Happy Trails: 8 Tips to Meet a Girl Who Mountain Bikes

There was a fabulous article published on this site a few months back about how to get your girl to ride without dumping you. This is a great article, however there are a good number of guys out there wishing they had a girl to use the tips in this article. I was once that guy who had nobody nagging him about what time he was going to be home from his trail tromp. Since then I have gained some credentials on how to meet a girl who rides. For those biking bachelors this may give you some helpful information, instead of getting your girl into riding just meet one who already rides, and your life will seem like Moab with no flat tires for the rest of your life…sort of. This article has been inspired by and dedicated to my lovely wife Brooke who I love more than life itself.

Since I mentioned that I had credentials in meeting girls that bike let me state them. I met my wife on a mountain biking trip in Moab. We had some mutual friends that invited us both on a biking trip, the sparks flew and the emotions ran high and she actually said yes when I asked her to marry me. Since then we take biking trips all summer long, she understands when my buddies and I want to go on a quick ride after work, and get this, she is actually sympathetic when I get home late because of a flat or mechanical failure of the bike. To make the story even better I actually met my wife while I was on a date with a different girl who also mountain bikes. So I do have experience meeting and courting ladies that pedal. So let me outline some simple ways to meet girls who bike, the rest is up to you. For the record many of these tips are best if you are riding alone, that way your buddy doesn’t tax your game or get butt hurt that you bailed on him for a hot piece of tail on the trail.

1. The Chairlift Approach

One of the easiest ways to meet girls who bike is to ride popular trails. I found this works best at resort areas especially ones with a chairlift. For example our local resort is about a 20 minute chair ride up to the top and that is plenty of time to meet and get to know a lady. What you do is you hang out at the bottom and when you see a girl get in the lift line get in line behind her. Then you must do your best to make small talk and tell her you are alone and hate riding up the long chair ride by yourself and ask if you can ride up with her. I have made some great friends on the lift that I met this very way. A smart tip is to have your cell phone or the very least a pen and paper to get her number to “go ride sometime.”  Read more

Separation of Bike and State?

With all this talk about reaching across the isle to the opposing political party President George W. Bush is trying to do just that for mountain bikers who are both red and blue. The Biker-in-Chief is trying to open up more trails in national parks across the nation to mountain bikers. President Bush, who actually is an avid mountain biker himself, wants to put the trail making of trail regulations to the managers of the pubic lands instead of those that sit behind a desk in DC. The process of opening up trails to bikers is a long and tedious one; in which the public has to be formally notified a process that currently takes years.

What the President wants to do is streamline the process so he can legally take “Mountain-Bike-One” out for a spin in what was once forbidden backcountry. This new regulation is not without opposition. In an article written by the Associated Press the author cites Environmental advocate Jeff Ruch, “Mountain bikers are blamed for erosion of trails and trampling native plants. They also disturb other park users, such as hikers, birders and horseback riders.”

After doing some research for this article it turns out that many sources agree that President Bush is quite an avid mountain biker, and quite good as well. He took up biking as a lower impact form of exercise after suffering a knee injury. “Mountain-Bike-One,” as the President has nicknamed his steed, is a Trek Top Fuel 98 with a custom paint job. Bush frequently rides around both his ranch in Crawford, Texas and in and around the DC area.

I am not one to mix biking and politics, but this is one political move that most bikers should agree on regardless how much you like or dislike the “Biker-in-Chief.”

Associated Press article below:

This just in from the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration plans to make it easier for mountain bikers to gain access to national parks and other public lands before the president — an avid cyclist himself — leaves office.

The National Park Service confirmed Tuesday that it is preparing a rule that will allow decisions about some mountain bike trails to be made by park managers instead of federal regulators in Washington, a process that can take years.

A park service spokesman said the rule would be proposed no later than Nov. 15 so it could be final before Bush leaves office. If adopted, the proposal would likely result in more mountain biking opportunities on public lands.

Currently, the Park Service has to adopt a special regulation to open up trails to mountain bikes, which requires the public to be formally notified. The same process is required for all-terrain vehicles and other motorized recreation on park lands.

“We are trying to give superintendents a little bit of latitude especially for non-controversial proposals for bicycling in parks,” said Jeffrey Olson, a spokesman for the service. “We are responding to public demand.”

Environmental advocate Jeff Ruch called the rule a lame-duck gift for the mountain biking lobby from the “Mountain-Biker-in-Chief,” referring to Bush.

Ruch, executive director of the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said the proposal would open up backcountry trails to mountain bikers. Mountain bikers are blamed for erosion of trails and trampling native plants. They also disturb other park users, such as hikers, birders and horseback riders.

During his tenure as president, Bush has embraced mountain biking as a low-impact alternative to running, which is hard on his knees. The president — who has a blue and white Trek bicycle dubbed Mountain Bike One — often rides on his ranch in Crawford, Tex. and in the Washington, D.C. area. He also has received several mountain bikes from companies like Cannondale and Trek.

The International Mountain Biking Association, which is supported by some of the same companies that gave Bush bikes, said Tuesday it didn’t believe the timing of the rule had anything to do with the president’s penchant for pedaling.

“It is extraneous to this (rule) that the president has interest in mountain biking. I don’t think that has been an influencer in this case,” said Mark Eller, communications director for the group, which has been lobbying to change the rules since the early 1990s.

About 30 properties managed by the National Park Service include trails approved for mountain bikes now, he said.

A calendar for Lyle Laverty, the Interior Department’s Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks also shows that the mountain bike rule is one the administration’s remaining priorities.

In April 2006, after a 65-minute ride through Napa County wine country on Earth Day, the president told an AP reporter: “We’re able to enjoy the beauty without really disrupting pristine nature of the place. It’s a classic way for mankind to enjoy God’s gift.”

Mountain Bike Cable Tension

Many of us have the experience when we are on the trail and are transitioning into the big climb. Your fingers are poised over the shifters ready to rapid fire into the appropriate gear to ascend to the top of the climb. As your momentum starts to decrease your finger fires off a few clicks on the shifter you begin to pedal so the derailleur will shift your chain to your desired cog or gear and BAM! Your chest is thrown into your bars just before your front tire folds over and you are thinking “I hope I can get out of my clipless pedals before my bike hits the ground.” Your derailleur did it again, it missed your desired gear, didn’t shift, your chain came off, or…something else similar. The bottom line is your derailleur let you down. For years I rode under the assumption that if my derailleur was on the fritz then this is a task for a licensed professional and I either toughed it out with a bike shifting poorly or I did the hike a bike out. For all I knew a derailleur is not something that you can fix on the trail like a flat tire. However I was wrong.

When you encounter a shifting problem on the trail a lot of time it has to do with cable tension, which can be a very simple problem to remedy enough to get you back in the saddle to finish the ride. The cable in question is the one that runs from the shifter to the derailleur. On most mountain bikes there is a knob where this cable meets the shifter. This knob is one of the ways that you can fine tune cable tension on your bike. So if you are on the trail and you are having problems with your bike shifting properly simply identify which derailleur is having the problem. Then locate the cable for the corresponding derailleur and turn the knob no more than about 45 degrees. If problem still persists then go another 45 degrees in the same direction. Continue with this until you are able to shift your bike well enough that you can comfortably finish your ride. If the problem gets worse return the knob the original position. Once you are back at the original position turn the knob opposite of the way you originally turned it. I have found this to be a quick fix about 85% of my on the trail shifting problems. This is just a band-aid and if it works, I do strongly encourage you to seek out a professional to tune your bike. This is just some advice that I learned to pick up along the way to share with you to help you out when you are on the trail. Most of us do not ride with our bike mechanic to fix all our problems when they happen.

If this does not work for you another antidote that I have used more than once on the trail is to use an Allen wrench to manually adjust the cable tension at the derailleur. Sometimes I was able to adjust it so it would shift just fine. Most of the time, at least when it was a problem with just my front derailleur, I had to either adjust the tension so I could only use my bottom two sprockets. Occasionally when my cable tension was so bad (because I was too cheap to take it to a shop, I know this is my bad) that my chain was constantly falling off I had to adjust the cable tension at the front derailleur so it would not shift on the front derailleur at all. I was still able to use the rear, but my front derailleur was so out of tune that nothing else could have been done on the trail other than rigging it to stay in the smallest sprocket just to get back to the trailhead. This makes for a frustrating day of riding, do not let your bike get as out of tune as I did, but if you do, which I know some of you will, you will know what to do WHEN not if disaster strikes.

Cable tension is a regular problem with mountain bikes, and you are not alone in the problems with shifting world. It is a problem that plagues both full suspension and hardtails alike. However I have found full suspensions to be more problematic with cable tension than the hardtails. Some of the things that cause cable tension problems are:

1. Riding: mountain bikes take impact and abuse and this causes movable parts to move.
2. Shifting: when you shift your cable moves and pulls your derailleur in one direction or another.
3. Transport: we are all guilty of being too over zealous and throwing our steed into the back of a truck to hurry and get to the trail head as soon as possible and this can push your derailleur into a position that stretches your cable beyond where it is properly functioning.
4. Storage: improperly storing your bike can make components shift and move and cause cable tension to be thrown off.

So take care of your bike and have it serviced by a professional regularly so you can minimize on the trail catastrophes. Because problems don’t occur in the parking lot or just after your ride is over. They happen when you are too committed to return the way you came or right before you get to the good part of the trail.