Day #: 229 Ride #: 147 Day's verts: 1900 Total vertical feet climbed: 261,700
Daily Deal: Impressive technical climbing performance
Ride Journal: Blanchard Mt., WA
Bruce Brown and Mark Belles
8/16/2000

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Mark conquering the big rock section on Lizard & Lilly.

Rode Blanchard Mt. with Mark, climbing Lizard & Lily and then descending the British Army Trail.

The climb seemed much faster and easier this time, and I rode everything (including some fairly good sized punchups) except for the two rock sections on Lizard & Lily. Mark climbed both of these on his second try, which was an impressive technical climbing performance.

The way down had some nice steep drops and rooty stairsteps, including one where I came to a quivering arrest against a tree (thus avoiding hitting Mark). Mark finally had to hold my bike so I could get free.

As a test of my cracking suspension, I rode part of the British Army Trail with the the rear end locked out. It rode quite well like this, but when I got home I found that the size of the crack had doubled.

The crack is located at the outer edge of the down bar weld from the right trunion mount, where all the leveraged down force from the seat is finally delivered to the frame.

So my five month old Jekyll now has a broken rear axle and a broken frame. I have also replaced the rear cogset (twice), chain (twice), tires (twice), front and rear wheel bearings, rear brake rotor, front and rear brake pads (twice). 

Approximately 1900 verts.

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Two views of Galbraith Mt. with Lake Samish in the foreground.

This is an excerpt from Vert Quest, which chronicles The Man Known As Mongo's pursuit of the World Record for climbing on a mountain bike, 404,000 vertical feet, or the vertical equivalent of 13 sea-level-to-summit ascents of Mt. Everest during a 12 month period.


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