brake control. Once I figured that out I had a much easier/better time.

The double blacks and pro lines require perfect cornering and jumping. I met a young gun Victorian dh racer who was at the pointy end of u19s who wiped out on one of the double blacks and needed a new helmet. He reckoned that Maydena was next level compared to his regular runs and Thredbo and would defiitely improve his skills.

Spent my final day chilling out on some of the green and more natural blue runs. Still had a ball just railing berms, pumping and doing the odd log drop. No mechanicals or diggers.

Overall had a great time and definitely improved as a rider. Definitely reccomend big brakes and big spikey tires. A dh bike for mere mortals will be easier on the body, lots of experienced riders on 140-160mm bike were still having a ball.
Sounds awesome. Dec for us. Maydena and Derby.
 

k3n!f

leaking out the other end
Day 1 report upcoming but I can safely say that its a good idea to do lots of gym work before coming here, bring your dh bike and run the biggest brakes and tyres that you can.
I took my 100mm travel XC bike with 160mm rotors and Racing Ralph tires. It rained for two days before I arrived. So much fun. I did 5 runs, zero crashes, but spent more time sideways than a drunk crab.

Still worth the trip if you are in town and don't have a big rig.
 

Spike-X

Grumpy Old Sarah
Another spin around Eumeralla early evening. The more I ride this place, the more I like it. I've almost got the layout of the trails sorted in my head, although a bit more signage here and there would help.

I nearly came off early on when my front tyre slid sideways on a root, but it found some grip somewhere and kept me upright. And I had to stop and do some trailside maintenance when I noticed my left hand crank had worked loose (again!). Then when I got back to the car, my rear axle had also started to loosen up. I really need to check these things more frequently.

Those minor hiccups aside, though, it was a really enjoyable ride. Just what I needed after a long, hot week at work.
 

Lazmo

Old and hopeless
Camping at Forrest again.

Found a local way in to avoid the first boring bit of the super loop. Did Grasstrees and then Mariners. Then found the tiny holy grail link track that lets you repeat the super fun bermy bit of Mariners. I knew there had to be one. Now I know. Put a stick there. Rode out our new way in and nearly ran over a small tiger snake. Didn’t mention it to the darl.
 
Top