injury

Dropper Seats & DIY Arm Warmers

/ foxton / Leave a comment

This post is all about saving you money (and life).

As some of you may know (though don’t feel bad if you didn’t, cuz now you will) when you are about to ride a bunch of downhill on your mountain bike, it’s common practice to lower your seat. This is done for a handful of reasons that I’ll get into at another time – but trust me, it’s just better. When the downhill is done, you move your seat back up to your ‘normal’ riding height for climbing or cross-country riding. It’s way more comfy that way.

My first few years riding, I just opened my little quick-release lever on my seat post, pushed/pulled the seat to the right height, locked it back again and was on my way. No biggie, right? Totally. Which is why the first time someone told me about dropper-seats on mountain bikes I thought it sounded ree-diculous. (What’s a dropper seat? Well if you haven’t been to my handy-dandy-factually-questionable Glossary, you should pay it a visit. You’ll learn about everything from dropper seats to when it’s best to Ride the Lightning©.)

Okay, so Ridiculous Dropper Seats. Who needs em? They sound all fancy pants. They sound like something that would break easily. They clearly aren’t necessary since I’m already able to raise and lower my seat just fine. Another bike gadget that this pragmatic gal will pass on – thank you very much…

How wrong I was. Dropper seats are gonna save you money, and save your life.

Whoa, hold up – how does spending between $150-300+ (installation not even included!) on a stinkin’ seat post end up saving you money?! Here’s how. When you have to stop and adjust a seat by hand, sometimes you do it and sometimes you don’t. Which means not as much fun on the downhill, and (this is where the savings come in) doing a number on your knees by riding with a seat that’s too low for too long. Over time, that damage accumulates. Before you know it, you’re turning 40, 45, 50. You have regular appointments with a physical therapist. You’re buying neoprene sleeves to wear on your achy knees. You’re stocking up on Ibuprofen and drinking more beer to help ease the pain as you reminisce about the good ole’ days when your knees didn’t hurt after a ride. It’s all money down the drain, and it’s all because you wouldn’t invest in that damn dropper seat post. Not only that, you start adding up the seconds it’s taking you to adjust your seat manually – minutes if you have friends there heckling your analog ways – and you are literally losing bits of your life each and every time. You deserve better.

So next time you go to grab that quick-release lever, remind yourself that you’re worth it. Go get a dropper, save some money, and save some life.

And here’s a little bonus tidbit of goodness…

Now that you’re buying dropper seats, it means you’re probably also buying yourself expensive wool socks. And then, because you don’t have that many pairs of $20+ socks cuz that’s a lot of money for socks, you wear that one pair all. the. time.

And then, before you know it, that one pair gets a damn hole in the toe and you’re like, “What the hell, these are $22 socks! They should last forever!” And you feel like crap and can’t even imagine throwing them away, but you’re not gonna darn them anytime soon (do people still darn?) and so you think you’ve just poured money down the drain, but you haven’t!

Go grab a pair of scissors, snip off the toe, give those fancy wool socks new life and put em on your arms for chilly rides. Now you’ve got yourself some sweet, super fashionable, highly functional, bad-ass arm warmers! The heel of the sock even fits real nice on your elbow. And every time you look down at those cool sock arms as you push the button to lower your dropper seat you’ll feel proud.


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Ouch!

/ foxton / 3 Comments
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Love hurts.

A friend once told me that if you don’t fall when you’re riding then you’re not pushing yourself enough. I get what she’s saying, but come on. This humdinger kept me off the trails for 10 days, and I don’t even have a good story for it. I was riding down sweet, sweet Kleeway here in Post Canyon. A trail I’ve grown to love. It was named after Matt Klee – a force for good in the Gorge riding scene, who unfortunately died in an accident before I ever got the chance to know him or give him kudos for all his hard work.

Kleeway is a swooping, hillside ride that moves from clearcut into forest. An alternate downhill route to the ever-popular Seven Streams. I’ve heard some grumblings from folks who don’t feel it’s accessible enough to all skill levels – ie. that it’s more advanced than they’d thought it was going to be – but I beg to differ. I have a blast riding it, even if I roll a lot of kickers and can’t even imagine gapping the gaps. Plus, since it’s a bit wider than your usual singletrack, you have a bigger landing pad when trying some of the smaller jumps.

I’d like to tell you that when I had my crash it was because I was shredding the trail like a pro – but, I wasn’t. I can’t even remember the exact spot where I fell. I didn’t black out, but I hit quick and hard. My bike and body were pile-driving my head into the dirt before I  had a chance to try and catch myself. Ouch. I lay there and groaned long enough to assess the situation. My riding group was long gone and fortunately, no one was zipping down the hill behind me.

I crawled back onto my bike and rolled the rest of the way down Kleeway. Once I hit the upper parking area I stuck to the road until I met my group waiting for me at the bottom. I didn’t feel like being tough and frankly, my knee had a big flap of skin hanging off that was really grossing me out. I got my group’s advice on preferred knee-pads (more on that in the future) and bid them adieu.

At home, my hubby tried to use our hose with a spray nozzle to clean out the wound, but the combination of pain, a messy gash, and 2 curious kiddos crawling on my achy bod, made me realize the job was not going to get done and the flap might just need some professional help. Off we went to the Emergency Room for some family bonding on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Tis but a flesh wound.
Showing the kids a good time.

The nurse told me my knee looked “gross” and the doctor told me it looked like it had just “exploded” on impact. Thanks to some magic injections, a fancy cleaning syringe, and a tetanus shot, my knee was cleaned and stitched up in no time. And, of course, the best time to take your bike in for a tune-up is when you won’t be needing it for awhile. So off it went for a tune-up to get ready to ride another day.