Ria hooked me up with her rider friends (Alabang and Sta Rosa peeps). We had an awesome 13-mile run. The nice thing about the route is that there’s a lot of loooong descents on both dirt and pavement… and we ended up circling back to where we came from.
Pardon the shaky video… it’s the hardtail’s fault hahahaha. But at least I got it well below 10 mins to appease YouTube specs (annotations and HD toggling FTW!). And yes, nagpaalam ako ke Ria isama yung footage ng hulog niya, hehehehe
Looking forward to the next ride!
Here’s the Googlemap link of the ride. I based it on Adel’s Garmin route. I’m not so certain about the exact locations though, so if anyone has a correction, just drop me a line.
Thoughts
As usual, just like on other occasions, there’s always some new thing(s) I notice/learn on each ride.
First, is that I probably would have more peace of mind if I go tubeless. My tires deflated during the cleaning at the end of the ride. The culprit was an extremely small thorn; about half a centimeter in length and as thick as a needle; that’s like NOTHING right? but enough to flat a tire. They say I probably got it during the “trail parts” (that would mean the Holy Trail – which was like halfway)… that means I was bombing down Upak with a compromised rear tire! I’m just glad it held up till the end and didn’t damage my rims.
Second, would be that my Ergon grips work! My hands are totally fine – as in totally fine. Which is saying something because they tend to feel a bit ngalay after every long ride. Sta Rosa was similar to the long ride from UP to San Mateo and back – where my hands felt real sore afterwards 1 And we didn’t pass extended, super rocky portions like Upak during the San Mateo ride – so I’d say that the grips do work as advertised! Very much worth the extra weight they put on my bike.
Third, is that full gloves aren’t that hot pala. I bought full gloves since my [right] thumb would easily hit the release of my lockout remote and chaffing would occur on really long rides. I used it in the Aguinaldo run, but that hardly counts as a long ride. So I’m a convert… I won’t get any half-gloves anymore since they have no real [thermal] advantage for my use.
Lastly, the Selle Italia SLR saddle seems to like my ass! I got the 135g (lightest) so I was concerned if I should’ve gotten the [heavier] one just for the gel-flow tech – but it seems I didn’t have to 🙂 Shifting to a Zero setback seatpost seems to have improved the comfort as well. The length of this ride was perfect to get a real handle on how the new stuff reacted with my body – and I’m liking the results. I’ll try a few more rides (and perhaps try not wearing padded undershorts with the SLR saddles just for kicks 2 I didn’t like using padded shorts with my old Serfas saddle one of these days) – but otherwise, I think I can dispose of my old saddle already 🙂
Yahoo! Nice video Carlo, love it (pati annotations). Ang saya na may kasamang naka-helmet cam.. hehe.
Puwede pa-steal ng pics, I’ll just put it in my Flick.
Thanks for this! Till the next one..
Thanks to Cyn nga pala for helping me get up from my fall, haha! It happened to me on that little “cliff”… yung “Don’t think of a white elephant.” The minute I thought about the steep sides, I was magnetized towards it. Then I put my foot down, apparently the wrong one.. Hahaha!
I’m thinking nga of getting goggles eh para goggle-cam (I have goggle mounts as well kse) baka mas madali ma-align yung cam since line of sight talaga. Pero parang super init na non! Eh init ng helmet palang, hate ko na!
Napansin ko parang ang asshole ko pala nung nahulog ka kse babae pa tumulong sa iyo… ako parang subliminally, “this is a great shot!” instead of “oh no, I have to help my friend!” hahahahaha. Ang excuse ko nalang don ay: single track siya, mahirap mag-overtake ng tao eh hahaha.
hard core pre!
Haha, ok lang yun! It’s good that you got that shot. Atsaka, even Arnold didn’t help me get up, I guess it’ll be unsafe nga to overtake another rider on a single track.