dawn patrol

Early, early morning weekend rides have been the name of the game lately. It's actually been pretty great getting up with the day. Last week was a super early riser Sunday. A predawn AM wakeup with the auto timer coffee already kicked in to turbo mode started a fine day. It was still dark outside as I loaded the bike into the car and rolled out on the highway. Destination was a little jeep road that I refer to as the bmx track. It's an easy middle ring climb into a network of more jeep roads. Back down, though, is the fun part. It rides like a big wide downhill course/bmx track complete with perfect berms, terraces, ruts and rock jumps. You can fly down it hardtail style or you can launch as big as you want to go on a big bike. Lots of line choices and room for "interpretation." The sun wasn't even out when I hit the trailhead.

Today was another great early ride. With the time change, instead of an extra hour to sleep, that meant an extra hour of daylight in the AM! I had some things to do around the house so I pedaled out and headed to Hall. Not feeling very spry at 6:30am, I turned onto the still wet Apple Valley Road and climbed in the easy way up Antelope. Ridng at off peak times is great. This morning there were tons of deer all over the meadows and yards off of Antelope Road. Once onto the trail, the dirt was absolutely perfect. It was still nice and hard and grippy underneath but instead of coated with sand and pea gravel, today's was a frosting of moist grippy dirt about knob deep. I hadn't seen conditions like this in quite some time!

I looped Nelson in each direction before heading back the frontside to Hwy 7. I only encountered 1 bike pretty much the whole day. It wasn't until I was within sight of the hwy 7 parking lot that I saw someone - something I'd never seen before at any Open Space trail. Not a ranger, but a Sheriff officer hikin on the trail! Nice enough though. I'm sure he was there to start off his day just like me.

Rolled back home and was in the kitchen with more coffee brewing by 8am. I don't think i've ever enjoyed the time change so much.

Night

Ok, so night rides start this Tuesday at 7pm, November 1st. Meet at the shop and bring a good light with a couple hours of burn time. Should be pretty fun, especially if it doesn't snow.

So, with Halloween and night riding approaching, I subject going right now on another bike blog is scary night experiences. Anybody got any good ones?

Last year about this time of year, I was night riding and running a tad behind schedule. I decided to freestyle it thru the bush, hiking. There's a spot on the trail that comes with in 30 yards of the highway about 1/2 mile up from the parking lot, so I figured I'd bail off the trail there.

Well, it's about 30 yards of thick brush so you have to look where you're hiking. I panned the dark and saw a set of eyes a few hundred feet away. I tried to keep my light on them, but I'd have to turn to look where I was going pretty frequently so I wouldn't trip. Every time I turned my light back on the beast, it was about 1/2 again as close. I was pretty damn scared by the time I reached the highway, those eyes were only 50' away. To this day I'm not sure 100% what it was, but I pedalled like a bat out of hell once I was back on bike.

no brakes no gears no freewheels

So this is public knowledge now. It's still on the cusp, but there exists a high probability that a new Velodrome will be built in Lyons. Doug from Ubikes and a partner have been shopping for a while for a site to build a track. They recently pitched the idea to the town of Lyons. From what I understand, all the town has to do is donate a couple of acres and Doug and Co will take care of the rest . The Lyons town board unanimously approved Doug's proposal. It's a go from Lyons' end.

I had the opportunity to discuss this with the Mayor here. Seems that Doug and his partner looked all over Boulder County but neither the city of or the county were willing to work with them. Recently, they'd been looking at some property in Weld County. The Lyons idea works well, though, because they escape liability by buiding on municipal land - same principal as a skatepark.

Don't know how high we should get our hopes, but it could be a sweet deal.

good

Night ride good.
New trail good.
Weather good.
Life good.

Hall/Heil Action Alert!

There will be an open house on Oct 25 at 6pm at the Lyons Elementary School. County Open Space staff will be on hand to present their preliminary
recommendations to the public regarding Hall and Heil trail connections. Be there and be informed!

After that last snow/rain mix, the trails sure are fantastic right now. I just wish I had the time to ride them more! This is such a great time of year to ride. It's killing me only being able to ride 1 or 2 days a week!

Got out with Scott this weekend for a little shuttle action. Shuttle as in point to point, though, not as in shuttle monkey. Not too bad for a shuttle, either - 12 miles and about 2000' of climbing. Although, we did get that 2500' descent thrown in just for fun... Got up pretty early in the am and it was damn cold at 8000'. The high point on the day was just over 9k, I think. There were still bits and pieces of snow up top, too. That snow, though - just made the dirt perfect. The day was great, the trail was great and we didn't see another soul. A fantastic day of fall riding for sure. We were pressed for time and had to boogie so there were no action shots. Here's a pic before the day started and before the sun was out:

It's great time for road riding, too. Especially now that they've finally finished paving US36 thru Lyons! The road crew was out early on Saturday to finish up. The reward is new fresh blacktop that stretches all the way thru town. If you really want to see something botched up, though, wait until next year when they pave Main St in downtown. That's another thing entirely!

Lots of good things with the shop, too. Fall is the slowdown time of year, but Redstone has been busy behind the scenes. The addition of Niterider to the lineup is just the tip of the iceberg. I can't say now, but we'll have a couple new brands gracing the shop floor soon. Maybe even a new demo bike, too. In other bike news, I just got an email from my GT rep. Things are going quite well for the turnaround of one of Americas premier homebread mountain bike lines. So well, in fact, that GT is dropping distribution in the sporting goods channel. No more Gart Sports, woohoo! GT is committed specifically to the IBD. IBD committment, full carbon road bike, what more is yet to come? Stay tuned for more.

Redstone sighting...

On the western slope! Next stop the world!

New light...

Tonight I ran my new Niterider light through it's third cycle: 3 hours, 40 minutes! It's like carrying a small sun with me on my rides. Soooo much better than halogen.

Thanks Dave!

the virtual interbike recap and some cool links

Interbike was this last weekend. I was unable to attend but had some buddies scouting out for my virtual attendance. There are some great things on the horizon. Here's some great GT news

More info on the carbon road bike:

Spec. will be the same as the GTR 1 and the Sug. Retail will be aprox. $2,499.00

* Reynolds Ouzo Fork (carbon steerer)
* Ultegra / Dura-Ace (der./shifters/brakes)
* FSA Carbon Cranks
* FSA Carbon Seat Post
* FSA Bar and Stem
* FSA Wheel Set
* Thompson Seat Post
* Fizik Arione Saddle w/ti. rails
* Vittoria Diamante Tires

One of the coolest road/commuter bikes I saw last year. Unfortunately they were unobtainable very quickly. We'll probably get one of these in soon.

Also, check out Bionicon:

Read RC's article on the 120mm 4 bar bike in MBA if you're skeptical. The one in the photo is a larger travel single pivot bike. Very cool.