Ride Matt, Ride!

oh man... I just woke up doing my mental inventory for today's ride, etc, and realized mw is riding accross Iowa already.

Ride Matt, Ride!

shheeeesh, more creatures.

creature side of the desert

screw it....a couple mo' from the desert

here's a few more pics from the gooseberry trip. might as well share 'em since i've got em.

Little Creek Mesa

Gooseberry Mesa

this ride was personally my favorite. A good mix of granite, singletrack, and good views.

a couple more of the rim

Hurricane Rim

Hurricane rim was a nice ride...22 miler, fairly smooth terrain that felt like a roller coaster...you gently gain in elevation for the first half and the second half was big ringin' fun.

Drivin' to the goose

12 and a half hour drive down to the small town of Hurricane utah for some good riding in the Zion area...through the mountains of idaho, montana, and utah....purdy damn good scenery. And a 2 a.m. stop at some very not so well known natural hotsprings. Damn good times, which is always easy to do when in the presence of good buddies, good weather, and nice bikes.

May the wind be at your back!

TransIowa is this weekend?

Good luck Wills! Although with the planning and riding you've been doing, I don't think you'll need it! And save enough energy to smile a bit at the finish line.

Woods + Singletrack = Good

Had a couple great rides this weekend, back into the forest for the first time since last year for me. Exploring a bit, getting lost, and eating my new favorite trail food, it's got that "natural identical flavour." Mmm mmm Good.

Is it really five weeks away?

MG had me thinking about this classic ride. Lion's gulch, rain, Pablo pushing the limits and the limits pushing back. But see how he's leaving with a smile on his face, in spite of his previous sentiment towards DMD?

LFTF. A month and a week away. I've got to get to riding before then!

Everest Peace Project

Ali (see the second picture, as of today) my wife's cousin is the Palestinian part of this. If'n you were at the wedding, he was the guy who was carrying my wife around during those crazy arabic songs.

Pretty damned cool, climbing Everest.

captN Kirk says " Big Rig drivin' aint no fun"

just heard from the capin'.

imagine....wind advisory, wyoming, 24 ft. uhaul trailor, and 6 mpg ! Good luck buddy cuz your gonna need it !



later

last shakedown

maybe the last shakedown ride before the event. and i had a partner this time. thanks mg. that was nice to have someone along. this is at 234 and just south of fairveiw, looking north. i'd take these conditions for the TI. northwest wind. mmmm baby.

this is weird, different route then last week (slightly), different wind, but same mileage and same average to the tenth! weird. instead of going to 322 we went north on 310. instead of heading up to the glass church on pflug we headed west on ruff and then northeast on hwy6 to 234 up to capehart. i thought i'd have a few miles plus over last week. but no. oh well. interesting experiment.

Saturday, Salida

Saturday was perfect woolie weather in Salida. 60ish, windy, sun. Rode a big loop from town, that resulted in a lot of fun, etc. (all but the ladies pics are from Saturday, Sunday was Buena Vista with the gals)

"This looks 90% right. Yeah! 90% familiar!"

Ladies Ride!

Monkey Face?

Butter the Muffin, Stick it in the Oven

Pablo made me promise to say that whenever I post him on the blog.

family pic

yuuummmm...spring weather and bonfires !

I love new tires.

I like to wear tires down to the nub. You know, get my money's worth. Today was new tire day. They were so freshy fresh that they were picking up bits of sand.

New Tires. Yum.

Beer + Ice Cream = ???

I can't wait to try some.

on the way

i like pink bikes
and i cannot lie
you other brothers
can't deny...

better view

i think the church looks nicer when you don't know the interstate is right on the other side. this is pflug road looking west. got 73miles on sunday. my house, mopac, platte, southbend, schramm, glass church, capehart road, bellevue, wallmart, freshly cooked veggie stirfry. 14.6 average for 5hrs riding. almost 30minutes off the bike, peeing, taking pictures, talking to mk, eating...so with the 30minutes added then that's 13.3 average. made me feel a bit more confidence for the end of the month. i did have a stong south wind. which was tail some and crossing strong some. but i felt good thinking i might actually be able to break down the event into 4 80milers. give or take. ouch. i've been thinking about it alot in increasing detail. spose that's what i need to do. i had the 1.8's up to 55psi. more crossy but still comfy and not bad on fresh big gravel.

Out of the woodwork.

That's a lot of nos frames.

welcome aboard captain

kirk....the new doors were hung today, and i thought you'd enjoy a sneak peak at your new 9-5 view. Lookin' forward to having you up here and helping me out. See ya soon buddy ! Smudges.....so new i haven't cleaned'em.

Tara is officially a gear head.

Thats right folks, my wife competed in her first trials event by Weeping Water. 1st place in womens novice.

SDA's a chocolate stealing thief.

After sleeping through some of the six plus hours of rain Friday night, we spent Saturday morning trying to figure out how to make the most of our day. We found one cell phone that got signal (out of the four we had) and called some wives for weather reports: Moab, Gunnison, Salida... Everywhere was expecing more rain than where we were at. We decided to sit it out.

In the afternoon, after an aborted attempt to ride 18 road (we drove over the hill only to find one collumn of rain dumping excatly where we were headed), the Matts decided to brave conditions from camp (see mw's picture, they scored a great ride!). I was ready to head home, but the rest of the crew had a little more determination, so I decided I'd go the safe route and head out for a hike. The best locale was across the valley, a huge red wall of rock that I'd always wanted to explore. (picture #1 from our first night, the only time the sun hit it at sunset.)

SDA convinced himself not to ride (I'm not sure how that happened) and we headed off for the cliff. After a beeline across he valley, we found a way behind the cliff via a short rock climb, and started upwards across slabs of rock behind the red face. As we neared the pinacle of what we could see near camp, we headed back towards the edge, now from the top, and had great views back towards camp, and out across the gentle arcing red rock.

It was good.

Chad wants more mud

There's fun mud, and not so fun mud. This trip didn't involve the slick sliding around out of control type of mud. This was the dense, sticking to everything, grinding to a halt kind of mud. This was the my bike now weighs 80 pounds kind of mud. This was the I'm so pissed off I'm going to throw my bike off the cliff mud. Almost.

Of course, the pictures won't do it justice. MG talking Mike Curiak's ear off (Mike insisted this would be a great ride for the conditions, LIAR!), and my bike, after I'd scraped off some of the evil brown stuff.

The other Fruita:

In spite of the rain, the mud, and the company, Fruita was a good time.

Okay, the company was good too, after all, mg was making coffee everytime he walked past the campstove, mw was obsessivecompulsively tuning bikes (even the ones with gears), and sda was busy displaying feats of human strength.

Random pictures: