The 2 pics of the week

two up-and-coming bull elk in the front pasture.

Mt. Evans in the far distance on a ride after a lot of snow fell up high Thurs AM.

Tin Shed Sports & Salto Coffee Works

Tin Shed Sports and Salto coffee works opened a couple of weeks ago in Nederland. It's BigDaddy & KPOW's awesome creation of cranks and beans....oh, and great food, beer, wine and spacious atmosphere.  Serious espresso, Modus Hoperandi and Stone IPA on tap, clocktower, rad west-facing outside 'plaza', bike stands to tune-up your own damn bike (or get Heyride to do it inside)...the list goes on and on. Heyride's managing the bike shop and I don't think has taken a day off since they opened.

It's pretty crazy to see a full-service bike shop in Ned with anything you need to go ride - including spanking new bikes. I hear winter gear is also on tap.  The coffee and food at Salto is awesome and they have plans to soon roast their own in house. This place by FAR has the biggest space to kick back and relax in Ned.  It's a bummer we're moving so we can't enjoy more of this place. Go check it out if you're in town and support this rad local business!

Swimming pups

Izzy fetching a stick. That's about as far in as she'd go.

  A hike near the new house on our trip out last week in between painting, moving stuff and so on. This area is popular in the summer but right now there's not a soul since the campgrounds are closed for the winter and haven't opened yet.  Just a boating fisherman and we had the place to ourselves. But apparently we have to watch out for an attack river otter...no joke. It went after a person here last year...!?

Jesse, on the other hand, couldn't swim enough. They are going to love it here.

Izzy just doesn't like getting in the water! But peer pressure...

Izzy, Coyote, Spring

Not sure what to write about this little terror but she's settling into her new home nicely and learning to kind of 'play' with the Guppies. She's so much more rambunctious than them though, she scares them. She still won't get IN water unless there's a rock she wants to grab in there or a stick, yep, she likes to chase rocks and sticks not balls or toys. It's really odd.

Spring is in full force at the ranch, hummingbirds are back, came in last week sometime. The Larkspur's are flowering on the back hill, and some of the Pasque's are already seeing out. Lots of wildlife almost every day - moose yesterday, two coyotes today, fox almost every day, deer passing through every other day, it's a great wildlife viewing property for sure. 

Fatbiking the crust!

The north-sides look like this...awesome crust if you get there early enough.

The south-facing slopes look like this. Same elevation or even higher as the previous picture.

Brail trail ala crust!

Roots buried down there somewhere.  Pick your line!

Superman #2. Some times the front wheel would just hit a soft spot...

So, from now on, I'm going to try to keep my bike stuff over at my Meriwether Cycles blog since I'm basically always 'testing' my own bikes to some degree.  I'll leave this blog for my family and skiing and other random rants unrelated to cycling in all likelihood. 

Happy Bday Mrs. Meriwether!

 A beautiful day yesterday up in the high country. This weather is unsettlingly nice. Hopefully we'll be in the new house in another state before the fire season really hits Ned! The Gups, Izzy, Mrs. M and I went up to Monkey Hill and around on a big morning hike to soak it all in. We didn't find my perfect sitting rock but came close.  Great views to the south, no snow in sight anywhere. The trails are pretty much dry on the east side of the big road.  It's hard not to be a hermit when this is outside your back door!

So far, April is STILL the new March

3" of wet snow over the last 24 hours! It'll likely melt by tomorrow afternoon but I got out just in time for a fatbike ride to do some errands in town.