Unheathy Attachment

Seems everyone has had a set of tires that aren't happy coming off or going on a paticular rim. Tire levers come and go, and that's why I dug a pair out of my bag - the garage set seem to have gone somewhere I can't find them. As I was working the old tires off the rim, I broke a lever. Bummer.

It wasn't just any tire lever, but one of the pair I've been carrying for a while now. The levers form the top of a plastic box to hold a patch kit. If you've watched me change a tire on the trail, you've seen these. Remember that race in Kearney, at the golf course, with the rainstorm? Way back then? I got these there, and have used them since.

I've used them for 14 years. Done now. Got to get some new ones.

broke, then fixed

car felt weird. and car was making noise when encountering bumps in corners. got underneath and found a broken bracket to the driver side rear sway bar. the bar was flexing enough to smack the back of the mufler. a call to the salvage yard was successful. got home. put it on and car feels much better. it was pushing harder than i remember. no longer.

CB

S-house and I took a short (way too short!) trip over to CB this weekend, to see what all the fuss is about. Shhhh...let's try to keep this amongst our little group here, but the mountain bike riding in Crested Butte is actually pretty decent. The scenery isn't all that bad either....

I like cars too.

“I like cars,” Wills said.

.

Perfect Cruise Da

It's Gretna Days this weekend and was a perfect time to take out the new Croll for a spin. SMOOOTH!

It"s just so SHINY!

In just 5 days (plus shipping)

bdiddy and mrs. bdiddy could be rocking twin bikes, eh. Chasing butterflies and holding hands while pedaling to a picnic lunch in the park.

Click buy it now, now!

limo style

I've been getting in a few hours of cross training lately. Going up even slight grades is more difficult than you would think. You can really get cookin' going downhill, though.

Video Virgin

This is my first take at video. Sorry it moves around a lot. I was climbing one handed and holding the camera in my other hand. Took a while to get it relatively dialed. Hopefully, I'll be learning how to take vids of peeps, edit them, then post. We'll see. I rode Lion Gulch today. It was good.



When the vid is almost done, you can hear my freewheel start to coast. That's about when I said, "Shit, gotta have both hands on the bar now"...

Weekend recap

We headed to Nederland for a quickie camping trip, just last night. This morning, we packed up and headed to a trailhead juat outside of the wilderness boundary. There's far away parking, and there's close in parking - the close in parking requires driving through puddles and a creekbed for a couple hundred yards - and it gets deep enough that the tailpipe on the jeep was burbling underwater. As soon as I'm committed in the first water fjord, I look to my left and see this lady:


















A bit over an hour in, we arrived at Lost Lake. Purty nice spot. Zana wants to backpack in here for a night.









Yesterday, I managed a bit of a bike ride from our campsite. A ran accross a couple groves of these - maybe 50 flowers in each. Stunning.







And yes, I did manage to ride some singletrack out there.

Saturday afternoon CT

After the Firecracker 50 the day before, BG and I thought we needed a ride that felt more like a day in the woods. So we packed a couple of Dale's and headed for the Colorado Trail near Breckenridge. We also found a little slice of formerly secret flowy goodness called Blair Witch. It was a great finish to a fun weekend in Breck.

Another road less traveled

I've had the local map up on the wall at my cube at work all week, knowing I only had a few hours on Sunday morning for a dirt ride all week. I decided on a trail I sort of knew existed but never quite decided to check out.

Oh, yes, I'll be back.

Rare Jackalope sighting

Hall, Ned, etc,

I kept seeing the Jackalope everywhere this weekend.

Watching and riding,

Last weekend was chock full of goodness, starting with the the not smallest bike shop's grand opening.



Which led into a Hall Ranch ride followed by the dirt jump portion of the Lyons Outdoor games. Seriously impressive riders doing seriously dumb things with no serious injuries.




Sunday was all about riding. Coulson, which for some reason I never set tire to last year was just what I needed. Backcountry goodness! As an added bonus, the crew I was leading was 3 guys and 4 chicks, who all hold their own.





I've got a mental health day planned for Friday, can't wait for another weekend away from the local stuff!

B(eeeeeer) Ride

Dave entrusted me to lead the B-ride for the fest this weekend - I royally screwed it all up. Noone got lost. Noone blew up. Noone was cursing me. I forgot a cooler of beer for the end of the trail (at least someone else remembered)

At least we had fun, and first dibs at the keg, which was empty by 10pm.

Sweet singletrack.



Climbing and enjoying the view.



Racing through the meadows to the top of Lion's Gulch



A shockingly good time.

LFTF Big Ride

Here's a shot of Dave riding away from our lunch stop Saturday afternoon. Big ride. Good ride.

TOSRV

Let me start by saying sorry to Dave for burying his post. Anyone who is even thinking about taking Dave up on his invite should. His entire crew on the front range will take you in with open arms. I have had the privilge of making it to quite a few of the gatherings and it is always a good time!

This last weekend I had a first. I signed up for a supported tour of the Swan river valley. Two days 110 miles each day up to Swan lake camp and then the same route back. This was all on pavement. I didn't snap a pic until we arrived at our destination. We had a great group of riders that seemed to shrink and expand from three to eight for various reasons. Breakfast lunch and dinner was provided both days and it was sure was good. The lunch stop had homemade chicken noodle soup. This was the 38 th edition of the ride. I think that there were 175 riders out on the road for the event. We left from Missoula following highway 200 until it met up with highway 82 North. This sure was a good time and I hope to do it next year.

Swan Lake the destination.
Rick's first attempt at accupuncture!?!
Base camp with support crew.
JOE
Rick and Joe Riding into Condon for the first food stop of day 2.
This is Summit Lake It was about a 30 mile decent in either direction from this point.
This is one of the last pictures that I took on the way back and I am going to chose to remember the trip this way instead of the last brutal 40 miles of head wind back down into Missoula.

Howdy 'Lampers. We're riding next weekend. It'd be great if any of you could make it out. Friday we ride at 2, back by 6 or 7 pm. Sat is the deathmarch. We'll have 2 different rides. If anyone can recall the first ever Lyons Fat Tire Fest, we'll be doing the same big ass loop. It's about 35 miles, lots of climbing and it will be raining (hopefully). We're meeting up at 8:30 am at the shop for that one. I'll be providing the breakfast and the beer on that day, :)

Thanks also for all the good words on the new shop and sorry I haven't been on Lampin too much lately. It's been pretty hectic out here. I quit my PI job (last day was 5/2) so now Mary and I are 100% self supported by our own businesses. Yikes. I gotta be honest. Honker Hanger was truly an inspiration. Miss all your mugs.
dave

Primo Platte

Platte River is TACKY!
Carol dove into the trails for the first time. It was all grins afterwards.

Hours?

Looks like Redstone has some new hours:



Congrats Dave. How's the new commute treating you?