^^^ Great pictures but they make me nervous.

Reminiscing about two weeks ago. The little red spot is me, I believe.

We are blessed with some very nice late summer weather now, this photo is from the end of a long gravelgrinding ride where I tried to find a nice singletrack path and ended up carefully leading the bike down some very rocky sections.The good path was some few yards up the road I was told by a 20 year old girl from my club who passed me and had also misakenly taken this path. She was very corteous to an old geezer and then just disappeared down the difficult sections on her 29'er hardtail.

In a few years, it'll be hard to tell there was a fire at all. Most of the vegetation out there has evolved to survive fires pretty well.

I think you need another trip to the mountains.

I am actually looking forward to going back out there, at least in late winter/early spring. I figure all those "fire follower" wildflowers will be blooming. It was amazing to already see all the basel sprouting of the laurel sumac and other plants out there. My problem is the drive North... from Orange County just too much traffic - took us 2 1/2 hours to get home. Next weekend we are going to Big Bear. Farther away but less traffic to get there.

If you ride Big Sycamore, what route do you normally take? Not certain what we chose is what everyone does as alot of traffic was going back at us...

And Duselsack... made me nervous too. I did walk some sections...

This one



reminds me of this hike on Mt. Rainier. It seemed steeper when we crossed it, and it felt like one wrong move would be your last.

And as you can imagine I was slow and cautious down this trail while my friends left me behind for dead. Actually the trail was probably in poor shape because of the fire but it is well designed. What you don't see are the off camber switchback turns... talk about scary!!! And the fact this trail is very long (you can see where I need to go way in the distance) so being old, my hands kept cramping up (arthritis!). I stopped, massaged my hands and kept going. I could just see taking a fall... and then meeting up with my friends all covered with black soot! That would be bad. My one friend was cramping bad so did take a fall halfway down ( I didn't see it) and was just filthy!

So the heat (AND SMOG!) has finally come to Orange County but despite that got out and did a 20 mile ride last night after work. I am very fortunate to live and work near a very exclusive area called Shady Canyon. It is a private community, filled with incredible mansions, but there is a bike trail easement and we cyclist are privileged to use it. Clouds coming in mixed with smog and smoke... my eyes and lungs were burning after this ride!

No. No way. Never. Not ever. Even this photo makes me want to fall to the ground and hang on for dear life.

Torn tire. Boom.Bad things happen. by ccorlew, on Flickr

It's bigger than any of us

First bent biff. My, how it hurt.

Is that a Schwalbe Supreme? How many miles on the tire?

Schwalbe Marathon Racer. About 3500 miles. It was the back tire on my commuter bike which usually has full panniers. it's been pretty darn flat resistant. I think the only flats I've had are when I've gotten a goatshead totally stuck in it. The front tire with the same mileage still looks fine.

My replacement is a Schwalbe Marathon GreenGuard Tire. Maybe I should have gone with the Marathon Supreme but it cost twice as much. We'll see how the GreenGuard works.

From my hike around Jasper National Park last weekend.

Great pics!!

"Learn at the feet of yesterday, be alive for the sake of today, be in hope for the sake of tomorrow"

Interesting day... rode up Blackstar Rd. to Main Divide early this morning. When I get to the top, saw some kids playing on an old water drilling tower:



As soon as I complete my climb and the Tower comes into full view, I see one of the rails break and a young man falls about 40 ft to the ground and lands hard on his back. He was up there on Main Divide running with his cross-country team. His coach was absolutely clueless. My friend and I are first aid certified so we took over. The young man was seriously injured I believe with a fx wrist and possibly tail bone and bad contusions and lacerations on both knees, arms, back and butt. He went into shock fairly quickly.

Anyway to make a long story short, we called 911, a Cal Fire helicopter and truck arrived (took 40 minutes from the call). An Orange County truck and helicopter also showed up. All was cool to see but I felt so bad for this young boy (he was 15) and just started high school. I got mad at his group as they are took off except for one young girl and the coach. The girl was gorgeous and she was so sweet and gentle with the young man. He would put her arms around him and just keep him engaged. My riding companion is a mom and just went into mom mode holding and talking softly to the boy (who had been crying the whole time) he was brave, he was tough and he was going to be alright.

Anyway he got a ride in a helicopter - hope that makes up for the pain! Sortof put a damper on what started out to be a lovely ride... we were all very somber going down...

I had the EXACT same cut about 18 months ago (and it wasn't from a fall, believe it or not).

It happened near the beginning of a 24-hour ride, and instead of getting it cleaned up, I finished the ride. Consequently, the healing was slow and the scar looks like a cyclist's tattoo! (I.e. a scar with 4 perfectly formed compact chain ring teeth )

You got it sir!

It is a wonderful saying.

Interesting story. Lucky kid, could have died, right?

Had he hit his head... I don't want to think about it. He also could have had some serious internal injuries.....

I have reflected on this all day and night... regardless of what people believe... there was an incredible amount of coincidences going on....our ride start time; the fact my friends waited for me instead of starting back down earlier (since I am a much slower climber the plan was for them to reach the top and then come back down to swoop me up); me arriving just as the fall occurred.... had my friend and I not been there, not certain what would have happened. The coach and kids were ill-prepared for any such injuries. They had nothing with them - no even water! It amazes me (and I gave the coach what for) that these kids were doing a 14 mile run with no water, no food, little clothing and protection from the sun and heat or cell phones... they had nothing. PLUS no one knew exactly where they were. If no for us, not certain if paramedics could have found them since the area was remote. At the time I just arrived, since it was so early in the morning, we were the only other people up there. And it was fortunate that my friend and I are first aid certified. Just so glad we could help!

Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous. - Einstein

I swear I was attacked by this thing: