Shrekie hits some singletrack!

Shrek a.k.a. Rick got his first REAL taste of singletrack in over a year last night at como lake. I for some reason didn't have my camera to document such an awesome day out on bikes. So I'll have to substitute this pic of shrek on a crusier from last fall. Como two days in a row for me :) The trail is in great shape right now.

WELCOME BACK TO THE DIRT SHREK!

On my way to a ride tonight.

Since I'm on the short leash these days, waiting for that kid that's now 5 days overdue, I check in with the wife right after work to see if I can squeeze in one more ride. I got the okay today, and headed to hit Pipeline and Betasso since I haven't been up there since the fall. After 20 minutes of navigating the wild hippy filled streets of Boulder I'm about to head up the canyon for my ride, and the phone rings. It's the wife.

She says, "It's Wednesday isn't it?"

Wednesday. Wednesday. What's Wednesday? I start going through the mental checklist. After a few moments it hits me: Betasso is closed to bikes on Wednesday.

nsfw.

lick'n our way to como

headed out on a super-fantastic ride today with Jo-Jo and Bdid that started from the Lost horse drainage and then climbed our way over lick creek road which dumped us into the Como Lake loop. The trail around como was snow free, which was surprising for the time of year and the dirt was in damn nice condition. I think spring is here !!

looking westward into the lake and at the como peaks:

got a little wet heading back...lick creek road.

I've had this since just before xmas. Time to share.

Dreamng of the Spring MANcation

I'm not smart enough to come up with a great excuse to head west this weekend, but I can at least revel in the good old days.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-340519051012532708

new bike day

A customer came into the shop today with a near brand new '93 or '94 Trek 8000. The womand said she got it for free from a woman giving away some bikes that she'd been collecting for awhile, but is no longer in good enough health to worry about bikes anymore. She had a whole pile of junk out front of her house she was giving away. My customer told me there was another bike that she didn't take because the fork was broken. I got directions. :) Found this note taped to the bike.
Anyone want a beat up Showa fork? I haven't dived into it yet, but it looks as if all it needs are some schrader valve top caps.

I gave it about 2 minutes in the stand. It's in good enough shape that, with a fixed fork, you could clean it and lube it and go hammer. Underneath the dirt gunk everything is in great shape.

Had to add this to the post. A guy stopped in this weekend on this beautiful Kogswell. Suntour Cyclone, Paul's Brakes, Brooks saddle, shellacked cork tape and 650b wheels. Full coverage fenders painted to match. Sweet!

Spring has sprung

Headed down Golden way for a chance of pace this morning. Spring has sprung, the trails were excellent, and the capper was heading to the local beer store only to find the Dale's grill fired up with beercan chicken and Scottish Eggs - a mighty fine lunch!

Desert Trip Head Count?

Who's in for Moab/Fruita next weekend?

Here's the plan:
Leave (from CO) super early Thurs. Set up camp by Slickrock, ride/screw around on Slickrock the rest of the afternoon. Or hit Soveriegn or Baby Steps as they aren't huge rides. Get back to camp. Party down.

Friday - all day ride in Moab. Don't know what. Get back, eat, pack up and haul it to Fruita whilst still daylight. This may prove to be optimistic. Set up camp in Rabbit Valley on the UT/CO border. Party down

Sat - all day ride from camp. Get back, party down.

Sun - Get up, pack up and hit the Mary's Loop/Kokopelli stuff on the way out of town.

So far, it looks like we'll have 3 or 4 Lyons guys. I know Gersib is coming out from NE. Dave - you coming down from Ft Fun? As an added bonus, word has it that the Breeze may blow in from the Tucson area, as he is test driving a new motor home...

That's all I know. Anybody reading this should come out to ride with us. The desert is calling.

Day 2.5 visiting the scrounge fest

This shop was as old as it looks. The whole building was leaning to the right. When we tried to enter the building we had push a 24" Motiv out of the way to get inside. Once inside the shop we were all in awe of the aftermath of the explosion that must have gone off in this place. Immediatly inside the door there was a guinea pig in a cage. Hay was spread all over underneath the cage to catch the animal droppings.

Check out the hugh tree that shades the side yard. Gretchen idetified it as a Brazian Pepper tree. So image scrounging trough piles and piles of rusty bike parts and every once and a while catching a nice wiff of pepper. It was good idea to leave the show a little earlier to go to this shop which was about 8 blocks from the expo.

I caught Louis in the act of scrounging up some brake levers.

Chaybo on some sort of 20" moto BMX with springs and stuff. I think there is one hanging up at Cycle Works. I dig the yard umbrellas.
I'm not sure why I didn't get a pic of Rob Scrounging. He was coming up with some good finds.

Chuck had his eye on a Schwinn Continential. I wish I would have taken a pic of it. It had a simplex rear der. that I have never seen before. The Front der was manual with a rod on the seat tube that you pulled up on to change the front gear. I did some looking around and this is the only thing I could find on the net like it. A 1960 Schwinn Continental . It was a cool bike and the owner wanted $1000 for it. He said he could get $800 for the rear der alone on the gaybay. In the end I think we all found something we were interested in but the owner was way to proud of the stuff we picked out. Louis did get a set of calipers for $2.

It was a great day to take in all things bikes. Meeting and hanging out with Chuck and Gretchen was great also. They are great people!

Day two show pics

Ira Ryan

Peter Mooney

ENGIN
My favorite seatstays of the show.

Richard Sachs Lugs.
Lugz

Spectrum paintjob

Blacksheep and sycip

Vanilla had the most well thought out booth. It look like an art exhibit.

Johnny cycles

B. Gordon bulleted ti seatstay.

Ritchey old school mtb

Bohemian Bicycles

NAHBS Weekend Recap

Well now that I have decompressed from the weekend its time to tell a few tales and share a ton of pics.

The trip was suppose to start last Thursday at 2pm. When Chaybo stopped over to load my stuff and go. We found out quickly that my volunteered rack would not fit into his receiver hitch. We had to drill out two small stops inside the hitch just to get the rack to work. It was about an hour delay.

We headed straight down highway 93 and stopped in Salmon for dinner. Well they were burritos and we bought them in Salmon,ID so the only people to take blame for gutbombs were ourselves. This will not be the last time tales of stomach problems and mexican food will be told in this story. As we drove out of Salmon the fluffy white stuff started to hit the ground and accumulate. The snow was so light that the trail of snow coming off any passing car was enough to white everything out for a couple of seconds at a time. Spooky at 50 mph going over a bridge.

We made it to Idaho Falls to join up with Rob who would be driving his "kinnapper van" from this point. So we switched vechicles and got all the way to Twin Falls, ID before hitting anymore weather which was a rain/snow mix and slowed travel down to 35 mph at times. The conditions got even worse driving throw Jackpot,NV and didn't clear till half way to Reno. I drove into Reno and about half of the Tahoe pass. Rob was so amped up to get to Cali he couldn't sleep and offered to drive on into Cali. We left home at 3 pm and arrived at the ventana factory at 11 am (Denny's stop included). We felt like crap but the constant chatter about bicycles left us with big smiles on our road weary faces. Chaybo had called the Ventana factory a few weeks ahead of time to see if we could take a look at the joint and to get directions.

Check out the Johnny T Shrine in the last pic. Apparently Ventana did most of the cnc and welding (Minus heat treating and powdercoating)on the Tomac frames when the head office was still in Boulder. Well now Sherwood is set up to do everything in house. He is in the process of setting up and dialing in his heat treating and powder coating equipment. He did mention that he had purchased some equipment from kelly after their doors closed. Looks like Ventana is cranking out quite a few 29ers these days. Sherwood did not pull the red carpet back in quite yet. We grabbed a quick bite and the regrouped to drive to spot to get in an afternoon ride. The ride was called salmon falls. It was soooooo good. There were lots of rolling hills with double track to sweet sweet singletrack sections. I think the longest climb was about 5-10 minutes with a grade similar to the climb up to the teepee at Platte River. It was a great ride thanks guys!


Sherwood, Rob, Chaybo, and Aaron is just behind the tree at the top of the hill. This was a fun little section to bomb down. These pics are not in order the view of the lake was waiting at the top of this short climb.

After ride beer and pizza was had at a local spot and talk of custom non suspension corrected ventan 29ers was popular topic. Rob and I wanted to stop at the Folsom prison gift shop after the ride but had to bag that and get some food. We purdy much talked about the endless possibilties of gifts that would be available at the gift shop for the entire trip. I mean really what could they have there? Folsom prison parking only gag sign, custom his and hers Johnny and June Cash shanks, framed poetry from inmates claiming innocence I mean the possibilities were endless.

The place we stayed in Pleasanton.
This is where the fourth in the group was waiting to join up. Louis gives us the tour of his sweet vdub bus that was kept in the family. It was previously rob's van who used it for travels to 24 hour races. It would make a sweet base camp.
This is one of my favorite pics from the weekend. Check out the flowers in full bloom. It was spring in cali.

We Finally got a good nights sleep in Pleasanton. We all woke up showered and headed to San Jose for the NAHBS. I am going to put pics of my two favorite bikes up first then some other random stuff. My third favorite bike was Rick Hunters 26 in BMX cruiser. His both was packed and I didn't feel like pushing my way through with a camera so no pic of that bike. I think he has pic on his blog.




I'll have to post more pics and the rest of the story later. Blogger is being a pain right now. Later