New Arrivals and the Fireball!

Cold weather is on the way. Get prepared with PI cool weather accessories. We got in gloves, wool socks, booties, warmers, and headgear. Get prepared, it's going to be cold next week. Maybe? :)

A few guys on our Tuesday night ride saw this meteor. It was only going 76,000 miles per hour. That's fast.

I've been getting out a bit lately on different bikes. I've found that Fall is a good time of year to start to cycle thru the bikes in the stable. You know - it's been a season of good riding, but there's still a handful of trails that you've ridden a lot. A lot. When you get that vibe from the ride, it's time to but out an oldie but a goodie. I recently sold thru all of my bikes/demo bikes and have been without a FS bike. Oh well. It was time anyway. It had been a while but I recently dusted off my 12 year old Croll custom hardtail after a 1.5 year haitus where it lived in the garage and gathered cobwebs. I dusted if off for our Nebraska journey and it was spot on after a short tuneup.

Since 24 hrs of Moab, though, I've been riding nothing but the Croll. It's been to Hall Ranch again (another oldie but a goodie :) ) as well as Picture Rock and other parts of the forest. I forgot how quick and fun this old cross country hardtail was. It's funny that folks react differently on trail to seein this bike than they did the Spot. I get a lot of people pulling out in front of me when I'm on this bike. It's like they've been taking a break and, once they see the guy on the hardtail coming, they have to hop on the trail to get in front of me. It's even funnier when they get passed by the guy on the hardtail. Argh! Folks should be courteous regardless of what's coming up the trail. Enough of the rant. I even did bike patrol on it the other day.
On Picture Rock. I think I'm becoming addicted to Rock. Conveniantly, Picture Rock opened up about the same time that bigger driving riding opportunities were starting to shut down for me. With days getting shorter and limited available time to ride, I've been opting to ride from home so as not to incur any driving time to and from trailheads. Needless to say, I've been hitting this trail a ton. Not only is it a change from the day to day Hall Ranch that I've been riding for years, but this new trail is good. I mean really good. It's got some fun swoopy sections (that become even more fun and swoopy after you learn the trail) and it's got some good rocky sections closer to it's highest elevation. Good stuff.

I rode it again today, too. It was a long day that started early. Up at 6 to get out to Longmont. Winter hours also means winter job opportunity :). I started helping out Dale and Co. in the Longmont brewery location a few days a week. I went in this am, but was able to get a short ride in later in the day. I'd been jonesing for another bike again. This time it was the cross bike. I was itching to get out and hit some rural Boulder County gravel roads. I hopped on and rode off. I don't know exactly what it was, but I felt the pull of Picture Rock. After riding 1/2way thru town, I had already dealt with more cars than I wanted to tolerate so I steered it towards the dirt. It was good. It hit the spot. I rode about 80% of the way to the Silo and just sat there to take in the view. Wish I had a camera, but I was running lean. It was a good sitting rock, though, so I'm sure I'll get a few pics soon.

I have a feeling that I'll be riding there some more this winter. I'll be riding it on a few Tuesday nighters, too. Speaking of, how about we ride tomorrow/Tuesday at 6pm? Bring lights and a vehicle. We'll go somewhere fun, ride around in the dark, then go to Oskar's and listen to Bluegrass. Any ride suggestions?

Tuesday Ride Recap

We finally got motivated after hanging at the shop for a while. I made a few observations on the ride (which was great with perfect dirt).

- it was chilly

- there were no leaves on the trees

- there was snow on the ground

Winter is coming.

Tuesday Night Ride/Winter Hours

Plug your lights in, we're riding at 5:30. Better bring your cold weather gear, too.

Also please note that winter hours are in effect!

Mon: closed
Tue: 1:00-5:30
Wed: 10:00-6
Thu: 1:00-6
Fri: 1:00-6
Sat: 10:00-5
Sun: 11-3

Another fall trip to the desert

Getting around is a lot easier when there's a custom Tomac bike hauler at our beck and call. That's Matt's Soulcraft Monster cross in the foreground. Big wheels, drop bars, usually fixed but just single this time around. Road everything with it.








Cutting the ribbon on Saturday's long ride. Climbing Petakis in GJ. We went up to the very tip top, and I left my camera in my bag pretty much the whole day.









18 Road goodness. Camped there, so rode it a lot. Always fun.

cool band, cool website

I just came across this website. Alex, the mandolin/fiddle player for Spring Creek stopped in the shop today. If you haven't heard of them, Spring Creek is one of the most rippin' bluegrass bands around. I'll admit that I don't know too much about bluegrass, but I definitely know when I hear tunes I likes. A lot of the Spring Creek crew jams at Oskars on open Bluegrass pick night (tuesdays) so we get to hear them after Tuesday Rides. Anyway, check out their website. It's pretty cool and I find that it fits the personality of the band well.

Rally of the Dead

The Durangatangs are putting on a FREEKing good weekend of bike culture. We're heading up to soak up the sin, can you join us??????



Rally of the Dead

October 21st Tuesday, Movie Premiere,
Never Forget the Feeling, by Chase Orrick@Abbey Theatre, a film documenting
the 2008 Durango DEVO junior development team, doors open at 6pm.
Sponsored by Trails 2000

October 23rd Thursday, Tour de Mort
Group ride to awaken the Dead, meet at Durango Cyclery at 530pm
Bring tons of beer and smokes

October 24th Friday, The Zombie Ball and Bike Porn Film Tease
@ the Powerhouse Museum, 21 and over, doors open at 6pm with DJ
Tricerahops and the Rainbow Machete Crew. Sponsored by New Belgium
Brewery.

October 25th Saturday, Rally of the Dead stage race
Registration at 945-10am at Stoner Park, $6.66 entry fee, (5$ for Pologeist,)
Race at 10amish

October 25th Saturday at 10pm, Live Awards Show
@ the Abbey Theatre, music and awards, open to the public at $10.00 a head,
Soft Hands from Long Beach, CA and Tunnel from San Francisco will be playing
for us. Opening act Black Market Electric. Sponsored by Wagon Wheel Liquors

October 26th Sunday, Pologeist
10am at Buckley Park, the 4th annual polo tournament. 5$ a head, will play till
2pm, round robin format, teams of three, Sponsored by Oskar Blues Brewery

a few Turner '08 frames left - deals!

How about $1300 or less for 5 Spots, Fluxes and Sultans? Yep. They're going fast.

Spot - $1285
Flux - $1185
RFX - $1350
Sultan - $1260

Moab 24

I last competed in the 24 Hours of Moab in 2000. I raced on a Coed Pro team, Schwinn/Jamba Juice. We went in with the intention of winning, trained our butts off, and raced for the entire 24 hours. Strategy, full on hard efforts, racing, it was all there. Also there was the fights with teammates, legs on fire, chafed ass on fire, and mental anguish (head on fire) associated with racing for 24 hours. We made money but I vowed to not ever again "race" in 24 Hours of Moab.

The last several years have afforded me the option to participate in a number of teams, but I declined all options. The memories of 24 hour torture haunted me and I had no inkling to want to suffer like that again. Until this year. I can't remember exactly who did the cajolling, but in the end, myself and fellow Redstoners Art, Jason, and Chris were packed up and headed to Moab for the 14th edition. We were all under the very strict understanding that we were there for fun. All competitive drives would be washed away by beer. Fun only.

The fun came to a screaching halt as soon as we rolled into the venue. The desert winds seemed to be blowing 500 miles per hour as we tried to set up camp. Setting up took about twice as long as it should have. It took 3 of us to set up Art's dome tent that we would use for hq. Thanks again for bringing the 2x4 firewood, too, Chris. It was perfect. In years past, we camped closer to the scoring tent and staging area. This year, though, we opted for the wind protection of the trees further up the hill.

It was time to preride the course. Chris and I had done many, many laps in the past, but it was a new experience for Jason and Art. I put on new shoes for the occasion. These Pearl Izumi X Alp Enduros were my last set of prototype freebies. Good fitting and shiny, they lacked the black finish and good looks of the production versions.
This was also the last trip for the 5 Spot. I made sure to enjoy every last minute.
Chris leads us out on the course. Desert and mountains, pretty stuff. Them thar LaSal Mountains are tall, too. Couple of the big ones are over 12k.
The course nears the "Behind the Rocks" WSA. There's lots of freaky looking things in the Moab desert.

There's also a fiersome sandy hike on course, too. Guess that meant we were mountain biking after all :)
And slickrock. Slickrock happens in Moab. This is at the far point on the course. The big cliff/rock you see is Prostitute Butte.
Friday ended up being a great day. The sunset was beautiful. The race starts at noon on Sat, the next day. Time to party!
The moon was bright. The course would be naturally well lit the following night.
The course isn't the only thing well lit. Art wasn't the only one either.

We climbed up the cliff behind camp. It was like we were looking down on Lyons from the L. This was tent city. The brightest light was the jumbotron near the scoring tent.
Ah, no mountain bike trip is complete without a visit from our nomad friend, Whiskey Dave. Or Fixie Dave. Or Fixed Whiskey Dave. This is his bike as he has it outfitted for randomly touring the western US. Fixed gear rigid fork 29er. Dave couldn't find a handlebar bag to his liking so he mounted a kitty litter box. Dave says it can handle anything he can throw at it. Dave left after several samples of Stranahan's finest. Whiskey of course. It was time for bed now.
The riders meeting the next day was kind of brutal. The wind was howling by now, the strongest it'd been all weekend. It wasn't cold, but everyone had their winter coats on to protect from the wind. Lucky me, I got to go first.
My lap was good. I had the running lap. The race starts with a LeMan's style start, meaning you have to run to your bike. You run 200 yards down the desert, around a 12' tall bush, and back to your bikes. My running fitness ensured that I would get out onto the starting road at about 200 of 360 racers. Did I mention that I suck at running?

I ended up with my first lap being 1hr, 18 min. Chris was next. He clicked off a fast one, too, before rolling in to hand the baton to Jason.
We were all pretty fresh at this point, seeing how it was all of our first lap. Jason had a smile as he left to go out on course.

I didn't get a pic of Art as he left to ride but I got a pic of the aftermath. Art was realizing after lap 1 that this would not be an entirely easy affair.
That's about all the race recap I've got on film. Basically, if you see our time, you'll notice a 4 hour or so delay around 4am. That's when we all opted for sleep over competition. The next morning, we all go up about the same time, ate breakfast together (beef and pepper fajitas with eggs, heck yeah) and sent Jason out on course. After Jason's lap, Art went out for his last one. Art came in at 11:26am so we still had plenty of time to take in another lap. We decided that 3 laps each was good, though, and we refocused on having fun.

I had to take this pic for perspective. Art was easily the tallest of us and he chose to sleep in his girls play tent. Way to go, family man. Jason poses here with the kiddy tent.
Did I mention that we lost focus easily? Race was over, it was time to relax.
I've been around a while and have seen a lot of bikes. This one caught my eye in the staging area. I've never seen a KTM bicycle before. I suspected that the motorcycle giant had something manufactured for them by a factory like KHS, Fuji, or Hodaka, but the head badge read "Made in Austria." Good on you KTM. Got to keep those moto guys happy even when they're pedaling.

Tinker was steadfast as usual. 2nd place solo behind the mighty fast Josh Tostado. Chris Eatough finished a dissapointing 32nd in the men's solo. Anybody know what happened to him?

We asked, but she was referring to someone else.
We hotelled it on Sunday night, which was a good call. No one was in any shape to drive across the state. We were all pretty tired. We wrapped it up with beers and margaritas at a local mexican place.

Monday was good. Anytime you get out on Mary's Loop in Fruita is good. We only had time for a quickie, though.
Just over an hour on Mary's and Rustlers. Good times indeed. I always seem to forget how the trails are smoove like butter there. Yum.
Duck! Chris finally learned how to throw the boomerang that he's had for years.

That's it. Moab 24. Be warned, though. We're doing a few teams next year ;)

chop chop

It's not always about mountain bikes. Choppers are cool, too.

24 Hours

Moab. Redstoners live update is here. Ride Redstoners, Ride.

BIKE POLO - CANCELLED

I'm not sure how much participation was planned for this evening but we are going to have to postpone the first edition of Bike Polo due to the core group & equipment holders haveing commitments with the GABF. Please keep your eyes peeled as we would like to get a few games in before old man winter has his say. Also, you can keep an eye on our GABF experience via our OBTV YouTube channel HERE.

BIKE POLO - Tomorrow Wednesday 10/7

We're attempting the first Lyons Bike Polo session tomorrow Wednesday at our own Meadow Park 'round 5:30ish. We should have enough mallets for y'all so stop on in. A few of us will be getting there a bit earlier with mallets & the ball so come by a bit early if you can. I wouldn't bring your race bike...Daves building me a new rear wheel after my first experience. Hope to see you there!

P.S. PPBSBOB (post polo beer supplied by oskar blues)

Big fall ride, wussy route.

Nice work again, Dave. I can't remember the last time I've covered that much ground in a day. I took next to no pictures yesterday, but I did manage to salvage a few.



Chad - in a rare moment when he's not passing out beers.










And Todd, on the rim trail in lefthand. I'm super glad they've shut down the shooters, as its an excellent little trail.










This is how it looked on the GPS. Even skipping the Gold Lake area and making a beeline for Jamestown, we managed 38+ miles of smiles. The end of the day was my first time on Picture Rock, and its a treat in itself.

BFR3 recap and pics. Lots of pics

Big Fall Ride III. BFR3. This was our 3rd big Fall get together in 4 years. I've been tweaking the course over the last few years to maximize enjoyment and pain. With the Picture Rock trail opening up just a couple of weeks ago, I decided to make real a dream I've had for years. That dream was to start west of the Peak to Peak highway and ride back to Lyons via Heil Ranch on as much dirt as possible.

After lots of routeplanning idea sessions and some good old exploring in the woods, the route was finalized. We'd be west of the Peak to Peak highway for the first few hours then, start ducking down towards Lyons.

As the day crept up, the weather forecast became more shaky. On the eve of the ride, the forecast called for temps in the 50's and scattered showers throughout the day. We were prepared for the worst.

The morning dawned and there was even a bit of sunshine at the bike shop. Spirits were up as we loaded up the shuttle vehicles. At our dropoff destination, though, it was very brisk and windy. Fall felt definitely underfoot. It was as if the first fall weather came along for the ride.

In true DMD fashion, we started right off with the days most demanding climb. Chad nails switchback #1 with perfect form.

The riding was fun after we regrouped. Everyone was itching to get the climb over with and we were riding in a good group.
It didn't take long to get people strung out, though. Especially with features like this. It's not mountain biking unless you're hiking.

But the payoff would come soon enough. Jen's happy to ride across the swamp bridge that BMA built a few years ago.
More forest boardwalks as we got into the days first real descent.
And what a descent it was. You name it, we rode it. Rocky and technical, fast and swoopy, with aspen color galore. Jen was sure happy about it.
And then Shawn found something that wasn't exactly what he planned. Broken shifter. Well, at least it was the left side. Brian came to the rescue with zip ties. Zip ties are the modern equivalent to duct tape. A quick fix and we were on our way.

More descending still. Keith was ripping it up. Notice the smile.

After the descent and requisite rest/meetup break, I noticed that I had popped the bead on my tire. I, of course, didn't notice this until we mounted to ride again, so Keith was kind enough to hang back. Despite the county road, it was typical Colorado Fall beautiful.

Almost to the 1/2way point!
Ah, almost half done. I could think of worse places for a lunch break.
The views were outstanding (thanks E!).

And the sky was looking ominous to the south. We basked in the sun but it wouldn't take more than a small shift in the winds for rain and clouds to blow in. I kept my fingers crossed. So far, the forecast hadn't materialized. It was still 60 and mostly sunny.

We came from the flanks of that baby right there.
There was still more climbing to go. There's alwasy more climbing.
And since we seemed to be staying ahead of our anticipated rains, we even went out of our way to hit the bonus climb. Bonus in the sense that it also made available some bonus singletrack, too.

In a rare photo of himself, Photo Eddie shows how it's done.
Mike shows us that there is still some narrow singletrack on the front range.

And Nate shows that there are still water crossings in October.

We had been descending for quite a while now. Doug flies by us as we stop to fix a pinch flat.
And then it was time to hit the road, Jack. It had just started to rain. We were eager to outrun the weather on the road. We actually, did, too.
But there was still a taste of singletrack before we got to our final dirt.
Not too bad. Jason is showing no sign of wear after 5 hours in the saddle.


Finally. Our final destination and the 6 hour mark. A few souls have peeled off the group by now. We were becoming a shell of the ride group that we started with.

There was pain, but no using my name in vain yet by the top of the last climb. I was a bit dissapointed. But only a bit.
Almost home. Only about 7 miles left to go.
Doug is sure enjoying the new singletrack just minutes from home.
By the end of the ride, Matt was all smiles. Matt's drove 8 hours for this one.
7 hrs and 40 minutes later, we rolled into the bike shop, where we proceeded to scarf brats and Dale's Pale Ale. Almost immediately after we rolled into the shop and fired up the grill, the skies opened up and dumped upon us. Thank you for listening, Rain Gods :) Hope it was worth it, Matt.

Thanks for coming out everyone. I think I have a couple of ideas for next year. heh heh. Be prepared to start a little earlier for an even longer ride!