Riding “Naked” in Alpine

So yesterday I was all primed to head to Alpine to hit up one of my favorite technical/stunt trails.   I had a brand spanking new full face helmet and was ready to go.  I had not ridden with my buddy Steve in months so it was going to be cool to catch up on things with him while out on the trail.   I show up to the trailhead early and get all my stuff together.  Steve shows up a little early as well and as I’m making final preps I realized that I left my pads at home!   Freaking Bummer!   Now it did not make much sense to be to wear a full-face helmet and no pads so I threw on the my regular helmet for the ride and went “naked” protection-wise.   I always throw on pads at the top of Anderson because, well, this place has a tendency to have you leaking at the end of the ride if you don’t.  But for this day, I decided to skip a few of the trechreous spots and generally take it easier.

What a great ride I ended up having today.  It was one of those days when things just all seem to click and you have to tell people about.  Not because you want to brag, but because days like this don’t always happen.  They are kind of special and today was one of those days. My gear snaffu aside, I rode well and it was just a great day to be out on a bike.  The stuff I did hit, just seemed to flow and feel much more effortless than in the past.  I was jazzed.    Steve and I always play around on stuff up there and today was no different.  I was also having a great day with the camera.  Angles just seem to be coming into view better and I was getting my envisioned shots on the first take.  It was cool to be in a camera zone as well.

Stairstep
A different angle on the “Stair Step”

 The Halloween Drop
This is called the Halloween Drop.   I’m not sure why, maybe it is because it will be a trick or treat.  Not much room in between.

Rock drop
This little rock drop had been messing with my head since forever out here.  I had launched bigger stuff than this but I would always roll it, even with pads on.   I think it was the rock onto a rock that was tweaking my melon.  After riding a few days in Moab, where this stuff is everywhere, I hit this without hesitation.  I had to stop afterwards, look around and go “What the hell was I fretting about?”

911 Roll
Further down the trail, the camera zone continued as I got a different angle on the 911 roll.  I was jazzed with getting some scenery in the background on this shot.

Wall Ride
On our way back down I had an “interesting moment” on the wall ride.   I came into the wall mighty hot and went up a lot higher than I had planned.  I also had enough speed that I basically blew through the wall forcing me to come down off the wall in a much steeper section while turning the wheel sharper than normal.   About halfway down the wall I was still leaned over and my fork was way out to my left. Because of the steepness of the wall past the “normal” area the fork came off the wall and somehow I managed to pull the frontend back underneath me and straighten it out just before the wheel touched down at the bottom.  It all happened really fast, but there was still that bit of the mental slow motion thing happening.  I stopped afterwards and had to let out a big yell.  I had the post-adrenaline rush shakes and my stoke meter was officially pegged!

The rest of the run was a cruiser and we finished off the day off with some yummy burritos.  Another great day to be a mountain biker.

 -Bill

New Bike Shop in North County

North County has a new bike shop, BikeBling.com.  I had heard about the new shop located in Escondido so when I was in the area I swung by.  The place still has the that “new shop” smell and from what the owner told me new stuff is coming in everyday.   I dig that the service area is not tucked away in the back somewhere.  It is right up front as soon as you walk in the door and you are more than welcome to watch the service in action.    The shop is catering towards service and higher end gear, you know real MTB stuff.   I forget all of the bikes brands they carry, but it was a nice list.   This is pretty cool for Escondidio as there was no real MTB bike shop in town after the Performance Shop was shutdown.   It is also cool for all of North County to have another local shop to add to the variety stuff to chose from as no one shop carries all brands.  The shop is also going to be doing Internet sales as well.

I was impressed that they had a really good selection of full-face helmets and I ended up getting a Giro Remedy CF to me from busting up my face again.   Now I just have to go get some sweat on the inside of this bad boy.

Full Face Helmet

Utah – Colorado Roadtrip Pages

I’m starting to get the Utah – Colorado Road trip report put together.   I’m going to roll it out as I get each of the days done vice waiting until I get all eight days completed.   Here is the main page that wil link to each day of the trip.  I hope to get a new day of the trip up every other day or so.

Utah -Colorado Roadtrip 2008

Amasa Back with La Sal Mountains in Background

-Bill

The bike is back in the home rack.

Well I’m back from wandering through Utah and Colorado.  What an incredible trip.  We rode each day of the trip including our travel days.   Shoot, we rode twice a couple of days for a total of 10 rides in 8 days.   I met some cool people, touched bases with old friends, rode great trails and managed to get that monkey off my back the Goat Camp Crash.  It was truly the kind of stuff that you remember for the rest of your life.   I’m swamped with pictures and random streams on thought that will take some time to get all together.  

 Here a few more teaser pictures for now:

Kevin on Gunny Loop
Kevin on the Gunny Loop in Grand Junction (Rode from his front door) 

Zion Curtain
Cruising on the Zion Curtain

Moore Fun
Someplaces are really “Moore Fun” 

Church Rocks
Church Rocks 

Brew Time
World Class trails with World Class Brews!

Wandering through Utah

Life is good!   My buddy Bill and I have been running amuck through Utah.  Yesterday we finished up our sixth ride in five days.   We spent a day near St. George doing some mesa riding before heading over to Moab.   We hit up a few of the marquee trails as well as some of the not-so marquee trails.    Big Country – Awesome rides.   Last night we pulled up chocks and rolled into Grand Junction, Colorado to hang with some friends for a couple of days and hit up a few trails here. 

Here a few sample pictures from the trip so far.  

Utah
Little Creek Mesa

Utah
Porcupine Rim

 U?tah
Poison Spider Mesa

Utah
Bartlett Wash

utah
Slickrock a plenty.

The wanderlust continues, gotta go for a ride…

Busy Week and New Beginnings

I'm the dude on the left 

After 22 years of active duty in the US Navy, I retired this past Friday.   Actually, I’m not officially off the books until the end of July but I have stacked up enough vacation days over the years to take a few months off.   I had a really great career as an electronics/computer geek turned manager, but it was time to do something else for a living.  Shipboard duty in the Navy is quite hard on a family and I would have been separated from my family a bunch over the next four years.  My long term goals are to raise my two sons so be successful men, husbands and fathers.   With Will approaching his teenage years I believe it is really important for me to be close and involved (Wither he likes it or not) to achieve those goals.   

So this past week has been a busy one around the house:  Last minute retirement paperwork to,  a hockey tournament, parents coming in from North Carolina, extended family coming in as well, the ceremony…..  A lot of really cool and fun stuff going on.    All of which seemed to push “Get a ride in” down on the priority list.

Preexisting Biking Condtion
Sidenote for my wife – This is proof that biking was indeed a preexisting condition when we got together 🙂

The big question that I have been mulling over the last six months has been:

“What do I want to be when I grow up?”

Okay I still don’t have a good answer for that, but the good news is there are lot of opportunities for my next career, so I need to narrow things down over the course of the next few weeks.    I have always found that some of my best thinking gets done when I am at or near my maximum heart rate with lots of good clean air in my lungs.     

Hmmmm, I’m thinking that some Utah slickrock and narrow Colorado singletrack should help quite a bit with that effort.

Singletrack

Here is a few more pics involving the Navy.    If you think my dream career involves your company please contact me.  Starting on Saturday, I will be sporadically off the grid for about a week so expect some delay in responses.