Tuesday Night Ride Report

Last night's ride was an adventure; complete with water crossings, route finding, steep climbs, and rocky descents on new trails.









It of course also got dark before we made it back to the cars, but we all came prepared with lights: It doesn't take that many rides out with Dave before you learn your lesson ;-)







A little bonus video...

Something to tempt you for the Fest this weekend

Chad and I prerode the "B" ride for this weekend today. It was good.

There was climbing. And more climbing. And even more climbing. And the views were splendid. See the meadow centered in the picture? The "A" ride will circumnavigate that meadow from the other side.

There was some really, really good technical descending.

Steep, too. This shot was in the same series of shots as the one just above. Hopefully that gives perspective of the steepness. Not all is like that, but there are some fun steep and rocky chutes.



Then there's some fine rolly singletrack, too. Some sand, but not enough of a bother.
We opted to take a tour of the homesteads.

Lookey like someone's coming to visit!
Gotta tie up the steeds for a rest break after a hard day of riding, too.

Did I mention the technical descending? These 2 sequential shots are probably the hardest move on the trail. Anyone got a guess on location?


Ah, the elevation profile. Enjoy!

**Please note that B ride does not equal "easy ride." It'll still be tough, just a couple thousand less feet of climbing than the big ride. Hopefully, Bryan will have reports of folks using his name in vain :)

Tuesday Ride 5/18

Howdy everyone. The Tuesday ride this week will be LIGHTS MANDATORY. We've got some explorin' to do and I'm not sure that we'll make it out by dark. Sound fun? :) Meet at the Jamestown post office at 6pm. Carpoolers from Lyons, we'll try to leave a little before 5:30pm.

I think I lost my backpack today, too. argh!

*************************************************
Update - found my backpack, now I can put up some pictures.


It was a superb sunny Spring day today.


Keith showed some very fine form.

Fat Tire Fest Version 8.0 Next Weekend!

Howdy all. Sorry for the late notice on this, it's been a little hectic around the shop lately. The time has come. The 8th Annual Lyons Fat Tire Fest is next weekend.

This year won't be a super over the top big production, just a homey fest like you all grew to know and love. So much so, in fact, that we'll be retracing the route of the 1st ever LFTF Deathmarch. That's right. Deathmarch. I feel like I let a few folks down last year. Sure it was a long ride but it was mostly technically easy and I was personally bummed that absolutly noone used my name in vain last year. I would like to make up for that with this years Version 8.0

What you can expect:

Friday, 5/23. We'll start off with a short-ish ride by meeting at the shop at 2pm. We'll get back somewhere between 6 and 7. Well, that's the plan anyway. Expect steep and loose climbing, good singletrack, and fun descending. We'll be driving approximately 20-30 minutes.

Saturday, 5/24. Deathmarch Day. Meet up at the shop at 8:30am. I'll have breakfast waiting, too. Local Lyonsite Denise Braly has generously agreed to fill us up on Breggos, her own creation of bread/egg/pototato/other stuff that's kind of like a breaded breakfast burritoo. Yeah, there good. Anyway, after we leave the shop we'll drive about 15 minutes before we ditch the cars. Parking will be limited so please carpool. We're shooting for about 35-40 miles, LOTS of climbing, and some big descents. I mean steep, long, technical unmaintained and forgotten about forest trails. We'll see some history, too, by touring an area ripe with homesteads from the early 1900's. The last time I did this ride, I was with local fasty Chad and it took us over 5 hours. It's a big ride, so bring lots of water, food, and a rain coat.

If that sounds like a bit much, we'll have an alternate ride as well. The alternate ride will have all of the same bittersweet singletrack, but will be about 1/2 the distance of the big ride. Ride B will be a point to point so be prepared for shuttling logistics :) Our good man Debaser will be leading up Ride B.

After the Saturday ride, we'll reconvene at the casa del Dave and Mary for beers and grilling. Homeboy Dale from Oskar Blues and Dale's Pale Ale will be providing the beverages. I'll be providing the grills so just bring something to char and a side if you'd like and we'll be all set. There's even potential for a chicken crit inspired time trial. Details will be released on that beerside.

Fat Tire Fest 2008. Be there. Hopefully you'll hate me for it. :)

racin'

Harman Rocks in Gunnison is definitely good riding. Good racing, too. I remember some real sufferfests on the old Rage in the Sage course. We'll, I just got this from Brian at Mountain Flyer magazine.

The Gunnison Valley Bicycle Club and Gunnison Trails are bringing back the suffering at Hartman. Also note that endurance freakos will be pleased with the long distance offerings on June 8.

Tuesday Ride, 5/13

Finally. The days are long enough. It's forest time. Time for trees, streams, heinous jeep road climbs and fast flowy, rocky descents. Sound good? If it does, let's meet up in Raymond tomorrow. Park in the switchback on the road directly above the Raymond store. We'll meet there at 6pm. Raymond is 20 minutes west of Lyons up Highway 7. We'll be leaving the shop around 5:30 if anyone would like to meet up to carpool or caravan.

We'll hit the grinder of a Jeep road up to Miller Rock, then down to the S. St. Vrain creek for an out and back on Cerain St Vrain. Hopefully we'll see some snow. Nothing like a little adversity to add to the adventure.

As an aside, we'll be closing early a few days this week for various reasons.
Tues, 5/13 - closed at 5:30 for Tuesday ride
Wed 5/14 - closed at 5pm for Bike Patrol training
Wed 5/15 - closed at 5pm for Bike Patrol training

Spot Time

Todd's new Turner 5 Spot is a beauty. A stealthlike beauty. We opted on this one for the slight upcharge and the rear triangle painted to match.


Painted to match in the smoke black. What a cool paint finish.

Along with cool turner only details, like the 1 piece forged rear chainstay yoke.

We laced up some custom Chris King/DT 5.1d wheels for this creation and topped it off with Formulas Oro K24 brake. It's hard to beat that brake for the performance and money.

Someone had to go first

Four and six years. That's how long I've been riding a pair of Salsa saddles. So count me a little nervous about getting a new seat. And now there's demo saddles at the shop? Yes! Someone had to go first, might as well be me.

Dave, I'll need one without the yellow please.

Coffee and Rocket

Scott's stoked on his new Schwinn Coffee. 3 speedin' around town hasn't been this fun in a while. Even comes with the cool rack. Schwinn definitely has a few gems in their line this year.

I also like the fact that Transition is doing do your own sticker kits now. That way you can keep them looking totally clean and sharp, like Todd's new Bottle Rocket here.

Scott's stoked on his new Schwinn Coffee

WTB Saddle Test Ride Program

Just got in a shipment of sweet yellow Test Ride saddles from WTB. Throw one of these on your own bike and go beat on it. One of the bummers of buying a saddle you've never had is making sure that it matches your personal preferences. WTB is helping to take the guesswork out of it for us. Thanks WTB :)

Redstone Rim Ride

A truck full of us headed out to the mystery land of Utah last Friday. Rode the White Rim on Saturday, and then shuttled the Ribbon in Grand Junction on our way home on Sunday. Good times for sure!

Below are some artsy fartsy pictures from the White Rim.

Tuesday Ride 5/6

Tonight, we're meeting at the trailhead for Heil Valley Ranch (Geer Canyon Rd off of Left Hand Canyon).

Here's the route:
-from trailhead to the Ponderosa Loop junction. Right, down the trail, then right on Wild Turkey.
-Wild Turkey from South to North to the overlook bench.
-From the bench, Ponderosa loop clockwise back to the bench.
-Back on Wild Turkey from North to South.

We'll make a call at that time. If we're running out of daylight, we'll bust it back to the trailhead. If daylight yet looks bountiful, we'll ride some more!

The Lyons Caravan will be leaving approximately 5:30pm from the shop. No big blue tonight, so I only have room for 1 extra. Should be a good night to ride bikes!

Action

Holy signage, looks like Redstone has legitimized even further. Congrats, Dave, on the new space. And that spider is seriously blinged out. Pretty cool to see a good guy getting it done right.

Things here in the East are action packed, my long lost fellow jacksons. I raced the 12 hours of Lodi farm on Sunday and squeezed my way into the solo top 5 by the time the race ended at noon. Tough race, started at midnight, and much tougher guys than me got squelched by the rooty course.

Been training, racing, training, racing. The Virginia Off Road Series is fully underway, with a long way to go. You can check it out at http://ors.cycleva.com/. Yep, that's my brother running the show at the top of men's expert, for the time being at least. I've said it before, and I continue to affirm that I liked him a lot better when he was old and slow.

Thematically, the word for the season is mud. Just a part of riding in the springtime here in the East. Spring is winding down though, the trees are fully leaved, and it's starting to feel like summer.

Anyone up for a ride next Tuesday, May 13th? I'll be in town on my way to Vegas. If there's talk of a rally, I'll procure a bike and a ride to Lyons and see you guys at the new shop sometime (what time?) in the PM.

- Action in the East Jackson

Nothing to see here...

Nothing to see here, move along. There is no Intense Spider 29er bling here. No Industry Nine bling either.
And no matching King bling.
Nope, nothing to see here.

Riding from home

I had a narrow time window today, so I opted to save gas $$ and ride from home. I spun out of the shop a little after 4 and headed to Rabbit Mt. It was as sweet as it ever gets. Rocky like Heil Ranch, but good dirt and good views.
The view from the other side of the tracks.

After a quick lap at Rabbit, I headed back to Lyons to hit Hall Ranch. I was feeling good. I've been reigniting the passion in bike riding lately and I'm loving it. I'm more fired up about riding now than I've been in a long time. I've been pumping harder into corner, attacking the hills and the headwinds, and riding from the shop a lot. I was having a great ride as I rode back thru town.

Another funny thing that I noticed concerned all the hoopla about Bohn Park. Lots of folks are saying that we need to "take back" Bohn Park as a local park. Too many cars are coming to and thru town containing folks that don't live here. These same flat earth naysayers have already written off Meadow Park for recreation, as it's completely taken over by non Lyons folk. Talk about xenophobia, sheesh. Anyway, the funny bit is that after rolling thru Rabbit Mt, Bohn Park, Meadow Park, and Hall Ranch, it was obvious that most of the congestion was locals in Bohn Park. I saw NO ONE at all in Meadow Park and Rabbit Mt and Hall Ranch were very sparsely populated. Geez Lyonsites, enjoy your neigboring parks, eh?

Anyway, after rolling up the Antelope Trail and hard charging 2 laps, my legs were starting to feel a little fried. I came down thru the Rock Garden riding tired and sloppy. On the ride back into town, my legs seized up. Cramps all the way around even though I'd been drinking a lot of water. I can't remember the last time I was in that much cramping pain. That only means one thing. I'm still pushing it. That's a good thing. I'm looking back to gaining form and fitness that I haven't seen in a few years.

Hopefully it should all be feasible. Maybe I'll have more time to ride now that things have changed...

Sooo, the schedule for the rest of the week. Tomorrow/Monday is Cinco De Mayo. What better way to celebrate Mexican Independence than a bike ride followed up with tacos and margaritas?

Meet up at the bike shop Monday at 5:30. We'll do a lap or two at Hall and retire back to the Mariposa for food and drink.

Also, don't forget that we're meeting at the main Heil Ranch trailhead for the Tuesday Ride. 6pm. Be there.

Oh, finally got the new sign up, too. sweet!

Fruita Trip (Last Week)

Last week Egge and I made our way west to Fruita for some early week, pre fat tire fest singletrack. We hit the normal stuff Monday and Tuesday (Mary's Loop and 18 Road). Then did Zion Curtain and Western Rim on Wednesday. We actually didn't intend to ride Western Rim but accidentally took a left on Koko's and found ourselves a bit lost. Eventually we looked below and saw what looked like Western Rim and decided to drop in on that. Fortunately it lead us back to the promise land and instead of our planned 15-20 we manage about 35 miles. I ran out of water about 2 hours before the finish line but managed to stayed hydrated thanks to Aarons extra water. We tend not to take many photos as we are lazy but here are a few including a short video.