7/12/2023 0 Comments Quick tunes mt ashlandWe’re hiking today through Castle Crags Wilderness. Whenever we broke out of the trees, we were greeted by amazing vertical views of crags shooting up out of the treeline. Our first 9 miles were a little choppy, but under some great tree cover. Still, it was awesome to meet you at last, Otter! Otter and his hiking partner Anchor are hoping to do 6 days to Seiad Valley, skipping right over Etna, so they quickly outpaced us when we got to hiking. One waved me down as I passed and asked “Hey, are you Slice?” This was longtime friend of the blog Otter, who had followed my AT journey in 2016 and was now also thru hiking the PCT this year! After a few online exchanges earlier this year, I was wondering when we would run into one another! Since the bus took what felt like an extremely circuitous route back to the trailhead, we had an hour long drive to catch up, getting to hear about each other’s journeys so far. Mango, Bushwhack and I were all reluctant to leave our comfy motel beds this morning, but we set our alarms for 5am to catch the 6am bus back to the trailhead.Īs we climbed on to the bus, we saw about a half dozen other hikers. Our time in Shasta was spent doing as little as humanly possible, and I’m dang proud of the fact that I didn’t leave the motel property at all yesterday. After pushing pretty hard for the preceding 300 miles through record-setting heat waves, my body was toast. Whew, I really needed that zero in Mt Shasta. Craig Calfee said, “Jim you have hit a home run on the first build with this one”.Start: Interstate 5 / Mt Shasta End: Dirt Road Just Past Shasta-Trinity Gumboot Trailhead PCT Miles Hikes Today: 25.4 The Calfee built QTS bicycle turned out beautiful and operated even better. In 2018 Jim commissioned world-renowned carbon bicycle builders Calfee’s Designs Inc in California to execute a special build that would show off the great capabilities of QTS. Reading and researching how to get a patent, a lawyer, and build a real prototype bicycle. Next, how easy would it be to really change the steering angle? With only minor changes, the design worked very nicely. Playing with drawings and cardboard parts he found that there was really very little weight added if any at all. The idea developed very quickly once he figured out that detail. He then took another approach that included incorporating the frame into the steering design. The first idea started out being bulky and adding too much weight. A steering design was developing in Jim’s mind. The setup was more technical than a complete bike assembly. The industry has a couple of products that are very difficult to operate, expensive and very minimal in amount of adjustment. Researching previous attempts in the bicycle industry he did not find a good option. With a lot of manufacturing, testing, developing a wide variety of products and through knowledge in steering, Jim came up with the idea of changeable steering angle. Again it was half way in or out but neither really perfect for the feel or situation. Why could he not have a real XC feel when riding his local tight snaking technical trails and a fast blaster for the big down hills at the Shenandoah 100 in Virginia. He was not at all pleased with what options were available though the bikes were great. Jim was always thinking if he were to buy a new bicycle what would he buy and how could he get the feel of XC and stability of enduro. The QTS idea developed when he was reading about new bicycles and their geometry. Quick Tune Steering is an idea that Jim came up with in 2015.
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