heavy week for us strippers. time to decompress with this nice little ditty that Scot sent my way. Thanks! happy Friday.

The Whole Enchilada: Top to Bottom – Moab, Utah from Phil Shep on Vimeo.

anyone up for a weekend trip to Bend, OR to hang with Wade and Vulture Cycles for his open house shin-dig? i’d like to go.

http://blog.vulturecycles.com/

watching the movie about the Leadville Trail 100 last night was pretty cool. did it make me want to give it a go, again? maybe… it definitely reminded me of all the great people we’ve raced with, who’ve volunteered at and organized those races, and who’ve become such good friends along the way. they’re what bring me back year after year and keep me looking for new and fun events to try. in the mean time, i keep on riding the local and near-local trails we are soooo lucky to have around here.

cheers to all the folks that make this sport fun at multiple levels!

HUGE sub-9 hour belt buckle…

remarkable

i momentarily considered participating in that dog valley race (?) yesterday, checked the single post blog about it and failed to find any kind of start time or meaningful map of the track, just some vague language about riding from the fort. no worries, i’d wanted to do a half day ride for sure and decided to just stop by there on my way out. no one was around at 0830 so i headed for Garson Grade. hit snow just the towers and remained on foot through slushy snow for one or 2 miles before rolling into the Bronco Ck drainage where the aspect turned west and the snow melted out. descended to Hirshdale, parched and starved, and took rest at the market. ate a deli sandwich with chips and a dill, a quart of gatorade, an iced tea, an ice cream sandwich, another quart of gatorade and rolled over to the Boca spillway to rinse off in the water. brrr!!! i met Amanda, Harper, and Oso another hour later at the Stampede trailhead for the Emigrant Trail and she took off for some shredding. i picked up a Foster’s oil can on the way over to the end of her ride, and we sat on the banks of Prosser Ck sharing a beer, playing with Harper, and watching Oso run around in the water. best of all, super delicious BBQ chicken and lamb chops, salad, beer, and brownies at the Barters that evening. good thing i rode uphill for 3 hours already, or i’d be getting fat.

2 miles of boot pack

nostalgia – looks a lot like the premodern bike culture

and then there’s the trials riders.

Danny MacAskill

Chris Akrig brakeless1

Chris Akrig brakeless2

“old school moto trials?”  what about new school?

Julian Dupont

thanks Mr. Banks!

the 24 hour race in Cool, CA was interesting.  rained like hell.  lots of mud, beer, and burned out brakes. 

after riding the first 2 laps back-to-back.

the various solo and team efforts ran the gamut of 5 hours of riding to 24 hours of riding as comfort, motivation, and equipment allowed.  perhaps the guys can post their results in comments rather than me try to remember all the details.  in our case, a 4 man comprised of Matt F., Greg from Downieville Outfitters, Nathan A. from Truckee, and moi.  Matt L. helped out with bike and light maintenance.   we were riding under the Jet Lights banner (impressive technology in those locally made riding lights!), we got in 15 laps by time the race ended (early too!) at 10am on Sunday.  Our last man, Matt F. charged his morning lap in an hour and 18 minutes and was gunning to finish another lap for us, but called it at the aid station when he saw the writing on the wall.  he know he wasn’t going to finish in time for that last lap to count and decided to just roll on the road back to the venue.  i’d been standing around in my cover-alls with cans of beer in the pockets since 9am waiting to hollar him in.  killer effort Matt!

rockin' the end game, Matt finished the race Strong for Jet Lights

preliminary lap split times for our team

fun racing with all you guys.  thanks for getting me on board.  2nd place ain’t bad!

missing from this pic is Greg

ended up with a chest/sinus cold after all that fun in the rain and missed at least half of the work week.  on Thursday i felt OK enough to work and just couldn’t pass up the bike commute on a blue bird spring day. riding up Keystone C. i got to watch a HUGE Army helicopter pluck an abandoned Chevy SUV out of the canyon.  now that’s cool.

it's not everyday you see one of these hovering IN keystone c.

see ya!

Grizz pole dancing

came across these nice gratuitous images of  a well placed “TBS” decal rocking a beverage container along with a custom decal -  “A KIND HOE.”

excellent handy work there, amiga, though i must say, dirty legs and cycling socks tan line.  now that’s race-ie!

grammatical error or acronym?

well, that happened a little later in the afternoon.  prior to that, a snow shower (hurray!) trail ride was in order.

quiet afternoon on Peavine

conditions were soupy at the put-in, but coverage improved and underlying mud quickly turned to frozen earth at higher elevations.

huck tater

needless to say, we didn’t run into many other trail users.  later in the afternoon we caught up with lots of friends happy to celebrate Shawn and Tennile’s new adventure in parenting.

Congrats Shawn and Tennile!

backpacking, enduro mtb rides, and 24 hour bike races are great cross training for becoming brand new parents!