TR: North Shore Ripper

[shirk]

The NSMBA holds a great series of "Events" called the North Shore Rippers. The spirit of the Rippers is that it's not a race but just a real fun event. Some people take it serious and lay down some fast times. Othes dress up in costumes and just have a blast.

A week before the event I got a bright idea. Why not do the race on a vintage bike and have some fun. Bit of a twisted idea to ride down the trails on Mt. Fromme on a seriously old school bike with crummy canti brakes.


The bike is a mid 80's Norco Mountaineer. I found the bike in a second hand shop back in October. In 1988 I bought an almost identical Mountaineer SL as my first mountain bike. I was pretty stoked to find this vintage bike as it was the same colour and almost identical to my first real bike. Swapped the shity tires for some 1.9 xc knobbies and put on my clipless pedals. So zero maintenance on the vintage bike I paid $23 for, yep great idea to race this on sucker on the North Shore.


To round out the vintageness, I sported some short shorts, CCM hockey helmet and gardening gloves. Trimmed the scruff into a handlebar mustache, loaded the back pack up with a 6 pack of beer and I was ready to rock.


The event draws all sorts. You can do it either solo or as a two person team, one person climbs and one decends. Some dude was warming up on rollers when we got there.


Batman and Robin decided to hit it on a tandem.


D and Van_skier were riding the climbing portion then handing off to teammates.

James the organizer loves to screw with the racers so the course is a secret until race day. At the start line we actually had to turn back around and ride up a section of singletrack instead of the usual road route. This was a total cluster for anyone that was standing at the front wanting to get a jump on the climb. Didn't really matter to me as when James yelled GO I cracked a beer. No better way to start a 45 minute climb then to chug a beer.

The bike actually climbed pretty good, untill I stood to tried to really crank on it and the front wheel moved in the drop outs. Now this wouldn't be a problem on a regular bike, just flip the quick release and reset the wheel and tighten the quick release. Maybe I should have tossed a 15mm wrentch in with my beer. So the front wheel rubbed on the fork for 2/3 of the climb. Once at the top I chugged another beer and asked if anyone had a 15mm wrentch. Yeah none of the DH guys had anything more then allen keys.

So with the front wheel out of place the canti brakes didn't work so well. I rode the whole way down with the lever pinned to the bars using loads of rear brake. The downhill route consisted of 7th Secret then Pipeline. Both pretty tame trails by shore standards. There are a number of tech rock roll down corners on both. Riding this thing with little to no brakes was a point and shoot effort. I surprised myself and rode everything on both trails. The lower section of the Rock Rollercoaster was pretty hairball.


Here is someones vid of the rock roller coaster on Pipeline.

The bike and I survived to the bottom of Pipeline and just had to do the short uphill on the BP and a couple tech bits and I was home free. There was a course marshal at the "Stairs of Despair" saying they were slick and that most people were not riding it. I've cleaned the line tons of times and figured no biggie. Well in the compression at the bottom of the corner I lost traction and rear brakes. The rear brake yoke busted so I just un hooked the straddle cable and rode on. About fifty feet later the left canti dove into the rim and destroyed about 10 spokes. Ah shit time to run. Tossed the bike over the shoulder cyclocross style and ran to the finish back up at the water towers on Mountain Hwy. After crossing the finish line I chugged another beer

Post ride bike shots.

Front brake. Tossed a pad somewhere on the DH and wore the plastic arm on the tire.


Rear brake.



New aero rear wheel with special spoke placement.

Overall winners where Wade Simmons and Mike Hunter. I actually placed pretty good in the solo category, 35th out of 57. It was a great day, super fun event. There are three more events in the series. A team Super D, the CBC timetrial and Triple Crown. I have a few ideas cooking for the CBC and Triple Crown. Should be interesting to see what some of the others come up with also.

[mtnbikerskierchick]

Love it shirk! Great humor!

[Arty50]

New aero rear wheel with special spoke placement.

You should totally win the McGuyver Award for that. Oh and nice stash too.

[marshalolson]

WAY TO FINISH!!! (and congrats on finishing pretty well...)

[BigAirSkier1580]

Lol @ chugging a beer at the start of a MTB race.

[uncle crud]

Hah hah hah, nice work Shirk!

You gots a pitcher of yo seff at NSMB.com

[flowtron]

Good stuff.
Quality retro effort Shirk. The shorts are $$$.

[rideit]

I heart Canadia.

[fixiewrek]

Classic!

[Van_skier]

Stubz productions put together a video.

http://broadbandsports.com/node/7531

Shirk rides through at around 1:45

[moose pit]

Nicely done!

[Natedogg]

Why not do the race on a vintage bike and have some fun. Bit of a twisted idea to ride down the trails on Mt. Fromme on a seriously old school bike with crummy canti brakes.

Thats awesome.

Simmons... that dude cracks me up. "dahhhh, Im gunna do the..."

"Dahhh, whaddya think's IN the burger?!"

[watanabee]

Even with that bike you still beat me by 15 or so places, good on ya shirk!

The ripper was such a fun race, I'll be out at the next for sure.

[shirk]

Even with that bike you still beat me by 15 or so places, good on ya shirk!

The ripper was such a fun race, I'll be out at the next for sure.

Did you come to the after party? Best part of the Rippers is the after parties.

[Mr. Altagirl]

Solid work. Lt. Dangle would love those shorts (cop on Reno 911).

[slippy]

post more tr's like this, thank you. funny shit.

[shirk]

post more tr's like this, thank you. funny shit.

There are three more events, so should be three more TR's.

Only problem is two of the three are team events for I have to convince someone to join in my fun. Problem is my ideas are surely twisted.

[Spark]

Even with that bike you still beat me by 15 or so places, good on ya shirk!

The ripper was such a fun race, I'll be out at the next for sure.

Paul, I didn't see you. I was in charge of the registration for the Relay teams. I'll be doing registration for all the Ripper Events. I'll see you next time.

Next Ripper is the Super DH on May 12th ... good times will be had again

[AK Rev]

Shazam! That pic of the rear wheel is $$$.

[AK Rev]

Somebody needs to do that on an old Huffy with streamers on the grips and a banana seat...Shirk?

[watanabee]

Paul, I didn't see you. I was in charge of the registration for the Relay teams. I'll be doing registration for all the Ripper Events. I'll see you next time.

Hey Spark. I didn't see you either, was that at the same tent as the solo registration? You didn't see me warming up on my roadbike beforehand?

We should go for an afterwork ride some night. I'm trying to get out at least twice a week

Next Ripper is the Super DH on May 12th ... good times will be had again .

What's involved in the Super DH? Any ideas of trails that I can warm up on prior to the race? Does it involve an uphill as well?

[watanabee]

Did you come to the after party? Best part of the Rippers is the after parties.

no, unfortunatly I couldn't make it. I'll be at the next one though for sure.

[shirk]

What's involved in the Super DH? Any ideas of trails that I can warm up on prior to the race? Does it involve an uphill as well?

Last year it was CBC, TNT, Upper Dales then climb back up Incline to Corkscrew then Pingu, Pangor. Ended on the Bridal Path above Empress.

Was talking to James this afternoon and the course might involve climbing back up a portion of Neds. He wants to mess things up again as usual. Figure on it being about 70/30 climbing decenting ratio maybe. He's an old xc guy so you know there will be climbing.

CBC is the closest to just DH. The course for this year should extend beyond the bottom of CBC to make it longer.

[watanabee]

Thanks. I have to get over and ride Seymour a lot more. CBC's the only trail I've ridden over there.

[Spark]

You didn't see me warming up on my roadbike beforehand?

Ya, we had complaints about you riding there...that was prime sponsorship property since all the riders had to register.