Awesomeness!!

Got out the past 2 nights with the fast guys...only lost sight of them 2x last night. :)

K says, "Nice gloves" BTW. :D

Dat time of the year 16:45 and lights on full power:
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/j...5/IMG_0308.jpg

^Looks like a lot of fun.

Well...a few of us checked out the Bay Area's El Corte de Madera OSP trail system today...here's a link to the trails -->

http://trails.mtbr.com/cat/united-st...2_4519crx.aspx

Before headin' out next time, we're going to plan a better route so we can avoid tons of unnecessary climbing...would rather work with gravity.

Few pics...spent most of the time on the horse...getting pics while riding can be...annoying.

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j1...n/IMG_2916.jpg

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j1...n/IMG_2922.jpg

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j1...n/IMG_2914.jpg

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j1...n/IMG_2930.jpg

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j1...n/IMG_2917.jpg

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j1...n/IMG_2942.jpg

Shorty today. Had fun. Broke a spoke towards the end. The five year old rear rim was getting a bit too non-round anyhow, so snipped out the spokes and pulled the rest of the bits off the hub. Getting a fresh lacing to a Mavic XC-717 in a couple days. It's survived with a few new spokes and the once in a while truing job until now, but finally decided today was time to lay it to rest.

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f1.../IMG_00202.jpg

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f1.../IMG_00272.jpg

Stripped off all the "extra" add-on's I had on the Durango, and went for a run with a couple of guys from the Colorado Springs Mountain Bicycling Club-Meet Up Group on Sunday. Did my first group riding on trails in basicly 25 years!! LOL, ya I sucked big time, especially in the "rock gardens" but they were cool and gave this noobie lot's of good technique tips so it turned out to be "tiring", (I'm 55 and only be doing road riding) but awesome to get back on the "dirt". Todays ride was just a quick run to the LBS to sort out the "front derailer" shifting problem, then back home, the weather was COLD, CLOUDY and WINDY.

Some rocky section from Sunday.

http://i423.photobucket.com/albums/p...0/100_9151.jpg
http://i423.photobucket.com/albums/p...0/100_9152.jpg
http://i423.photobucket.com/albums/p...0/100_9153.jpg

^

thats looks like a rush!

Well, so this isn't from today . . . or this week even. But never's friend just got these up this week, so I could cross-post 'em over here (with my apologies to The Gypsy for the thievery). July at Sun Peaks, B.C. The creek gap on the old Masters Worlds course. Too much fun. I think I pushed back up at least 10 times to hit it.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._6884369_n.jpg

Oops! Over-rotated a bit . . .

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._1157294_n.jpg

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._2636715_n.jpg

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._3112740_n.jpg

Never quite got to the far side of the road this session. Have done it once, though - - quite a rush.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._6162097_n.jpg

Chris boostin' it:

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._1608111_n.jpg

Sorry no pics of never. I don't think I took any there.

Gypsys don't apologize when they steal so no apology necessary from you!

It was dark, yet warm last night.

5 miles of hell
 

it's december, yet the weather was perfect for riding. me and landon (one of the best riders i know) went to utah and rode the 5 miles of hell. if you don't know, the 5moh is a 20 mile loop with a 6 mile of section that is a motorcycle trials trail. you pedal a bit, get a fun technical downhill, walk through sandy wash, and push your bicycle up unrideable rocky goodness. there are approximately 807 of these canyons (probably less, but it seemed that way). there are 3 escapes from hell, nicely marked, and they are tempting. we didn't bother to take any of them, we stuck with it. with suffering comes reward. it's not really a "Trail," you just follow white markings on rocks through amazing landscape. thank god for those white markings. without them, i would have been lost. after you finally get out of "hell," and are completely knackered, right on the verge of bonking, then you have 8 more miles of pedaling up loose crappy road to get back to the car. good times.
if you really really like trials riding, and super technical riding, this is the place for you. the downhills are super crazy fun, the rest is just brutal. we did the 20 miles in six hours. most of those hours were spent on the 5moh part. of course, like all rides, we only took pics of the boring stuff. the good parts we were too busy riding to stop and photograph.



if you want to read landon's take on it, you can read it here
http://commandonlandon.blogspot.com/...ough-hell.html

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/q...iks68/5moh.jpg
http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/q...ks68/5moh2.jpg
http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/q...ks68/5moh3.jpg
http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/q...ks68/5moh4.jpg
http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/q...ziks68/033.jpg

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/q...ziks68/025.jpg

Sounds like my kind of 'ride' :D. Read Landon's full report too - - good stuff.






Revisiting this for a moment. I might suggest at least some of it be compiled with Offspring's One Fine Day for the music bed. You know which parts.

^^ Sun Peaks (well . . . all of B.C.) is in a class of its own. We don't have all the subalpine firs right around Spokane - - more semi-arid open pine forest. But you don't have to go too far north or east to get into stuff like that.

Here's a view from up on Beacon Hill. That's the Mica Peak/Liberty Lake area off in the distance (sscyco's back yard):

http://bee509.files.wordpress.com/20...e6566f577.jpeg

oh no way! im probley going to do alot of my studing in the woods on a rock somewhere, haha. For some reason it reminds me of the movie Homeward Bound! I cant wait.

Sadly, after a quick review, there's not a lot of worthwhile footage. I didn't have the camera for my best days of riding at Whistler and I didn't record Stream Shovel or Honey Drop at Sun Peaks for some reason. Nothing really exciting from the North Shore except for a creek gap that came out of nowhere that I didn't really clear.

Only really good run was my last last pass down Rio Escondido in Kamloops but part of the way down I got a drop of mud in the middle of the camera and the rest of the run was ruined.

I'll be able to put a few clips together though.

Ah, well, anything you got will be fun to see. Steam Shovel needs a serious workover next time. That is one fun trail. I think I need to get a GoPro - - if for nothing else than to document and get a replay of what went wrong :D. I'm still curious about my disappearance into the abyss on Honey Drop.

Hey you PNWeners, me and a few buddies have been talking about flying into Spokane and then driving N on the 395 into BC for fishing, golfing and MTBing. Gladstone, GReystoke and Upper Seymour. Any suggestions on trails or courses up there. Seem to be shorter golf courses up there.

Pablo, great pics. Looks like your still using the GD seat post. Are you still stoked on it and the new fork? I'm guessing your in the white shirt.

Buffalo Creek was niiiiiiiice last night..... & it was dark except where the Amoebas were pointed.

I went for a quick winter ride in Kanata Lakes yesterday afternoon. I was breaking in my new Kona Unit on my first snowy ride this winter and I wasn't really feeling it. My dog was having a great time but I never really found my flow so decided to head back after an hour. Maybe 3k from the end of the trail is a feature called Deer Drop. It's a slightly off-camber Canadian Shield type rocky roll-down with some grapefruit sized stones at the top. I've probably ridden this in both directions fifty times and wasn't really paying attention and clipped my bar on a small tree on the right which jammed my wheel into one of the small rocks, sending me over the bar. If I had gone to the right, I wouldn't have fallen more than two feet. I ended up going left and probably fell about 6-8 feet onto my left shoulder.

As soon as I hit the ground, I knew something wasn't right. I swore like a sailor but it didn't seem to help a whole lot. I could still move my fingers but anything beyond that was pretty painful. I walked the rest of the steep section and then rode one-handed through all the less-techy stuff and took the first quick out to the road.

With considerable difficulty, I loaded the bike into the car and drove home. My wife helped me get changed and we went to the hospital. We walked out two and a half hours later (not bad by big Canadian city standards) with a sling, a prescription for some Percoset and x-rays indicating a broken collarbone.

All in all, it could have been better but it could have been much worse. I have two months to think about how to take that line a little better.

Bad day eh Grimlock, sorry to hear about the broken collarbone. Always seems to happen when your not feeling it, been my experience. This is as good a time as any to have a time out-go to your corner and think it over. Heal fast.