One more time

Day 6 and as I'm waiting for Sat so i can ride with some people, i figured i should take one of the kid's back to where i rode on Monday. So i loaded up Otto's Specialized ht and my SS and we're gone. Found the trail head again with no problem and a few of the trails even. Rode some others and got turned around a bit. Still fun though. Otto was riding through the rocks really well. He fell down once when he went into rock garden too hot. He'll learn. A fun time and he's learning well.

It's good to be beaten down.

It's day 3 and we're in Sacramento, Ca. Elk Grove to be exact. Today i got beat down by riding with MTB John out of San Ramon. We rode these trails in Fairfield called Rockville Hills. (i think) I was on my SS, thinking that if i ride it more often than not i can get my fitness up to where it was last Summer. I thought i was gonna puke. I'm running a 32x20 so i figured that would be better than the 32x16 i had been running. I was right.These trails were so fun! Skinny single track, with tons of embedded rocks. This one section called "the rock garden" was a real challenge. John climbed it really smooth. We got some cool video coming back down. I was rolling the SS down some sketchy lines and thought i was done for. The Single Track was fast and fun. Rolling,Rolling,Rolling. No Hikers,Horses or Hikers. John's a great rider and it was a fun ride. Thanks for the trail tour man.

Memories

As we prepare to take off on this trip I've been thinking of people i need to see. Today i went and had coffee w/ Rich who was the vocalist of the band i used to be in. Rich and i have probably more memories than either of us realize, but when we're together it all comes back in a big way baby. After i had two four shot lattes and a double it all stated coming together. The stupid one liners,things my Mom said to us, stuff we did while we travelled the country in our band and all the crazy days when we lived in downtown Portland. Wondering the streets,sleeping behind dumptsters on tour, and endlessly hanging out in coffee shops. We could write a book, and it might even sell. I met Rich in '86, when he was going to Bible College. He signed up to help with my youth group and it was all down hill from there. It turned out he was as big as idiot as me ( or bigger) so we formed a friendship that will last forever. Whenever i see him we just start babbling like it was yesterday. Like no time has passed. After i started freaking out from all the coffee another memorable guy showed up. Kerrin. (i may have spelled that wrong) I remember meeting him like in '88 maybe, and he was a cool guy. One of the first things Rich told me about him was when a security guard hassled him about a knife he had on his boot. He took the guard down to the ground and said "Now what are you gonna do?" but you know how stories are. Either way he's a serious guy and still is. It was good seeing both of them today and when (or if) we return to the Portland area i hope to be seeing more of these guys.

Thanks for all the coffee and all the memories.

My last Oregon ride. (for a while)

I did my last ride for who knows how long with the guys I've been riding with for around 4 years. It was a good time and we sessioned the E.T. jump for a while. I love that one. Faster the better. It was my 2nd ride on the Cliff Cat and I'm liking it for sure. I'm going to switch the monster for the shiver and then she'll be good. A highlite of the day was when a guy cased a jump bigtime a tore the cleats off his shoes. They were still in the pedals. That was so funny. Why was he freeriding with clipless pedals? I don't know. On our last run we did a non stunt trail. DH single track with good flow. I was in the lead and East Coast Eric was chasing with everyone else behind. I really felt on the edge. Drifting some of the corners in the mud. It was good. When it came to the steep part there was a lot of down branches and a few trees. We had just went through a short rock section when i really opened her up. It was a long straight away so i was really going fast when i clipped a pedal on a rock. Wow! i hadn't flew off the bike so far in a while. Face first into rocks and branches. When i figured out i was ok Eric and i started really cracking up. Where's my helmet cam when i need it. Just about tore my pedal off though. Great day as usual.

and thanks to Jamie,Terry,Casey,Eric, Jim, and the other guys for riding hard. I'll be back.

Geting down to the wire

This was most likely the 2nd to the last weekend that I'll be riding around here for a long while. We're planning on leaving for our trip the first weekend in March and it's coming up fast. Anyway....hit up Falls city and the trails we're great until the rain hit. Conditions changed quick. Fooled around at Basic training for a bit then headed to the top. Some of the jumps we're under construction but it was still a good ride down. Saw some of the new stunts that are being built and they look good. Mtn Rider and Rosser were sessioning a cool skinny to log ride, so that was fun to watch. I need my derailuer too much to mess around on that. Flying J rode my Cliff Cat since both his bikes are broke ( Norco= snapped chain stay and demo being replaced by Specialized) Fun and wet day.

Syncline

This is a trail area in the columbia river gorge ,on the Washington side. A lot of xc people ride up then down but we shuttled some of the trails three times.2000 ft of elevation loss is good. Darren led us on our mad charge down he first trail. Dbl track for a while then it broke out into the green grass and single track that skirted the edge of a cliff. Two spring's ago a rider crashed and fell 400 ft to his death in this area. I was carefull. Then we got to the tech singletrack w/ embeded rocks every where. Was great and i was riding well. Some drop's at the end of the trail made the first run memorable. We had 8 riders but when we we're loading up for run #2 four more showed up. Big groups are fun. Darren led the charge again, this time through a gully trail that had so many rocks it was crazy. I started to feel the weight of my DH bike after i climbed the first (of many) hills. Super challenging trail and i smaked my pedals quite a few times. The last run was the same as the first. The section i liked the most is called "little Moab". Ton's of rock steps' and steep rocky switch backs. I was too tired to be going fast on these kind of rocks. I made a bad line choice and got ejected right over the bars. Hit my head,elbow and hip on rocks. O well. That's how it is sometimes. Great day though.

My Wife's new Bike!!!

I've not been riding much since it's raining so much, but my Wife got a new bike for our trip. It's a Bianchi Milano. Beauty eh? She'll use it for going to the store and /or cruising around while we're on the road. What trip you ask?Our family is preparing to embark on an EPIC road trip to the best MTB trails and more. So far the plan is to cruise down the coast and cut over in the Bay area to visit some Family in Sacramento. While there I'll be riding with a couple of guys on they're local trails. Then we head south and will stay a couple of days in Simi Valley to ride with some friends there. After that it's on to San Diego to ride Noble Canyon. Then weaving through AZ,NV, UT and showing up in Moab mid April. After that ..........Stay tuned.

Riding_in_the_N.W..wmv

mountain biking

Finally back on the bike!

After nearly 4 straight week's of rain and then last week with ice and snow we finally had some nice (47 deg) weather. Blue sky and fun ride. I was riding the kona since i want my new bike to stay mud/grit free. I like day's like this.

Rain