This past weekend at our
Powhatan Trail Race (a cheap knock-off of the
Kokopelli Trail Race), I became reacquainted with one of the challenges of moutain biking for adventure racing:
- Even the best components will eventually wear-out if you use them enough
To a recreational rider, this still holds true, but adventure racers are particularly nasty to gear and I know some racers who end up with an essentially new bike each year due to the slings and arrows of outrageous adventure racing fortune. Things like dragging your bike across ponds and rivers, hike-a-bike down steep wooded slopes for miles at a time (or worse:
up those steep wooded slopes!), and even the "simple" grind of a 30 mile bike leg on lousy jeep roads will eventually put a hurtin' on your bike and if you do it with any regularity then forget it . . . adventure racers are asking for bike problems.
And don't give me "buy XTR components" as a solution, because the lightest and fanciest piece can sometimes be the most delicate and prone to failure. I've seen several XTR derailleurs come to transition areas in racer backpacks instead of attached to their bikes.
So what can you do?
It seems to me there are a few avenues to pursue:
- Build a good relationship with a local bike shop (LBS). I've sung the praises of the LBS before, but when it comes to broken gear the local shop can be a great place for advice, alternatives, and -- if appropriate -- advocacy on your behalf to the manufacturer. My rear rim cracked at the PTR and I'll hand it over to the guys at BikeBeat; they'll contact the manufacturer and see about sorting out any warranty issue. Sure, I could do this leg work myself but I've got other things to do and I think a bike shop has more credibility in the eyes of a manufacturer than an individual. The LBS can take this monkey off my back!
- Learn to take care of your bike and to be a passable bike mechanic. On the trail, you could be hours away from assistance and you need to have some confidence in your ability to sort out your own mechanical problems . . . this will also make you a more valuable teammate. The more you know, the more you'll be able to identify issues before they turn into race-ending crashes or equipment failures. This is an area I could improve on; while it's tough to find the time to become good at everything, this is an important enough skill that I should move it near the top of my priorities.
- Don't blindly buy the "best" gear as ranked by a magazine, friend, or website. Adventure racing puts different demands on gear and a really light bike frame might sound great until it cracks apart halfway up the mountain. Now, a rugged downhill bike frame might be durable but you'd die carrying a bike with all that weight. The shop I buy most of my bike stuff from (see the first point above) knows I'm into adventure racing and when I ask their opinion on something they know I'm not asking it from the perspective of a downhill-bomber or a weight-freaked-out roadie. The answers to my gear questions are a tricky balance between durability and weight and utility and ease-of-troubleshooting and, of course, cost -- so always consider the source of a gear review before you buy.