Singlespeeding Brown County State Park

Brown County State Park nearly broke me this weekend.  Nearly.

Actually getting down to BCSP this early in the season is out of the norm for me. But, a free Saturday and sunny skies made such a trip mandatory.  Plus, I actually haven’t done much in the way of single track riding so far this year. Since the first races start in less than a month, training on trail seems to be a good idea to reawaken technical skills that were of limited use this winter.

Anyway, a friend and I got to BCSP around 9:15 am with the main parking lot already filling up. His bike is a low 20lb Niner (the titanium one) with full Sram XX. That thing looked like it was about to fly off the bike rack by itself. Very fast ride. My bike, which is probably why the ride nearly broke me, was my Monocog 29er with a 32-18 ratio. Tackling the best single track in the midwest with a single speed has been on my cycling to do list for a while.

Tackle it I did. Or maybe it tackled me. Either way, it was a solid ride, and I got some great climbing and technical practice.

We made sure to ride the Green Valley since the rumor is that it will be included in the DINO Brown County race this year.  I was happy to make it up Hesitation Point in one piece, although I had some trouble with two rocky sections where I lost my forward momentum and couldn’t overcome the rocks. Momentum is one of a single speeder’s best friends, but no big deal. A bit of hike a bike didn’t hurt. Same situation on Walnut, although the trail was actually kind of crowded so some of my stops were due to others picking their way through the rocks. Once on the south end of the park, we turned around and did it all backwards.  Here is our track from the ride:

During the return ride on Green Valley I started to feel a cramp in my left calf. I had been doing a lot of out of the saddle climbing on the bar ends (I love bar ends) and my legs were about spent and my back had started to ache.  Luckily the cramps held off until the downhill to the parking lot and we ended with 26 miles and a lot of climbing.

My thoughts on single speeding BCSP? Perfectly doable, although I’m wondering if a 20 t rear cog would make the climbs and rocky sections more manageable. I think next time I will make sure to bring my geared bike unless I am riding by myself. I felt like I was holding up the party due my slower pace.

Also, I think the addition of Green Valley to the DINO course will be fun. The loop has a series of descents and climbs; basically a little bit of everything for everyone. I’ll lose time on the descents but the climbs will play to my advantage.

After destroying my legs I intended to take a rest day on Sunday since the weather indicated rain. Well no rain showed up and the day was perfect. With a high near seventy and sun, a ride at Town Run was in the cards. Having enough of the single speed for one weekend, I replaced the cyclocross tires on my geared 29er with my proposed race tires, a Maxxis Ignitor 2.1 on front, and an Aspen on the back. I kept the carbon fork on the bike as opposed to my Reba to see how the rigid handled single track. 

Despite my legs feeling a bit tired, the ride was very fun and the bike did very well. I did not miss the front suspension at all, and the Aspen performed very well. Even in the dusty and sandy sections, I had no slippage and it seemed to roll quite fast.  The DINO tune up race (practice) is held at Town Run on the 27^th, so I think I will keep the rigid fork on until that race