The trek started off being with around 6 guys and turned into a 3 man effort. More details on the “effort” are detailed in the pictures. The 3 other guys that appeared to have bailed, simply had more sense than to show up for what ensued.
Seems that Phil decided to swap tires on his ancient ride the day before (or so) and he was ready to roll.
Me, being the simpleton that I am, decided that renting off-mountain was the best thing to do, and it turned out that I was more right than wrong, even if I did end up with a Large, when I should be riding a Medium.
Jesus being the only sane one seems to have come for the entertainment value. He ended up with the cleanest runs of the day, and made a conscious effort to avoid of all things….. “MUD”.
We arrived at the moutain in plenty of time to get our Lift Tickets and head for the top of Zephyr, for a quick set of Green runs, and then to progress to Blue runs and verify that our legs and lungs still worked.
Here are a couple of pictures of us poor souls just arriving at the moutain, and ready to roll. First with Phil and Jesus.
Jesus still with the munchies
Just happy to be here.....
We dismount the ”Big Springs Express Gondola” and make a quick decision that we should indeed stick with our plan of easy runs to start with and head up Zephyr Express Chair lift to the top of Zephyr and to see what kind of trouble we can get into on the fire roads on the way down. It wasn’t until later in the day, that I realized that we had only gone 2/3 of the way up the mountain. (info for the next visit)
As I adjust myself into the middle of the death zone chairlift I take a quick look over my shoulder and that’s all it took for me to lose my glasses, as the first casualty of the day. With dozens of sketchy looking bikers swarming in for my glasses as I can only watch, the lift operator says, “don’t worry brah, I’ll keep them here for ya….” and I swear that I heard maniacal laughter while we rode up into the forest above.
Don't ask Phil about this lift
I will say this, Northstar is absolutely beautiful, and well maintained year round. With water trucks keeping the dust down, this helped keep the air clear and as thin as the air was, that was a blessing.
Now that we arrived at the top of Zephyr, and me without glasses, I took point and hoped that the guys wouldn’t push me downhill too fast, and hopefully my shin guards and elbow guards would protect me from the inevitable high speed dismount I knew would come at some point.
With well over 200+ mountain bikers on the mountain, I assumed that the trails would be pretty crowded, and we were soon to find out that that was not going to be the case. As we took the first descent of the day, I could hear Phil and Jesus behind me until the stutter bumps got so bad that I would have to look over my shoulder to see them.
We finally loosened up a bit and as we hit a nice patch of clear fire road I no longer heard the guys, so as I slowed down (thankfully as I discovered I was in a decreasing radius turn) and came to a complete stop, I heard nothing but silence. Fearing the worst, I climbed back on the bike and started to pedal back uphill at 8,000 ft and quickly decided how stupid that was and just walked the bike back up the hill. In about 100 yards I saw Phil and Jesus off to the side of the trail assessing the damage that Phil had taken, and fortunately it was only a flat.
Thinking that this was a momentous occasion (assuming first and only flat of the day), I chose to document it with a picture, and just chalked it up as a small hiccup on the first run. Little did I know.
Tube #1
Phil swapped tubes and we inspected the old tube and found that it had torn at the valve stem, and we just shrugged it off as a freak occurence, and remounted to head back down the hill. As a statement of how 200+ mountain bikers can be on the same mountain and it not being crowded, we took about 20 minutes for this first tire change, and didn’t see a single other bike coming down the hill.
We jump back on and still with no glasses I lead and we get no more than a mile further down the trail, (mind you, we hit speeds of around 34+ MPH so it was a quick trip) and I pull up short while listening to Phil mumbling something about not ever buying Novara tubes ever again. Here we go, with flat #2.
Tube #2
Here we actualy saw other wildlife in the form of some Downhill big drop “dudes” poking along going downhill (on a fire road) and of course not even offering to help or ask if everything was okay, and of course we’d see more of them as the day went on.
This tire change was a mere 10 minute or so ordeal, and we saddled back up and pointed the bikes back downhill. funny again, the type of flat that Phil had, twas another valve stem tear, and Phil continued to mutter about those damned Novara tubes on sale at REI…..
Okay so we head down about another 1/4 mile and we can nearly see the mid mountain express and lodge where we’ll be hoping to quaff some beers later in the afternoon after our umpteenth run of the day. We slow down and come around yet another corner and I mean we are moving at a crawl, and Phil grabs his brakes again and this time we all heard it give an Exhale of defeat and there he is, with a flat again.
Did I mention that Northstar is really pretty this time of year?
Did I mention how nice it is up here?
I believe that this was about the time that Phil threw his bike to the ground with disgust and his prior life as a sailor made itself visible. That or the Indian War Dance he was working on.
We were all pretty much speechless at this time and taking odds on whether it was another Stem flat as we speculated on whether he had a bent rim, a tire too big, or brakes grabbing his tires. Well I’m still trying to remember what transpired next, although he changed the flat and we mosied in to mid mountain where Phil met with the mechanics and they told him many tales of woe and he decided that he would just ride down the Gondola and meet us at the Village.
I took this opportunity to go back over to the chair lift, and lo and behold, they did indeed hold onto my Sunglasses for me.
Jesus and I pointed our rigs downhill and decided to see what the green trail had to offer on the way down from Mid mountain to the Village, and it was a bunch of switchbacks, and a flat out run on a 10 foot wide fire road complete with “whoops” every 20 yards or so which was just often enough to make you wonder what it would be like to flat at 30+ MPH and not be able to stop. Thankfully, the staff at Northstar had placed crash barrier padding around most of the imovable objects, like the Chair Lift Towers. Nice guys those Northstar folks.
With an absolutely clean run and heading down into the last of the switchbacks into the village I met my nemesis. As I was riding so cleanly it was bound to happen. in the last 2 feet of the trail, there is a nice transition from dirt to concrete which is met by a dip and a curb. I made the clean approach, compressed the front fork, and popped up the front tire just in time to realize that I no longer had any momentum, and T-Boned my front wheel into the edge of the curb. Guess what….. I was still clipped in. I managed to get unclipped and my feet on the ground in time to hear Jesus laughing maniacally behind me, and I hoped for him to at least eat the curb as gracefully as I did. No luck, he cleaned it.
We found Phil at the bike shop and Jesus decided to check his stocks while we wait for Phil to complete his bike swap, tire change, blessing from the Mountain Biking God’s above.
What to do when Phil is in the shop
The wonderful Blue bike you see there, is the Fem-Bike that i rented that day. As Phil swore up and down that the guys at the bike shop had rented me the “Girl” model of the FSR that day.
It was at this time that Phil emerged from the Bike Shop at the Village and realized the jerk-wads had sold him the wrong tube size, as the day got better and better for him, Jesus and I decided to make ourselves scarce. Something about Phil saying “go on guys….. leave me and save yourselves….” made us decide that a solo run from the top might be good about now as well.
So, Jesus and I rode the two rises up to the top again, and decided to bomb down and see how long it would take. Hopefully we would be back in time to see Phil once he got his bike back in order.
We pointed the bikes back down the same way as before and let it all out. I failed to mention before that we need to share the trails with mountain bikes and hikers, and the hikers were better than any Sierra Club terrorists that I had met on other trails before (they like to set little surprises sometimes), these people were actually pleasant to share the trails with.
I was worried that we would come around a corner and find a large family of hikers right in the middle of the trail and we’d have to find a bail out route somewhere, but the funny thing is, the obstacles we found on the trail were those damned “Big Drop” biker dudes… there is something about going fast with big jumps that attracts them, but put them on a fire road that is all downhill, and add that their bike is about 45 pounds, and for some reason the are like Cholesterol in an artery. They clog the trails and that is what Jesus and I had to slow down for, otherwise a completely clean run all the way again…. until of course I met my nemesis again.
This time I was unclipped as I made my approach, pedaled into the puddle, popped up the front wheel, and lo and behold, no momentum again. Fortunately unclipped, and Jesus laughing his ass off again. (I hope he gets a flat).
We found Phil and with new conviction, he is ready and confident.
On our way back up we met a unique individual who we can only describe as the SkateBoard Helmet Canadian that was drinking Jack and Propel. You’ll have to ask Phil and Jesus about this guy. We almost got stuck on Phil’s favorite Lift with this guy.
We head back up to the top and retrace our steps with me trailing behind this time, and we are absolutely bombing down these runs, all is right with the Universe, until we come around a corner and we find a dad with his two boys poking along 3 wide and we yell “on your LEFT!!!!!”, and what do they do…..? They move left. Phil grabs a fistfull, comes to a grating stop, and just stares as dad and his boys look at us like we are idiots.
Tube #4
Phil pulls a quick change (under 5 minutes), and we head down past mid mountain thinking we have things licked, and we hit the home stretch. Jesus in the lead, Phil behind him, and me flapping my wings in the rear just trying to not lose my teeth from all the rattling. We hit the last 100+ yards and I notice Phils rear end (The Bikes Rear End) is quite loose and notice that he has flatted “YET AGAIN”. we make the final few feet, I finally defeated my nemesis by pedaling through the curb and not hopping it, and figure it is Miller Time.
We are all yet again speechless….. 5 tubes, all with torn valve stems, somewhere tomorrow there will be hell to pay. But for right now a pitcher of Stella and a Curry Pizza ( believe it or not ) in the Village, and it’s time to head home.
Upside is, nobody hurt, no bikes broken, and got in a lot of fresh air. We’ll have to do this again soon.
