Road trip #2

 After BC I most definitely had riding on the brain. I was supposed to have over a week at home before heading to Bend. We decided that if we packed "minimally" we could get everything we needed for a week in Bend and enough camping gear in the truck to leave 5 days early and hop from trail head to trail head on our way up.

 Our first stop was Whiskeytown lake. This is a hidden little gem of trails that I need to return and explore. Hard to believe we are 20 min from Redding!

 The scenery was hard to beat.

 The top of the climb had an amazing waterfall to cool you off.

 The downhill was good enough to get the frown off Ashton's face.

 Everybody loved the downhill off the top.

Not everybody loved the lower section. Hardtails were a bit harsh.

BCBR the ultimate road trip!

 Dan, Aaron, Sean and I piled in the Victory Vello van to make the ultimate mountain bike road trip. Our first stop was here at the Ape Canyon trail head to ride the Planes of Abraham trail on Mt. St. Hellens.

 I think there are more pictures of this ride than there are of the whole rest of the trip combined.

 Dan saw a UFO

 Sean's weapon of choice.

 So amazing riding on a volcano

 Dan lead us to the worst hike a bike ever. We had to walk down the other side too.

I didn't Take a picture of the next day in North Vancouver, but it was amazing. We pre rode part of stage 5. That proved to be very helpful later in the week.

 Day one start Cumberland. The Brewery is one block behind me.

 One day we got to ride on these little water taxi's instead of the big slow ferry.

 The aid stations were beacons of hope in the crazy heat we were suffering through. 

 I think this is the only picture of a view I took during the whole race.

 Sea Schelt totum pole

 This was the pre race meeting. Very organized, in fact the whole event was one of the most organized and well executed things I have ever seen. If you pay attention to the logistics of this thing it's really kind of mind boggling. They have to get 622 racers and their bikes to 7 different race locations with 4 ferry rides and god only knows how many bus rides. That doesn't even take into account all the people working the event. Then they have to keep everybody fed and housed in tents. They also bring masseuses and chiropractors along with a fleet of medical personnel.

 How do you move 622 bikes?

 These little stickers kid of spell out your suffering. By the end of the week we broke 30,000 ft of climbing.

 Random shit we saw. Until now I thought the toilet paper hanging out of your shorts only happened in movies.

 I think all the ferries and buses were as tiring as the riding.

 Canadian beer, on a Canadian beach.

 Go find your bike, quick.

 Tent city in Squamish. I think Squamish was the best day. I think I could spend a month just riding here.

 Stole this photo from BCBR. Sean getting cooled off by Wade Simmons at the top of Expresso. This year they changed the format by eliminating the enduro timed stages. Instead the had featured trails. I didn't understand until I rode the first one. They wanted to eliminate some aggression problems and show racers more of what it's like to ride in BC. You knew when you hit the featured trail for the day you were in for a ripin good time, Disneyland has nothing that can compare.

 I snagged this from BCBR as well. I think it's day6

 Day 4? They all start running together. Get up, eat, ride, shower, eat, set up camp,eat, sleep, repeat for 7 days

 Beer garden in Squamish!

Got the Buckle. Man was that hard. Probably the coolest trip you'll ever take though. This was the first race that was actually geared towards the type of riding I do. Also the best finnish I've had. It really paid to have good technical skills. 80% of my passes were in the technical down hills that BC is famous for. I couldn't even tell you how many hard core XC racers walked the best parts of the week. 16th out of 42 teams. I am very happy with our results. Overall we were 297 and 298 out of 622. This was probably the most fit group I have ever seen. They came from 26 countries. 

Pre BC

 The last couple months the BC bike race has been clouding my mind on and off the bike. I've managed to get up to 4 and five rides a week. Here Gage met me at Lyons lake.

 Bobby and I took a couple of guy's on "the best ride I've ever been on". according to Terry, (left).

 Can't help taking pictures on the Castle Meadow trail. Unfortunately I spent 30 min tightening spokes on my rear wheel. I totally believe the wheels are the weak link on the Enduro.

 Lucas and I climbed Castle again. He wasn't interested in trail, just shrooms.

 There has to be more around here.

 It's hard to explain the scenery up here to anyone who hasn't experienced it already.

 My goal for this and the last ride on this loop were to spend some time dialing in my suspension before BC. Unfortunately the last ride had me playing with loose spokes. This ride ended not long after this shot with a striped hub body, and a lot of walking.

 I very carefully took my XC bike and got a few runs in with the family for Father's Day.

 Snakedance is one of my families favorite trails.

 Ashton = manly yet sweet

"Look there's more trail up there"

 Gage was so excited to be riding PCP for the first time in 3 years.

 The dirt was too lose to hit the drop.

 He had a blast. Everybody loves PCP.

 This is the Achilles heal of the Enduro. If you buy one plan on upgrading the wheels. If you look real close you can see DT Swiss on the hub. What it doesn't tell you is the DT Swiss internals are the lowest  end and are still way stronger than the Roval outer shell their threaded into. I striped all the threads out of the shell. Fifth hub I've done that to in 8 years of mountain biking.  

The real solution is new wheels with King hubs in the middle. That's not in my budget right now so luckily Dan at Victory Vello warrantied the wheel on the spot and I'm ready for BC. You can see I upgraded to Saint brakes. With only one ride on them so far I am finally happy with a set of mountain bike brakes. We'll see how they handle Whistler. I mounted up a set of Schwalbe Hans Damf's to make sure there were no excuses on the bike's part. Sean, Aarron, Dan and I start our trek to BC tomorrow. Should be one of the funner road trips I've been on. First stop Plains of Abraham, Mt. St. Helens.

May, out with a bang!

 Friday before last Sean and I went to Demo for a little suspension adjustment. We had so much fun the only picture I took was of this turkey tail mushroom on the first climb. We rode Brail trail on our first run and stopped about 6 times to adjust our suspension. By the time we got to the bottom our bikes were floating over everything. Our next loop we rode the whole Flow trail. They just finished the last section of this trail. It is so long and has so many G outs that we had to stop half way to the bottom and let our legs recover. Amazing trail!

 Then last Monday Dan shut down the shop for a shuttle day in Downieville. Probably the funnest thing you can do on two wheels.

 We ended up with 16 people freight training down the most awesome trails around. It was the tightest line I have ever ridden in. Every one hauled ass down hill. Most sections there was only a foot between riders.

 Finally we decide to race the Lost and Found 100 mile gravel grinder.

 Nothing like a couple hundred CX riders to let you know how out of shape you are. CX magazine rated this as a top 25 on every riders bucket list. 

 Sean and Jeanie were worried that I died. 

 I thought I did. That may have been the hardest race I have ever done.

 It was brutal but I can't think of any ride or drive that had more beautiful. We started here on the shore of lake Davis outside Portola.   

How many rides do you see this on? But really it was so F@#$%^g hard! The last 23 miles were like a constant kick in the nuts.  I can't wait until next year!