Soap Opera

Tanks meets the "regular" singletrack on the Friday morning commute.

Work has been a soap opera these last two weeks. Now friend-life has followed suit and it's truly insane. Who would've thought that all these things could happen at the same time?! It's like when you haven't had a flat tire in a year, and then suddenly you get 4 in a week (except times a million). WTF?! Unbelievable - truly...Unbelievable.

There are only a couple of things that can drag my mind back into the moment and be happy to be alive - my pack of animals (including my girl), and my bike (or skis depending on the season). The 10 minutes of singletrack that I was so lucky to ride today allowed me to deal with the 8 hours of shit that soon followed. These things mean a lot.

Brooks saddle update - 5 hours riding time. Not broken in yet (duh). Less slippery than at the start, one day of rain, doesn't really feel like it but looks more contoured to my arse, there's still a long way to go. One of the cool things about this saddle (other than it's sweet looks) is that it offers "natural" suspension to the rider and twists a little bit with your butt when cornering - it follows your moves. It has a certain character to it that is very different than other saddles...hard to explain right now but i will keep on trying.

post-work Pilot ride

It's July 29th and I'm wearing fleece pants. Yesterday, I woke to 36 degrees before my ride into work. WTF?! I'm not complaining, just curious what the heck is going on. I actually love this weather because it's usually so darned dry here in the summer. But this is truly weird. It's been raining a bunch this month and nothing has really dried out yet. It's lush and green and the trails in the woods feel like we live in the pacific northwest.

Took the Hunter SS in today on BandCamp, with the plan of meeting Dr.Cross and Dubba for a post-work ride in the "sacrifice area" west of town. (Yes, there's a hint of a negative connotation in that term but it's actually what the Forest Service uses to describe this area in terms of the recreational impacts it gets and how they manage it.)

Dubba hangs on to bottlecap bridge

Either way, it's still a really fun place to ride a bike...especially at 6pm after some good rain when no one is there (so i'm a retrogrouch recluse, sorry). Habid and the hobbits were out in force as we speeded through the climbs and singletrack linking things I haven't touched in awhile but thought i knew the paths to (which I did but didn't realize it. We ended up doing the ride i wanted to do but it all looked so different i thought we were lost! Note to self: come here more often.)

Dubba pilots his Sofa King SS

...and blasts thru the aspens...

...and rides the toilet bowl at the top of the hill

Props to Dubba who happened to be running a sickly (some may call crazy) gear ratio - something like 32x16 whereas we were running 32x20. As you can see, I got more pics of Dubba than Dr.Cross as he was riding quite fast and I couldn't keep up! I bequeathed his name, Pilot Flyboy today. His new Kelley 29er singlespeed and him were communing on a higher level than myself or Dubba.

Case in point - look at that smile.

What's also cool about this above photo is that the trail behind used to be a highly used 4-wheel drive road that was blocked off a few years ago by the Forest Service. Now you can see that that road has turned into a nice little singletrack trail. Roads to trails. I love it.

Meet Tank

The new mountain commuter, Tank. A Surly Cross-check 56cm frame/fork with a Brooks B17 standard saddle, On-One Mungo Mustache bars and bar end 8 speed shifters, Panaracer Fire Cross 700 x 45mm tires, and overly beefy wheels (three year old XT mtn hubs and Salsa Delgado cyclocross rims), and a mix of old crapped out components all of which I pieced together from my years of caching components. Thanks to friends in high places, I was able to build it for less than $500 (including frame and fork)!

The Shimano XTR 950 cranks from circa 1995 I got when racing for Moots are still sweet. The tires, as you can see above, don't roll all that fast but are true mountain commuter tires - I can ride most any trail and cruise the dirt roads in style. They're the largest that can fit in this frame at about 1.7's and that's all it needs. I can barely get the wheels out actually with the long canti brake pads so that is a must fix.

I've been wanting to make this bike for a long time. Ever since reading Grant at Rivendell and wanting an All-Rounder or Atlantis but never being able to afford the tall price tag, I feel that now i have a good trade off for that kind of bike. It has fender and pannier eyelets all year commuting and touring - it's a true all-rounder. Someday, yes, maybe for my 50th birthday I will be willing and able to splurge for a Rivendell, but for now this bike will do just fine. I'll likely ride this more than any other bike since most of the rides i do are commutes to work these days. It rides like a "mountain cross bike." It's not light at 26 lbs with everything on it but who cares, it's not a race bike, it's meant to be a tank to take me through rain and snow and whatever else Mother Nature throws at us. I can say this though...in the first two hours my butt was questioning my choice of saddle. But i figure, Brooks has been making and selling saddles to the world since 1866...so they must have something there! I'll post updates on how it's breaking in and after what hour it feels 'broken in'. Right now, it's super slippery from the leather treatment, and hard as a rock.

Colors

The bluebells are competing with the penstemon's this week - they're everywhere! The stonecrop is fluorescent yellow. It's dried out a bit but lusher than most July 20th's I've ever seen. We watched the sky flashing tonight, like a light show from below. I hope it's thunder and lightning lighting up the clouds. Not sure where the "war" is going on as it's dry up here and we can see the stars but it is certainly going off somewhere in the plains. Felt like we could've been watching WW3 from our hideaway naively thinking, "how cool is that?!?!"

I'm getting in a good pattern of 3 days/week riding into work and I'm really happy to try different routes each time to soak all this color in.

Heading east on the commute down low.

Sunflower congregation welcoming the sunrise

The 69er finally feels at home. It always had a relatively harsh feel
to it, until now. It still has an aluminum hardtail feel to it but
with the addition of a Moots layback post, Bontrager race lite lux
seat, only 100psi in the fork, a 2.25 tire in back and front, and a
90mm stem instead of a 120... It feels just right. The big rear tire
is super noticeable on downhills and cornering, i wish I had taken T's
advice earlier! The seatpost however is the best thing since sliced
bread.

The columbines are starting to fade a bit, but the purple and pink
penstemons are in full effect. More flowers all at once this moist
spring and no sign of it drying out too much yet. This is back to
"normal" with regular afternoon thundershowers and i can dig it.

Product review - The Ergon BC3 pack

Ergon. I had no idea who they were until i noticed Weins is sponsored by them. I'm a big Weins fan, he's just a super cool old school mountain biker, period. I'm glad I Google'd Ergon as I'm of the opinion they have leapt forward 5 years with their grips and packs. They're German, and the stuff is definitely engineered to the hilt. I've only been riding with the pack for two months, and the grips for less than a week, so we'll see how they hold up over time but I can tell you they are worth the extra cash when you compare them to any other pack or grip out there.

I bought their largest pack - the BC3 for commuting and touring.

http://www.ergon-bike.com/us/en/product/bc3

It has an external/internal frame made of lightweight and relatively pliable plastic. The shoulder straps are attached to the frame but they rotate independently of the hip belt portion of the frame. Hard to explain unless you pick one up. What it means is that all the weight of the pack is placed on your hips and you hardly notice anything is on your back. Because the shoulder straps function as one unit and rotate separately from the hipbelt, you don't fling the pack when your shoulders move like when you are navigating technical terrain or just plain steering. Because of the design, there's an airspace on the back panel too, so your back doesn't get as wet ans clammy as with normal packs. The big exception is some Airvent Deuter packs which this Ergon pack is somewhat replacing for me. The airvent breathes better but carries all the weight on your shoulders and back. I'm not sure I'll get rid of the Deuter pack, it's been with me longer than any pack at around 8 years!

The Bc3 is waterproof, truly waterproof, and the zippers are waterproof too. It's a bomber (a bit heavy) material that I doubt will ever rip unless I run into barbed wire at 30mph or a mountain lion takes a swipe at it. It has multiple chambers for stashing things, and a weird rigid insert to the main compartment that I took out, but it has a place for keys, a pump, other random small items that tend to bounce around in bigger pockets. There is a helmet compartment on the outside that also functions as an easy access jacket/bootie/glove/grub pocket and cinches down nicely.

This pack is big at 25L/1525 cubic inches, but it doesn't SEEM that big maybe because it can cinch down well and is made of a somewhat more rigid fabric than other packs. It's perfect for someone like me that always brings way too much along on the ride, commute, or tour because you can barely feel the extra weight. The hipbelt is graciously padded and does the job better than any other bike pack - WAY better. The pack has a large and small sizing built in - so if you have a longer torso than others you go with the large setting and if you are too skinny you go with the small hipbelt setting. There's really no comparison to this pack, it's in its own league (but so is the price).

There are a couple of downsides to this design. One is that it sticks out farther off your back than most packs which I don't really notice but some might. The main issue I have with the pack is that it's not as good a technical/rough trail pack as I thought it'd be. It stays in place OK, but it still slips to one side or another depending on which foot you have forward on your pedals while navigating and pedaling over stuff. Because the shoulder straps rotate independently, it's harder to fling it back into place than with regular packs. You have to use your hand to slide the hipbelt back around your waist every once and awhile. It's truly at home on the commute and I can imagine on a long bike tour where it's not super technical. I'll get to test it out on the way to Durango for SSWC's this September for that purpose.

In the end, it's the best pack for someone who wants to carry a lot of stuff, or just distribute the weight of a water bladder better than other packs. It's great for someone who gets back pains on long rides, or who has a back back. It may transfer your pain to butt-pain but I'm not sure yet. It's amazingly well (over?) built so should last over the years. They make two smaller sizes to this one and I've heard great reviews of the smallest version, the BD1. Oh, and they make women's specific sizes!

The Breck Epic

I kinda wish I was there racing the inaugural event...but maybe next year?

Follow Dubba's posts here:
http://www.velonews.com/race/detail/93800

A long weekend

Columbine alley, Band Camp

I have spent way too much time battling the downfall this year on this one trail. It's one of my main (fun) commute routes though...so it WILL be worth the effort. No one else apparently is riding this trail. You have (had) to burrow through the downed trees - until now. Still some more to go, maybe 2/3rds done? But holy cow my body is worked from the labor. That April 4 feet of snow sure broke off a whole bunch of trees and we'll be feeling the effect on our local trails for months to come.

A long weekend in more ways than one. Lots of ranch work, making a new paddock for the lil Snapdragon who just turned 2 months old yesterday! She's such a funny little punk. We moved large rocks from the old mine on the property to behind the barn where a new stall will be by summer's end. Move big rocks, then dirt, then crash. Popeye arms would be helpful.

I visited the local skatepark twice, yes TWICE, this weekend and skated with King Nimby. It's feeling more comfortable there now...a fast and fun ride. The carveability of the park is beyond belief. I cannot believe it's 5 minutes away from my house! Can I say YAY i live here?! Sorry....had to. BTW, when is the YAY100?

Nimby goes upside down

Me playing in the pool