Trail Clean up

I got the boys together for some trail maintenance this week. We got a lot done but there is a lot more work to be done. When we are done we should have some sweet single track below the major snow. Most of this trail is now ride able. Thanks for the help guys.

Spoke to soon

I guess I shouldn't have given Bobby a hard time about cracking a frame. I finally got a new chainring for the Niner and was eager to take it out. I decided to clean it real good and touch up the paint. Unfortunately that was as far as I got. Now I have to strip it down to the frame and send it back.
So far Drew at Niner has been real cool to deal with. They are sending me a call tag and I have my choice of replacement frames. The only drag is they don't have the same one. Not sure what to do.

Killer Loop

We did manage to break something. The bridge


The water was so high we had to do a little portage

I thought I could squeeze a big loop in after working a 16hr shift and still get enough sleep before I had to go Back to work. The theory was sound, but the ride lasted a lot longer than planned. We started out great with a nice warm up climb. Then some nice flowy single track.
Avid Elixer brakes have one known weakness. They have to be bled, a lot. Unfortunately this problem left Cody unable to ride the downhill section that was the whole point of the ride.
On our way down we lost about a half an hour clearing a tree out of the trail. At this point people started to run out of water. We pushed on to the campground to get more. Most of us were able to refill there. Dave wasn't so lucky, cammelback bladders can be a nightmare to open. Three of us couldn't budge the lid. On the BRUTAL climb out things started to deteriorate. Everyone ran out of food and people started bonking. Garrett had give up riding to walk for fear of falling off. I think Dave was more exhausted than I have ever seen him.
In the end everyone made it out OK. Coldsprings mini mart proved to be an oasis with food and Gator aide. I ended up driving Dave's tuck down the hill so he had time to stop shaking. I was able to get a whole three hours sleep before I had to go back to work.
Awesome day overall 30 miles 6.5hrs.

It wasn't me

I didn't break this, in fact I never even rode this bike. The Loafer sent me these pictures today of his 2008 Trek EX9. He's blaming it on following me, some of my luck supposedly wore off on him. I would like to point out that I have broke just about every component on a bike but I have never broke a frame.

Snowshoes?

Jordo rode the log like a champ
Once we got below the main snow it was all good

Lots of walking

It was harder to stay on the side hill than it looks

I think Mark tried to ride that
All the above pictures are courtesy of Stoker and his GoPro

Loafer,Mark,Brian,Cody(I think he's pooping),Me,Jordo,Dave

There is a road under there somewere

Dave was almost eaten

In this case your supposed to look down

Sometimes we prefer to walk, it's better than dying.

A picture of the view from this bridge wouldn't do it justice so look at our dumb asses instead.

The pass may be open but the upper DH trails are not. We tried to climb the road to lower PCP and almost made it without needing snowshoes. Unfortunately once we got on the trail itself, snowshoes would have been a much preferred mode of transport.

After we found dirt, we headed all the way down to the bottom of the canyon on some incredible single track. I think Griz kid has been doing some maintenance and left us with mostly clear flowy/rocky single track all the way to the river.

Due to time constraints we had to loose half our group before they made it to the promised amazing downhill. But I think everyone had a good ride, nobody got hurt, and I didn't break anything. Oh yeah and Cody still hates me. It won't be long before all my friends/suckers learn to live on 3-4 hrs sleep.

P.S. A downhill bike is a beautiful thing until you try to trail ride one for 8 hours.

He had to make the Blog

Five days later

That should feel better when it quits hurting

The hard to see Waterfall behind us was an excellent place to refuel the dog

Can't be hurt too bad if he's still smiling

Spray & wash might work

Fish out of water?

Dave made me get out of bed today. He told me I had to go riding. We decided to knock out a 40 miler up to Beardsley and back. Unfortunately the Loafer couldn't be reached so we set out to beat the winter storm that's supposed to show up tomorrow. It's almost June right?
I started to see the tracks of a worn out pair of Kenda Nevengals and figured the Loafer was ahead of us. Sure enough we ran into him behind Crandel Peak.
We finished out our ride and parted ways with Loafer. Dave and I were going about as fast as we could go back down from the lake when he was reminded how much we hate Kenda Nevengals (I really don't see the magazines love for these tires). His front tire washed out in a turn and he got to sample the muddy gravel at about 20 mph. The up side is he was relatively OK, minor cuts and a little blood, and I didn't brake anything today.
By the way, He said two things at the beginning of the ride that brought him to his demise. "I just came today because I wanted to make the blog" and " I figured I wouldn't need my knee guards since we're just riding road"

Still Got It

Dave said today was just like almost every other ride with me. He had to finnish his ride without me.

I don't think it's salvageable

Ever since I started this blog my ability to smash bike parts has dwindled. I thought maybe the blog was a good luck charm. Today ended that theory. It should have been the simplest of rides. All most all dirt road, a thirteen mile training loop. I made it almost half way when I tried to fold my front chain ring in half. I'm guessing one of the chain ring bolts started to come loose and I stomped on the pedal and felt it fold. I was able to use my new Specialized (EMT comp, very cool) multi tool to take off the crank and get the chain ring off, and SRAM quick links made it supper easy to take the chain off as well. Once again I was riding a very expensive scooter. Anytime you think anything is all down hill try taking your chain off.