Swan Crest

This past weekend we had the opportunity to ride some amazing trails near the Flathead…..high alpine riding at it’s best with fantastic views into the Great Bear Wilderness, Bob Marshall, Glacier Park, and the Flathead valley. 2 days worth of riding……the first day was a tough 28 mile segment of the crest that had purt near 7000 ft of climbing and almost 10,000 of decending. Day 2 was on the same trail but the northern tier, this portion was also a handful and much different in the way scenery…..overgrown brush, lots of grizz scat, and the huckleberries were soooooo abundant. 25 miles in all and a fantastic 6 mile downhill finish back to the valley floor that left us all pretty darn gitty. I owe Warrick big time for dragging us up for the ride and also for being such a great host for 2 days. Thanks dude !

day one pics:


warwick getting his fix

By |2008-09-06T12:24:00-06:00September 6th, 2008|ride|Comments Off on Swan Crest

full moon

Full moon night rides are always a blast……i’m glad Shrekie spear headed the ride this past saturday to ride warm springs ridge on a beautiful full moon night. We started pedaling about 8pm and had about an hours worth of daylight to make it up the 3 mile climb and then on out to saddle mountain where our trail stemmed off. Just as we were about to duck into the trail we switched on the lights and then from there it was about 3-4 hours worth of singletrack bliss. I did manage to stop long enough to soak in the moon glow from the top of Warm Springs Ridge and also just long enough to snap a few pics.

By |2008-08-20T09:32:00-06:00August 20th, 2008|ride|Comments Off on full moon

random pic

By |2008-08-05T11:03:00-06:00August 5th, 2008|ride|Comments Off on random pic

solo bonus

sometimes rolling solo has major perks. You get to see things at what ever pace you like. You can also leave, stop and go anytime you like. In this case my ride down piquett creek was a success due to the fact that i scored some plump morel shrooms. The ride ended up short…… however, the outting was long as i had a very hard time leaving an area ripe for the picking. Morels rock ! Grilled on top of a steak, bathed in melted butter. A cold can of kokanee while tending the barbie…..yummy.

By |2008-07-25T22:30:00-06:00July 25th, 2008|ride, shrooms|Comments Off on solo bonus

happy b-day ride

yessir…..i’m officially 36 years young. My wife Tracy and i had the afternoon to ourselves and decided to invite the bikes along for a little celebration. Willow creek style.

12 mile dirt road climb that eventually leads to trail, but before we could ride trail….2 hours of fantastic hiking through very deep snow drifts.
the bday surprise….yours truely smiling at the thought of dry singletrack and a fantastic 7 mile drop
Tracy
chad
Tracy

By |2008-07-07T21:58:00-06:00July 7th, 2008|ride|Comments Off on happy b-day ride

weekend

This past weekend was quite interesting and also a darn good time. Friday after work Brian and i headed toward Dillon MT (with our mtbs) to volunteer our services as mechanics for the annual RATPOD road ride which is a 140 mile, single day ride around the Pioneer Mountains and actually up and over them. On our way over to Dillon we stopped at the May Creek trail for a short mtb ride along a nice slice of smooth and mellow singletrack. It was a nice cool evening for a ride until you stopped long enough for the mosquitos to settle in. Damn Mosquitos !! So with pests at hand we quickly loaded the Toyota back up and headed toward the big hole valley…..and of course you can’t stop through Wisdom MT without stopping at Fetty’s for dinner (and a beer), and finally further down the road we ended up at Jackson Hotsprings to soak (and drink another beer) and to spend the night in one of their more affordable rooms which also happens to be a singlewide trailer parked out (far) back in grass that was 2ft in height. The cheap bed seemed just about right for a weary head.

Next morning came very early and Brian and i were back into the toyoter as we were expected to be in Dillon by 6am.

there was an early morning buzz as 500 cyclists all gathered for the 7th annual ride for Camp Mak-A-Dream fundraiser. Brian and i soaked up the excitement until our assignments were handed to us and then we SLOWLY followed small groups of cyclist until a nice view obstructed our attention and then we’d pull over for awhile as cyclists passed by….hoping that one or another would need our assistance.
an early view from the rearward mirror:
a picture of Joe, Rick, Brett, and Rick.

early am cattle drive

scenery over Crystal Park

so all in all it was a purdy darn good afternoon. Brian and i reckon to have worked on approx 25-30 bikes…some easy and some not so easy repairs. After the ride the ride organisers provided dinner, good music, and handed out awards for the top fundraisers (which was $18,000!!!).

The following sunday afternoon, Brian and i rewarded ourselves with a mtb ride in the Pioneer Mountains and on a trail that neither of us had been on (you know….since we were in the area we kinda felt entitled). And it was purdy darn good too !


By |2008-07-03T16:45:00-06:00July 3rd, 2008|ride, shop services|Comments Off on weekend

sundays ride

sleeping child drainage….it’s a fantastic slow speed, highly technical ride that seems to be always throwing manuevers at you in the ways of large, slippery pieces of granite….some covered by ground cover. Scree fields also litter the trail and demand mucho concentration if you’re going to attempt to cross them pedaling. It doesn’t see much usage at all so the vegetation growth always starts to take the trail back during the spring. Love it, most leave it. Here’s a couple pics of Joe-joe showing us how it’s done. I should also note that our good pal Rick started the ride with us only to have a sram X9 rear derailleur take a crap on him only 200 yards into the trail. Ride was pretty much over for rick at that point, but i must commend him for keeping his cool and not tossing the $75 derailleur across the stream.

By |2008-06-13T12:08:00-06:00June 13th, 2008|ride|Comments Off on sundays ride

road ridin’

Beautiful weekend here in the Bitterroots…..with temps in the 50’s both saturday and sunday i found myself turning circles on the road bike both days. Saturday was a nice mellow three hour outting on a solo ride that took me to Darby and back via dirt/asphalt road mixture. I got an early 8:30am start that was actually almost too early as it was still a chilly 28d when i left, even had a few snowflakes falling. Since i was planning on working a few hours i figured an early start was best to get me back at a reasonable time.

The shop stayed fairly busy for a saturday afternoon and we had a few visitors come down from Missoula….mostly tire kicking. Aaron put the finishing touches to a couple of tune ups which allowed me a little time to BS with the regular customers, Thanks Aaron ! Plans were also hatched saturday afternoon that it was that time of the year to start our weekly Sunday morning road rides……so, for those of you with a road bike we’ll be leaving from Kiwannis Park in town at 11AM every sunday morning until the snow melts from the trails.

Todays ride was gorgeous…..no wind at all and mid 50’s felt great. 7 of us showed up and headed north to Victor via westside backroads. The pace picked up slighty just before getting there as Bender and i took off from the others. I didn’t last very long at all as the cobwebs were blocking the path for oxygen (advantage Bender)….We regrouped in Victor and decided to head back to town on Eastside Hwy., Deano provided the free tow back to town and the rest of us were accepting of the fact and tucked in for the (almost) free ride.

By |2008-03-09T15:12:00-06:00March 9th, 2008|bruce gordon, ride|Comments Off on road ridin’

if you squint really hard you can see Fidel Castro

later on in the evening we re-grouped with Rob, Eric, and Lewis and rode around a bit more.

the bikes.

By |2008-02-14T11:33:00-07:00February 14th, 2008|bike shows, ride|Comments Off on

about it for the first day of the show…..how can you blame me for leaving early as it was in the mid-50’s outside and i was chomping at the bits to soak up the nice weather on bikes. So Brian, Brett and myself went on a little tour of the bike shops and visited 4 different bike shops that were within a few miles of the convention center. We also managed to find a really good Italian Beef sandwich shop too !

River City was a really nice high end shop known for their wood inlay fenders. I came close to getting a set for my Bruce Gordon but chickened out at the price tag.

cool neighborhood bike shop, lots of nice restored bikes for sale and a ton of used parts laying around.

By |2008-02-12T22:52:00-07:00February 12th, 2008|bike shows, ride|Comments Off on