A ride with two Pilots

Snow flurries mixed with sunshine and strong chilly winds today. Not a day to be outside in the open but in the trees it made for perfect riding weather. It was time for the annual fall ride with JHK and Heather. I almost got emotional as it may be my last ride with them before we move west, and it was also time to pass off one of the original IGSS Pilot suits to JHK. He and T and Heather are representing the Pilots in New Zealand at the Singlespeed World Championships in a couple of weeks.

The ride today was meant to be shorter than it was (that sounds familiar, eh?!) but mostly because we dinked around with Heather's bike for an hour before leaving. She showed up with a 32x16 and even after we changed it to an 18 tooth she wasn't liking some of the climbs we encountered. I may be a mortal but I just ride a 20 tooth on a 29er, period. I don't care how much i have to spin as long as i can stay on the bike on the hills more! I am sure it's different in different areas, but for the Rockies, I've not found a better gear.

JHK is riding the Sawyer at SSWC10 and was riding it for the 2nd time today - it's totally rad. I will do a write up with pics later on, but I'll just say it has some of the same ideas I had for making my own frames. Steel, rigid fork, lots of arching small diameter tubes, singlespeed or geared with dropouts split for a belt if desired...it's amazing The Man (Trek) has come out with this bike.

Heading up singletrack mountain, I let JHK pass because he had a harder gear than me (yeah, that's the only reason...hah!).

Heather climbing.

Most the aspen leaves have fallen now and with the recent moisture there was water in the cups of leaves on the ground, on the bed of aspen leaves, which sprayed up on us as we rode over. Fall is such a fleeting but amazing experience.

Dropping the rock at the end of the Flume trail. Nice, her first attempt at this. It reminds me of a trip to Fruita we took way back, c.1999 when she had never done Horsethief Bench trail and without even looking to see what it looked like, dropped in and cleaned it no problem to the astonishment of multiple gaukers waiting at the bottom for riders to come tumbling down. Classic. Kick some down-under ass brother and sister! Get some ink!