With the weather sunny and dry I decided to ride out again on the Meerdael Classic trails. I felt a bit bad about not being able to complete them yesterday - due to the technical problems I had with the Moots YBB - so today I took the Hilset Big Bad Wolf custom out for the same ride. I cut the entry towards Pecrot a little shorter than yesterday and also altered the trail going through the valley on my way towards Ottenburg. From Ottenburg I picked up on the Meerdael Classic trails . The Hilset is almost 2kg lighter but non-suspended. To my surprise it turned out to be a lot faster on the trails. This might be due to the fact that I felt better than yesterday even though the BBW gives its rider a good beating due to the lack of suspension. On the uphills - and there were a lot of them today - it is 2kg lighter which makes it more agile. Even on the very steep hills the low 22/34 gearing - as compared to the Moots' 26/34 helps me a lot. Only the Moots does offer better grip in the rear when the going gets stony, rooty or loose.

Completing the ride through Meerdael Forest I had a sense of satisfaction of having done the climbs I did not do yesterday , and complete the Meerdael Classic Hills trails.

Endomondo track


Ride Stats : 56K and 860 heightmeters (Garmin) in 3h09mins

3662/38280

19-05-2012, 16:53 geschreven door Big Bad Wolf

Today some rain was forecast so I was unsure wether to ride out. At 10.30 though I noticed the sun was out and the radar did not show any cloud cover dense enough to contain rain. So I took the YBB out for a tough ride. I planned to do the hilly section of the annual Meerdael Classic ride. This starts in Oud--Heverlee and passes near my home. It was here that I picked up on the trail that would lead me through Meerdael Forest to reach Nethen and later on Pecrot where the serious - hilly - business would commence. I took a bit of a risk to ride out with a rear wheel that suffered a bad bump during my latest ride with this bike. Later on that would prove to be exactly right.
The ride progressed well through a sunny and green Meerdael Forest and I was enjoying the silence with only the wind and the angry bee sound of my Chris King hub breaking the calm. When I reached the Klabbeek area things started to happen. On the uphill following the steep downhill at the Tomme, some 17K into the ride, my chain got stuck in a chainsuck whilst dropping to the small ring. I could get it free whilst backpedalling but I noticed a clanging sound from then on. At the top of the hill I stopped and noticed that the chain was twisted, one of the links was stiff and collided with my jockey wheels. Later on it got worse and caused the chain wanting to shift on the bigger ring all by itself. I decided to stop and break the chain, throw away the bad link and replace it with a SRAM locking link.

That went well and I set on for the rest of the ride. One hill after the other was absorbed by my legs and the sun was now hiding behind some darkening clouds. But it stayed dry and whilst I was pausing for a Clif Bar I noticed to my horror that one of the spokes in my rear wheel was loose. It had broken the nipple out of the rim. This was potentially a great risk so I decided to cut the ride short. One loose spoke puts more tension on the spokes next to it, and if they fail as well, the wheel collapses. Good thing I noticed this. I reckon the damage had been done during my latest ride, when I hit the big bump that caused my wheel to go out of true. Probably I hit another big one during this ride  - it happens all the time, this is mountainbiking after all - which caused the already straining nipple to give out.  

Riding home though Meerdael Forest I did not encounter any more problems and was a bit sad having to cut short this ride. But I still put in a good workout which yielded me 10K and about 150 heightmeters less than I had bargained for.

Endomondo track


Ride Stats : 50K and 890 heightmeters (Garmin) in 3h04mins

3607/37420

18-05-2012, 15:15 geschreven door Big Bad Wolf

Today promised to be one of the better days of this week. So with it being a holiday I decided to get a solid 100K ride in. Taking the Hilset BBW out for a ride along the LF6 Vlaanderen Fietsroute would yield me exactly what I wanted. Starting out through Mollendaal Forest the LF6 then goes through Bierbeek, Meldert, Hoegaarden and makes its way to the East. Tienen and Landen are passed and when I arrived in Velm I knew I only had a couple of kilometers to go to reach the 50K mark. Unfortunately the LF6 signs disappear past Velm and I had to make do by following the Haspengouw Kruispunten routes. Riding up to No185 and then following the route towards Kruispunt No184 I crossed the little river Circidia and stopped at a little resting place to have a crispy Clif Bar that would fuel me on the way back.

Turning around I had the wind more or less in my back which made for an easier ride back home. The weather was great. Temperatures of around 16 degrees C and a mild wind from the southeast. And dry. Had a great ride.

Endomondo track


Ride Stats : 106K and 790 heightmeters (Garmin) in 4h41mins

3556/36530

17-05-2012, 16:43 geschreven door Big Bad Wolf

Sunny calm weather this evening so I took advantage of that to ride out again in Meerdael Forest. Starting out on the Red Bloso route in reverse direction. I stayed inside of the forest boundaries because there was a mean wind blowing. Checking out a new singletrack - at least for me - from Bierbeek towards Mollendaal to ride into the forest again . Some more singletrails in Wolf area before passing the Dikke Eik region and crossing the Naamsesteenweg. Riding up towards the Grez Straat I decided to make things a little more exciting by deviating from the main roads and passing onto the smaller trails. Taking one steep downhill followed by another steep uphill I gradually made my way towards the Hercules salon. Here I let go of the brakes on the downhill towards the Kluis. The bike coped well but I noticed my rear wheel had been bumped slightly out of true. Some more work for Filip when he returns from sunny Italy. My front Chris King ISO disc needs to be checked for play on the bearings as well. Needing a special tool I cannot do this myself. In all I had a very good ride. Relaxing because I kept my heartrate low and also fun because of the many downhills and singletrail sections.

Endomondo track


Ride Stats : 28.5K and 430 heightmeters (Garmin) in 1h36mins

3451/35740

14-05-2012, 20:55 geschreven door Big Bad Wolf