I am not that fickle . Yeti was actually my 'first love' before Transition. I'm merely returning to 'The Tribe;' but not a decision I made lightly, believe me.

Heading out for an early morning ride before work. I have been waiting for some good weather. It's about 50f and a chance of rain. I think I can beat it if I leave out now.

Hmmmmm......I think a good spalttering of Pisgah mud is in order for a Sunday aftrnoon.

OH GOD, I accidentally a buzz cut.

And so the parts acquisition resumes.

Got some Titus pluto bars and knock off specialized grips, brand new from a friend for $3.

Ordered SLX shifters and XTR chain, finally no more 7 speed.

And plan to hit the trails 2+ times next week. I am excited.

I thought you guys might find some humor in this. It was written by my boss, his wife hes him on a short chain when it comes to outdoor adventures. She's sure that they are going to find his decomposed body somewhere at the bottom of a waterfall one day. You'll also see that Mr. Bossman has a wonderful way with words........


My entry letter for the contest to be on Man vs. Wild with Bear Grylls (Just kidding)Share
Yesterday at 21:29
Dear Bear,

I believe you should pick me to be your guest on one of your televised survival adventures. Americans have this whining thing down to an art form. I have no doubt you will be inundated with letters from this side of the Atlantic by very noble people who have selflessly overcome many challenges and probably deserve a chance to go adventuring with you. That stuff might work on Oprah, but not on someone like you who eats raw maggots from the rotting intestines of mountain goats. Let me be blunt. I don’t deserve it at all. Consider this: How would you feel if one of those noble, selfless candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize ended up croaking on one of your wild survival treks? Could you really live with that guilt? Why not take an ordinary guy like me and not risk years of emotional self-flagellation if I slip through one of those ice crevices? Instead of boring you with some really sad story about why I am the most deserving contestant I am going to cut right to the chase and appeal to your ego. Obviously, you have a massive ego. Anyone who breaks his back in two places and then goes on to become the young British person to climb Mt. Everest in order to write a book about it has to have an ego to match that lofty summit.

In trying to appeal to your ego, let me first just say what a cool name you have. It’s right up this with Crocodile Dundee. Americans rarely get named after ferocious animals and when they do it’s usually just a golfer named Tiger (although I recently heard he changed his named to Cheetah) or someone like that. Also, I must add that you have single-handedly restored my faith in British masculinity. Before Man vs. Wild, my opinion of your country had been largely formed by my wife’s obsession with Jane Austen’s Victorian England and those Notting-Hill-Love-Actually-Bridget-Jones movies that she is always watching. Based on those, I used to think that all British men ran around like Hugh Grant speaking in a posh accent while fretting over paper cuts or getting exercised about the bread crust on cucumber sandwiches. Then you came along, biting through the spinal cords of raw fish with your teeth, eating worms and drinking your own urine. Wow! You taught us what it means to be a real Brit of a man by showing us that when some of you say “bloody” it’s not just an expression, but an adjective that is going to describe supper on tonight’s episode of Man vs. Wild.

I also happened to notice that before you parachute out of planes or paraglide off the side of a helicopter you make the sign of the cross. So I suspect that if you are a religious man living in England that you must be an Anglican. What good fortune it is that I just happen to be an Episcopal clergy person. Having me on your show would help strengthen the Anglican Communion. There’s no question that it could use some of your survival skills. Now to be honest, those of us who are in the Anglican Communion really have no idea what that is other than to use one of our favorite phrases: “It’s a profound mystery.” However, like all good Anglicans, we believe that if it is really old then we must somehow work to preserve it. That is where you and I come in. Countless Archbishops and ecclesiastical hierarchs have held numerous conferences and drafted endless parliamentary resolutions seeking to ease the strain on the bonds of the Anglican Communion, but what it really needs to jump start the process is for an Episcopalian and a member of the C of E to go out and leap over a pit of rattlesnakes together or make our own zip line through a rain forest somewhere. I do not know the Archbishop of Canterbury personally, but I cannot help but think that you would earn some good will within Lambeth by doing your part to foster the Communion. You could even rename our joint episode and call it, “Man of the Cloth vs. Wild”.

The biggest reason you should allow me to come along is that it would make my friend Andy Bracken jealous that I actually got to do something more extreme than he did. That is no small feat. You see, we are both from Appalachian stock, but unlike my Welsh ancestors, I do not think his people came over from the Mother Country. They were already here. The Native Americans used to give them wide berth. In fact, I think the name Bracken comes from the Native American term “Brackenwahhasheenaw” which is roughly translated, “He who boils corn smashings and then drinks his own fire water.” Andy is always jumping off cliffs with his bike and going over rapids in a canoe. In other words, it is simply impossible to out-Bracken him, but being on the Man vs. Wild show would probably help me finally establish some bragging rights over him. Surely, if anyone can understand the urgency and importance of placing your good friend on a ride in the wuss-wagon for once, then you must because you do it to millions of us each week on your show.

Thank you for your consideration.
Tim Jones.

hahaha, well written. "brackenwahhasheenaw"

good idea or no?

I think that would wear out the chainring till it explodes in a way you don't want.

Bad bad bad bad idea.

Brakes are for woosies. Seriously though, how you gonna stop when the chain snaps?

jump off

Easier said than done... i think instead they will smush their pants yabbies on the top-tube in an attempt to fred-flinstone it!

I'm wondering about the possibility of various component failure. Guess we'll find that out if the space monkey checks in here or the ER...

either you jump or you just go with the zen that comes with no chain riding.

That level of zen prolly works out to about (normal fixed-gear zen)^2

Does one scream out loud or simply silently careen into the next red-light?

silently careen with all you have and eyes closed if you have big balls

vassup!

what have i missed in the last 9 months? has dminor had a hip reconstruction or anything yet?

BF-MTB's poster boy for cool (me) moved from perth, western australia to brisbane, queensland, australia. big move but hopefully it will pay off for my chosen career prospects.i turned 18 which is also cool (Legal age of adulthood here in aus so wish me a happy birthday schmucks. i beter have mssed a happy birthdy thread from '66 or dminor or someone!).

both my bikes got stolen. AGAIN. bout 2 weeks before the move which was a blessing in disguise because i hd to move from one side of the country to the other with nothing but 23kg (45 pounds?) of airline baggage and they wouldve been a big excess fee.

Pardon ny horribe speling and grmmar - i hv e to use one of those roll up silicone keyboards as the one on my laptop suffered from "Coke and crumb-itis". Its terminal.

TBH not really looking at getting another bike for a longgggggg time. I just plain cant afford it.

Been missing bf.net, but my neighbours wi-fi is faster and more reliable now, so thats good.

peace gangstas. From the exact other side of the country to where i uedto post from!

Welllllllll.....BFG.

Oi, BFG! Welcome back and happy belated birthday!

New bits to rebuild my step-dad's bike, plus a new chain and cassette for my NRS.

I can't get out to the trails today. Or this week at all probably.

Raining today.....did my taxes. I'm having some real issues in my chest from where I crashed a couple weeks ago. I need to take a little time off to heal but I'm just starting to get my legs under me again. I've been sticking to pretty tame rides and just logging miles. Running really hurts the day after. I think I'm gonna lay off the running for couple of weeks and see what happens.

Figured I'd post this here given some of the stuff that gets said here

https://jalopnik.com/5404867/forum-wa...-hit-the-track

Wow, BFG! Good to see you again, man. I was just thinking yesterday of BF people I miss having around and you came to mind (although I can see your post came in ahead of my thoughts).

Naw, no hip replacement . . . yet, haha! Although I have been hipping hip-jumps better - - does that count? And going bigger than I have before on stuff.My goal is to be boosting bigger stuff in five years, when I'm 60, than I am today.

Happy belated birthday!

BFG still alive and kickin, that's good.

Here's a shot from last Sunday's cross training sesh.