Lot’s of ride’s this year

This was a memorable year as our family did a big road trip and had a great time checking out a lot of different area’s . Nothing as good as what you can find in Oregon. I rode in so many places with so many people it hard to keep it all straight. Good thing I took a lot of pictures. Here’s some to check out.
2008 should be great and I’m all ready planning some MTB road trips. Can’t wait!!

I should have known when I got to Trail Head Cycles for our night ride and saw the young upstart Derek finishing putting his bike together it would be interesting. It’s always good to have your bike dialed before riding at night, or any time really. Regardless, the Red Raja and I we’re determined to ride so we took off ( latter than planned) for the trails. 20 feet from the gate the young upstart’s chain broke. Turned out it just fell off so I thought maybe the ride can be salvaged. Not to be. His chain came off every 5 feet it seemed , so after fooling around for about 2 miles we called it and sent him down the fire road and the Raja and I rode one last trail. Waste? Nah. It’s always good to get together with some friends and ride. Even if you stop every 5 feet.

Too cold to stay home.

Generally when it’s 31 degrees the last thing on your mind is to get up just as early as a work day (or earlier) and hit the trails. Well….unless your us. In my often overstated opinion, winter time is one of the best times for free riding. ( is it one word?) I rode my DH bike over to Josh’s house and met up with Whiplash and his little woman. We headed to the trails and watched the temp go from 33 to 31 on the drive. Started hiking up to the warm up area to hopefully warm up and hung out there for an hour. I was warm by the time we got the 2nd run in to Basic training. Soon the usual characters began to show up. Flying J , Crazy Jake, Dirk, Dirks buddy, Mtn Rider, Rubberdown, Maing,. I think that was it. There was some guys I didn’t know and we saw Fat Larry when we we’re leaving . The ride was great. Mtn Rider got the first tracks on a new ladder to gap on a section of Sunday stroll that is being re-done. That was cool to see. I hit 2 things for the first time , so that’s always cool. Maing ate it on the road gap and jacked up his neck I guess. I didn’t see it but he said he landed a little sideways and then went down. Crazy Jake tore off his der. Hanger and rode chain less. Rubberdown was sending it with his new bike and it was good to ride with him again. The vid clip is Me, then Whiplash then Mtn rider then me again. Another great ride. Minus the Chamois butter story.

It’s not the destination, it’s the ride.

Didn’t I hear some one say that once? Maybe. I probably read it in a bike mag or something. Well some ride’s don’t really have a destination, you just ride around and around. Today was a ride within a ride. I was to meet Terry at his house in the morning to ride some of our favorite local trails.
Terry is my go to guy for XC, so when everyone is hitting the DH trails Terry will usually do a XC ride. He’s a really well rounded rider.) I figured I should ride the bike there and then catch a ride with him and then ride the trails. (Jeep Donaldson would not be pleased with us riding on the road, but he’s from Colotucky and things are different there) Marla was getting ready to ride her cool cruiser to the store so I got to ride along with her for a bit which was fun. When I got to Terry’s he said something like
“ Your crazy” I’m not sure if that was a general greeting, or because it was so cold and I rode to his house. Maybe just because I rode to his house. So we loaded up and drove to the trail head , which was close enough to ride to but it was kinda cold ya know. The trails we’re perfect. A few muddy spots but nothing to bad. This was the first time I had done a geared XC ride since Moab in April. I have a crap fork on this old bike so it was like riding a rigid. Maybe I should just put a rigid fork on it and be done with it. We rode some of the classic trails and a few new ones. No crashes, but Terry fell over trying to do…..something. We ended as usual on the Lollipop trail, which is a fun twisty, turny trail, then Terry showed me a newish log ride. Then it was back to the car and his house so could begin my ride home. About half way I started smelling all kinds of restaurants and it was getting to me. All of a sudden it turned out to be about the destination, or at least one with hot food. Which was waiting for me when I rolled up to the front door.