Mountain bikes, injured livers and Pandora

Without getting into crazy details, the annual Rambler trip didn't happen for me.  Logistically and financially I couldn't swing it.  But damn, I needed to get away for a desert trip, so I planned out a trip with Al (previous owner of Backcountry Bikes in Sheridan, WY and long time friend), Cletus, Bobki and my cousin Aaron.  Even though this is my "core" group of friends and we've all been friends for a long time (16+ years) we all had not ridden together in, shit, something like 7 years.  

So, last month, we saddled up Al's ride (the only one big enough and/or reliable enough to take us all) and headed to points south.  We ended up riding in Colorado Springs (my old stomping grounds), Fruita and Moab.  

I could blather on about the minutia of the trip, but I won't. I will tell you that we all tried to get all Chuck Norris and karate chop our livers (and I think we were successful in this endeavor), I discovered the joys of Pandora and a smart phone, which was detailed in a previous post regarding that and the temporary death of my Mac.  (I'm actually listening to Pandora right now, though it is on my computer as opposed to my phone, since my phone is decidedly not smart.)  Overall the trip was super rad, we had fun together, met cool people and rode some sweet trails. I'll let the pictures do the talking. And maybe add some captions that enhance your viewing pleasure.

Aaron looking into the trailer and wondering if it is too late to back out of this trip.

Al, looking refreshingly dapper in his Dog the Bounty Hunter attire.

Bobki, getting ready to set sail in Palmer Park.

Aaron reflecting on where his life went so wrong he ended up with us, in front of Pikes Peak.

Bobki, making the turn on the Cheyenne Trail, Palmer Park.

Aaron letting us know he's not a stupid as we are.

Me, giving my suspension a workout at Palmer Park.

Cletus, making the turn at Palmer Park

Seriously, this was a long time coming...Cletus FINALLY swapping out those things he called grips with actual, new grips.  We all were scared of those old ones.

"Hey Al, isn't that the spot where we consummated our love?"

"Where the fuck did I put my riding skills?"

Bobki takin' a leak...honestly, who DOESN'T have a picture of this?

"If I have to look up ONE MORE thing for these old fucks, I'm gonna download an App to kill them in their sleep..."

Cletus makin' it look easy...that bastard.

Cletus doing what he does best...freakin' Bobki out and hanging his feet off a cliff.  About 300' above the ground at Gemini Bridges.

I think I found Jim Morrison...

A ruggedly handsome crew.

We had a long way to go to the Portal...

The LaSals from the rim.

Once again, Cletus hanging his legs over the edge (note how small the highway below looks).

The holiest of mountain bikes at the Holy Cross (this picture was taken expressly for the Princess).
Cletus droppin' a chute at the end of the Holy Cross and makin' it look easy.

Cletus lookin' super sexy...too bad the inside of this tent smelled like the inside of Al's ass.

So there you have it.  A photographic journey with us.  I might add a few more pics when I get them, but I'll let you know when I do.  Just looking at these shots makes me want to do it all again.

A ban on yoga pants.

Spring is starting to, um, spring around here. We've actually strung 3 or 4 nice days together, which hasn't happened yet this year. Consequently, my son started riding his bike to school, which has caused me to ride my bike to work. Since he's only 8 and has to cross a few pretty busy intersections, I'm riding with him to school, helping him get his bike locked up and then heading to work.

Which is why there is a ban on yoga pants. What the hell do yoga pants have to do with me riding to work you might ask? Well, lemme 'splain.

A bike path goes basically right from the Boy's school to my place of employment, so it is an easy way to get to work. It might be a bit faster going on the actual road, but I can still get to work in under 15 minutes, so it isn't a big deal. And on this bike path is where the ban on yoga pants needs to take place.


I've determined a couple things. First, yoga pants have their place in the world. In a FUCKING yoga class. Not out in the world, getting a damn half-caf-skinny-double-douche-latte at Starbucks, not at the grocery store, not picking your kid up from school in your gas guzzling Escapade. Change after yoga class and don't wear 'em anywhere else. You're not cool and core if you're wearing 'em outside of yoga class. It makes you look like a wanna-be. I don't wear my bib-short-plum-smugglers when I'm not riding my bike. It isn't cool.

Actually, if people (mostly women, as men don't wear yoga pants since they wear shorts and hope their balls fall out during yoga class) follow the first rule, the second rule would be a moot point. The second rule is no more than 2 women, in said yoga pants, can walk together on a bike path (or other multi-use area). If more than two are walking together, they tend to lose their brains because they're talking about how rich they are, how their husbands don't satisfy them anymore, they want a 20 year old lover, blah, blah, blah and they hog the whole damned bike path.

Can they walk on one side? Nope. They walk 3 (or more) abreast and then when a cyclist overtakes them (read: me) they act like I just pissed on their doorstep. I usually give a friendly "hello" a couple times before I come up on them, but because they are so wrapped up in their inane conversation they don't hear me. Then, when I pass them, they look all shocked and surprised.

So, if you wear yoga pants outside of yoga, please stop. Or I'm coming to your house in bib shorts only. Trust me, you don't want that.

Crashes of all sorts...

Excuses are like assholes...everyone has one. I could give you a shit ton of reasons why I haven't posted since telling you I am going to start posting more or I can just, well, yeah, I'll give you some half assed excuses.

I really do have a post going for my recent trip to the high desert of western Colorado and Moab. I went with friends that I haven't been able to ride with in literally years and I (we) had a great time. My post isn't that lengthy in words, but in pictures. Unfortunately, loading pictures onto this blog isn't the most user friendly process, so I get kinda pissy when I'm doing it and only have the patience to load 4-5 shots at a time. I am in the middle of doing this when disaster struck. Well, I wasn't actually loading pictures, but my post about the trip is more than 1/2 way done when shit hit the fan.

Friday morning before heading out to work, I was loading some songs onto my phone. You see, I discovered the joy of Pandora when I was on my trip. Two of the guys had smart phones and we had them connected to the internet and listening to Pandora the entire time. It was a wonderful thing and at some point I will get one, but since I come from a long line of tightwads, I'll just load music onto my phone to old fashioned way...you know, like your grandpa did.


So anyhow, I start loading some new songs onto my phone and I walk away for a minute and when I come back, my MiniMac was dead. I tried all sorts of things to get it to run again to no avail. Part of me wants to blame my cheap-assed phone for crashing the computer although, realistically, it was just coincidental. Everything we have is on that computer. All my music, a fair number of movies, and all of our pictures including every single picture of the Boy and pictures of my trip, which is why I can't finish my post.

All is not lost with the Apple though. We took it into the local Apple service provider yesterday. After the guy fiddled around with it, he said he thought it was the logic board. Shit...that sounds expensive. Yep. The guy says "Usually when these go out on the Mini's people just buy new ones." Nice. Then I say "Hey, I bought the Apple Care when I got it which covers it for 3 years." After checking, the guy says it expired 1 FUCKING MONTH AGO! Great. He then says "Maybe call Apple, since it was only a month ago, they might make an exception." When I get home I call Apple and was on the phone for almost an hour with them. I could go into the details of how I was super nice on the phone, being complimentary about their product, how wonderful it's been, blah, blah, blah, remembering from my time in retail how much more I like to help calm friendly people with a problem then irate customers, but I won't. I will tell you that Apple WILL PAY for parts for me, all I have to do is pay for labor. Coolio!

Well, the Apple crash isn't the only crash we've had around here this week. We had a crash of a different sort the night before too. The Boy and I rode HLMP on the tandem Thursday night. We've been riding over there a fair amount recently, getting kinda "jaunty" on the big purple tandem, doing things like jumping it(!), doing some high berm "wall rides" and basically riding it like a maniac and we've been loving it. So, we rode out on a trail, did a loop, came back and started to ride up to the "summit". Just before the top there is a rocky, technical left hand corner that isn't a gimme and is difficult for a lot of people on single bikes. We were riding
strong and felt like tonight was the night to clean it. We started hammering on it and made it through the roughest stuff. Just as our front tire rolled onto the last rock, *BAM* our freehub blew. Our forward torque on the pedals caused us to go over. I tried in vain to stop us from falling to the ground, but over we went. The rocks, hill and the momentum caused the tandem to flip over me and as I rolled over, I see the tandem roll across and flip over onto the Boy, coming to a rest on top of him. I quickly throw it off of him and he jumps up and walks around for a second. He comes to me, crying a little. I hug him and ask him if he's OK as he assesses his injuries and quits crying. He then says to me "Dad, I love it when we crash cause I feel all jiggly inside!"

Jiggly inside indeed. I apologize for the wordy post today, as soon as the Mac is back, I'll get a photo based post put up. Until then, I hope you get to ride and have no occasion to get all jiggly inside.

Check out Yehuda Moon...good bike related comic strip. It will update here daily.

See...I TOLD you it would happen!

OK, so it's 4:15 am, not 4:30, and it sure as hell is NOT the greatest post in the world, but here I am.

I should be in the shower right now, but am I? Nope. Here I am writing bullshit down. It's gonna be short though, so no worries.

I'm 45 minutes away from heading out the door and on my way to Colorado Springs for a couple days then on to Fruita and Moab. It's gonna be SWEET to ride with the original group again. We all have been riding together for 15+ years. We've moved away, come back, moved away again, and some have come back again. It will be good to go to the desert and reconnect with those hooligans (although I might be the biggest).

See. Short and sweet. See you all on the flip side. I'm sure there will be some interesting stories for me to relate to you. I'm sure there'll be riding tales, travel tales and drunken campsite tales. Oh yeah, and FOR SURE there'll be at least one naked Bobki tale (that should be TAIL, huh?).

How Low Can You Go?

I've been a bad boy lately. I've ignored this blog. Well, that's not entirely true. I actually have no less than 4 other posts started but not finished. I've started 'em out like gang busters, but when I get to the end and re-read them, I think they suck donkey balls, so I didn't click the "publish" button, so there they sit, languishing in a interweb Purgatory hoping to see the light of day, but knowing they probably will never get posted.

Part of my problem has been we're in that in-between season, or in limbo if you will. We (the boy and I) wrapped up our ski/snowboard season last weekend, which was super-rad (do people still say rad?) and there is a bit of me bummin' that it has ended, but looking forward, it is all about riding. And yet, that surly bitch Mother Nature has other ideas, making the weather a bit of limbo as well. Why does it seem like when I'm indoors working, the weather outside is absolutely gorgeous, and the second I get off fucking work, the sky decides to dump out any precipitation it has been holding in, like a kid that's been outside playing and finally has to race into the bathroom to piss at the last second. (Also, why the hell do we say the weather outside? Is there weather inside?) I suppose I could ride the rollers, but I'm SO done with riding indoors, but I'm gonna have to probably break 'em out for a bit longer.

The other part of my problem is when I get up in the morning (my normal bloggin'-time) I have been working out. I have a definite plan, weights certain days, riding the rollers others, doing good ol' fashioned calisthenics on others, which might have to precipitate a name change. There was one time in my life that I was almost thinking about trying to become a "serious" cyclist which lasted for about 13 minutes. Right now I am in the best shape I've been in about 10+ years, with still a ways to go, but this is cutting into my "lets sit on my fat ass and type bullshit onto virtual paper for the world to see" time, which could possibly lead to changing my moniker from the Not-so-serious Cyclist to something like The Quasi-serious Cyclist or the Occasionally-Serious Cyclist or something like that.

The good news is (for me anyhow) in a week I'm heading for the drier, warmer climes of Colorado and Utah which should get the "creative" juices flowing, as much as I can call this drivel creative. Once riding season starts in earnest, I'll be inevitably riding by myself and have only my thoughts to bide the time, and I'll come home and puke out these convoluted thoughts onto the virtual paper.

So, bear with me. I'll have something to spew out here soon for your entertainment or for your dismay, depending on your view. We're heading out next Saturday at 5 am, so I'm sure the greatest post in the world will come to me at about 4:30 or so.

Do I need to change my name?

Since I've started this blog, I've been happy with the fact that I'm not very serious when it comes to riding. Well, I'm not serious when it comes to formal training. I AM serious when it comes to actually getting out and riding. Actually, what prompted the name, and the blog for that matter, was when one of the group I ride with couldn't make a Tuesday night ride because it wasn't on his training schedule. Giving up a chance to ride with friends because you had to go on a 50 mile road ride? I can almost guarantee that when you are lying on your death bed, friends and family at your side, you're not gonna look back on your life and say "I'm sure glad I didn't ride with you fuckers that one night...that road ride was much more satisfying."

But, there is something brewing at the NSS headquarters. I'm deep into a pre-season training regimen, I've been REALLY dedicated to my paleo-diet. On days off that I have built into my schedule (yes, I even have a damn training schedule), I'm snowboarding my ass off. This is getting weird...it is almost, and I mean almost, serious.

I've got a lot of riding "events" on the books for this year. A double-century gravel grinder in June, a 200 mile bikepacking trip with my son, the 37 mile BAM in July, a 100+ mile Centennial Trail ride in there somewhere, the Dakota Five-O in September, and the 24 Hours of Moab (if I can get a team together...or maybe a solo shot). Even looking at that list makes me kinda queasy. Seems all too much and too serious. The shortest of those rides is 37 miles in the BAM, but even that is a killer. What the hell is wrong with me?

Maybe this is why I don't really care if the winter is over yet. I've been digging hitting the slopes with my son this winter, watching him go from barely making it down the beginner slope to hitting black diamond runs this last weekend. Maybe I'm trying to avoid the impending summertime pain, just postponing it a bit longer.

Nah, I'm ready for it. I want it to come. I'm ready to hear the crunch of the rocks and dirt under my tires. I'm ready for the sting of sweat in my eyes. I'm ready for lung busting climbs and eye watering descents. I'm ready for the challenge of the rides I want to do. But you can be sure if I have to choose between a training ride and riding with friends, I'll be riding with my friends. Maybe.