Monday, May 26, 2008

Memorial day ride







Hit up Post with Flying J and Dirk. Met up with Robholio and his buddy Noah later. Ended up doing 3 runs and conditions were a lot better than Fri. Sunny, windy and sunny. Flying J had an off the bike that rattled him a bit but he was bruised but not broken. Dirk was hitting some jumps on his XC hardtail, and i was riding and not crashing. Went to the tippy top and that was great. Rode some singletrack that we rode on Fri and it was sweet. It was a good day as always.

Friday, May 23, 2008

What a difference a day makes

or in this case 5 days. Last Sun we rode with the bug's in the heat and now it's raining. I got off work really early today. Only worked 2 hours so i hooked up with the Maing and his wife and went to Hood River. It was kind of an adventure ride, as in we took a bunch of trails that we we're sure where they would end up. We started farther up than i ever had and it was more of the same. Rocks and rocks. Then we rode a section we always do then it was all new for me. Single track with embedded rocks, little steps, deep woods. Cool stuff. After that it was flowing trail through a meadow. Did i mention it was raining? I started having some fun and was sliding around corners but i remembered i was wearing my work clothes and no armor so i started to be more carefull. It got more and more muddy and the descents got more and more sketchy. I went down once and almost hit a tree. We made all the way around to the new re-built FRANKENSTEIN trail. Steep and steep. cut straight over and hiked up to cut into drop out and down seven streams. By this point i had been soaked for like 4 1/2 hours and was ready to get in a warm truck. Awesome day but really difficult conditions. If it was predictable i probably wouldn't like it as much.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Back to Post Canyon after a long winter






When you ride a lot your bound to get injured or witness an injury. Today started out with sun and blue sky and Rubberdown and i ripping down the upper Post Canyon trails. It ended with blood. We headed down and met up with Flying J , Whiplash, Don Coyote and Josh at two chairs. A quick stop and then down. Fun stuff. Good to ride the trails again. Got to Drop out and was stoked on the changes. What was 3 drops was now even better with a couple of step ups thrown in. Flying J and i took a new single track. Fun. Back to two chair and down. We got to XchorusX and i was watching the real riders hit the big lines. Whiplash hit the first line on the left and wanted the 2nd also. He said " Don't film me" so i did of course. Big crash! Over rotated and hit hard. His glasses cut him good on the forehead but it didn't stop him from riding the rest of the way down. Rubberdown hit a tree and jacked up his leg and i bailed from a ladder and twisted my ankle. that's how it goes sometimes. ended up wit pizza at Cascade Locks.
Check the vid of whiplash's crash. Pardon the rough language but it was a tense moment.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Falls City and Bugs


Today i took Louis (12) and Otto (10) to Fall City for the first time. And it couldn't have been hotter. Record eat for May in Oregon, 90's or something. Anyway..the bugs we're out BIG time and reminded me why i mostly ride there in the winter. It was hard to talk without breathing them in. SO this was my first ride on the Gran Mal since i hurt my rib's about 4 weeks ago. Maing,Chip and Noah went as well. Maing is on the Rib program as well, so he was taking it easy. We kept it pretty mellow but it was really good for me. no pain really, and the bike seemed to be working well Otto and Louis had fun but the heat was getting to them. We rode the new and improved sictor gnar and it was really fun. It was cool seeing Otto riding over logs on his little hardtail with the 24" wheels. Louis and Otto had some fun on the teeter totter in Basic training. I saw Maing sneeze and then double over in pain. I guess he's still healing. He was getting a kick out of Otto and Louis going over the teeter totter at the same time. pretty funny. Of course we ended up at paddingtons for pizza but you probably guessed that didn't you.


Saturday, May 10, 2008

Local trails





Did a short ride this morning with Dave and Otto and Louis. Just the local trails(which are becoming WAY too crowded) Short drive, short ride. Rib's are feeling ok. I love riding with the kid's, they really make me laugh when they get tired or when they almost crash. On a really steep , straight section Louis was all over the place trying to not hit a tree . Then i came down and i yelled up to Otto " Walk your bike". He has v-brakes on the Little Specialized and i was worried he would start skidding and lose it. Dave started to ride around since there's no underbrush , so i yelled to Otto to follow Dave for the safe way down. Then Dave crashed. " Hey Otto, don't follow Dave". Otto rode a little ladder over some fallen trees. That was cool to see. It's only a couple of feet off the ground but he's a little kid. I'm still on the Bianchi SS hardtail. It's been so long that I've forgotten what gears are like. At least for XC riding. My Downhill bike has gears. Looking forward to getting my Enduro built up again and doing some Looong epic rides this summer.

Sunday, May 04, 2008

A broken rib

I definitely have a broken rib from my crash on the un-named DH trail a few weeks back. It's feeling a lot better but I'm taking it easy so i don't screw up and crash and make it worse. I've been riding around town with the kid's and stuff. Really fun. We rode 22 miles today and stopped by the Alpenrose Velodrome and watched some people practice. It was awesome! They really go fast. We're going to check out the race's this week. Should be cool.
Dirt soon.