White Mountain Peak MTB — What Worked

2011-08-06 • SEND FEEDBACK •
Related: gear, hard core, Inyo National Forest, mountain biking, peak bagging, Rides, White Mountain Peak, White Mountains

This page captures my thoughts on ride logistics.

What worked

I planned carefully, so everything went well.

Here’s what worked great:

• Trek SuperFly 100 Elite 29er— superb choice for this ride because of the 29" wheels, which roll over the loose stuff better than 26" wheels, both up and down.. Trek Top Fuel 9.9 SSL was excellent also, but not as well suited to the rough stuff in terms of ease of rolling over the rough stuff.
• Tubeless tires with Stan’s sealant. Excellent choice that added to comfort and reduced the risk of flats (none).
• Gu energy gel and Hammer Perpetuem as primary food source, along with Nestle 100 Grand candy bars (3 each, 190 calories per bar, solid food effect).
• The 4 caches, along with a few strategic 1 liter bottles of water.
• Carrying no more than 1 liter of water at any one time, getting more from caches.
• Down jacket, wind shell and tights, full finger gloves over regular gloves.
• Stashing daypack at cache #3 so as to minimize weight for most of the ride.

What did not work so well

Not so great stuff.

• Both bikes — gearing on steep grades— both bikes could have used lower gearing instead of race gearing of 30 X 36 (Top Fuel) and 26 X 36 (SuperFly).
• Brakes on Trek SuperFly 100 Elite 29er. Loss of braking power and lots of noise when descending Silver Canyon (no problem with Top Fuel Shimano XTR brakes).
• Rear 2.0" stock tire on Trek SuperFly 100 Elite 29er. Inadequate traction on loose stuff. Rear tire should be upped to a 2.25" same as front.
• Beef jerky on the way down. Killed my energy.
• Sigma DP2x camera— fit in pocket, but image quality with streaky noise patterns and disappointing color rendition compared to my Leica or Nikon or Canon DSLRs, or the superlative Fuji X100.
• Frequent stops put us at risk of the storm— better to move as fast as possible.

The Trek Top Fuel 9.9 SSL about 1400' short of the White Mountain Peak summit
Photo by Geoffrey Faraghan