Tag Archives: mountain biking

Should we abandon the term fastpacking?

“Drop completely the term “fastpack.” You are backpacking, so call it that. There is a very well developed community of backpackers who take an endurance athlete’s approach to the activity, myself included. I’d encourage you to join it rather than try to create a new niche in the ultra niche. Don’t create distinctions where there are none. I’ll add that I find “fastpacking” to sound very elitist — it’s as if runners can’t admit that they are “backpacking” and it implies that the rest of us are just “slowpacking.”

-Andrew Skurka

Skurka left that comment on an article written about fastpacking a few months ago.  To be perfectly honest, to me it was nonsensical. I dropped a quote on one of my previous posts from a climber demoting mountaineering to “hiking and camping”. As absurd as it sounds, it’s absolutely accurate. Whether hiking in Shenandoah National Park or climbing Everest, you’re mostly walking and sleeping. But if we didn’t have the term mountaineering, we may not know whether our friend just climbed Everest or went on a stroll in Nepal. His argument is synonymous to saying we don’t need the term whale because it’s just a mammal or we don’t need to term hiking because it’s just walking.

But it brings up an interesting question, what exactly is fastpacking? Continue reading Should we abandon the term fastpacking?

Living in transition

This week is a taper week. Its killing me. I’m supposed to take it easy for every workout. I just want to get out on my mountain bike and hammer it hard. I even dream of hammering, ripping my legs to shreds. I love the feeling of getting home after a hard ride or run and sitting down on the carpet with a recovery drinks that tastes like a mix of my own fecal matter (and looks it to) and stretching my sore legs out.

On Sunday is Power sprint triathlon in Richmond. This will be my third time racing it. Both times I finished third overall. I hope for something more this year, but with the athletes on my team having outdone me earlier in the season, that goal may be difficult. I have started off slow this season and I hope this will be my break through race. Rocketts turned out to not be that race so maybe this one will.

It is my birthday on Saturday but my mom and I decided to shift it to Sunday so that I will be able to eat cake. My new backpack for hiking the Appalachian trail will come in soon and so will my new Kazane road bike frame.

The day of Powersprint there is also a cycling race in Richmond. I may attempt to race the afternoon race after my triathlon. If I do not do well in the tri I may want to race again to redeem myself. Graeme Obree set the World one hour record on sore legs the day after his first attempt. Maybe I could do that on a lesser scale.

Solitude

Fezzari

A few months ago I enjoyed my first ride on my new mountain bike. The Fezzari Solitude. I had done my research, and while other mountain bikes had criticisms in at least every other review, I could not find one single review that remarked negatively on the performance of a Fezzari bike.

It was not that the reviews were not there, or that the critiquing riders were unknowledgable and inexperienced. I found that there were more people riding on Fezzari bikes than I initially thought. I had no trouble finding reviews, but try as I might to find a way to criticize the company, I could not find any reason to not run to my local bike shop and buy one right away.

Trouble was, there are no dealers I know of. Fezzari sells direct though. No problem, they don’t sell retail pricing. So I don’t need to be a dealer to get the direct price. So I was wondering what the catch was. I went to mtbr.com, to find a reason why these bikes could sell for so cheap and be so greatly reviewed. It was a futile search and I threw up the white flag and realized that Fezzari was legit.

Through a couple weeks of bad weather, my beautiful clean carbon hard tail sat in my dorm room, unridden. I wanted to ride it so badly but I knew if I rode I would destroy the wet trails. My patience running at its end, the sun shone through the clouds and I pulled out my dusty mountain biking shoes. I was out the door headed towards unknown trails with no map. I didn’t care. I had a new bike that needed testing.

First thing I noticed was the responsiveness. I felt like I was pulling G’s every time I pushed down on the pedals. I felt like I was going to fall off the bike every time I accelerated. It was not that I got any stronger eating twinkies and watching movies all winter. I was shocked, and stubborn as I am, I still did not want to admit that I could have gone so long without knowing of this great bike company.

But once I hit the trails and headed uphill i could not lie to myself anymore. I was riding on a crazy advanced piece of machinery. I have ridden a Felt DA and a specialized S-works and did not feel this same kind of unworthiness. Fezzari had hit on every factor of bike building and had succeeded in mastering every element. There was nothing I could find that was wrong with this bike. It’s paint job was even sweet.

No longer a skeptic, I crested the mountain and turned downhill only to discover a new feature. I started down the mountain and although I knew I was not pedaling, by the immediate acceleration, I could have sworn something was pushing me. The darn thing felt like it was motorized. Scared at first, thanking god for these sweet xt brakes, I held my speed under control.

Soon though I realized I had nothing to fear. As I became more and more comfortable I realized I could corner on this bike at much higher speeds with much more control than on my old bike. I was absolutely and utterly ecstatic.

When I got back to my dorm room my roommate must have thought I just met the girl of my dreams. Call me a bike geek but this was better. Knowing absolutely nothing about bikes, he still could understand how awesome this bike is. It doesn’t take a genius to know a nice bike when it accelerates like a drag racer, corners like an Indy car, and is as light as a track bike.

I was in love. And after many, many rides, I am still in love. The girl of my dreams can hold on because I’m busy mountain biking. I look forward to even the most daunting of cycling workouts just as long as I get to ride on my Fezzari Solitude.

I just can’t wait to race on the thing. Last year I won the Xterra Sport in Richmond on my clunker. I think in racing, the name “Solitude” might express itself in more than just letters on the frame. I may be turning around wondering what happened to all my competitors.