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