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.
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.
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.
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 !
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.
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.
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.
Portland
got to Portland on friday night, checked in at the Red Lion, threw our bags in the room and headed up to the 6th floor to wet the whistle, eat a few appetizers and talk shop with some of the faces that were also on the same mission…..i managed to get hold of Teresa and Sherwood who were also staying at the same hotel and they decided to come on up and join in on the riff-raff also. I also happened across a couple from Lincoln Ne. who recently purchased the shop where i purchased one of my first ‘true’ mountain bikes from…Bike Peddlers, how coincidental ?? It was cool to catch up with the local Lincoln hub-bub, and also cool to see that the shop was in good hands with some damn good folks.
We hung out about as long as Don Walker could stand and i could tell that the general roar of our small group kept getting a little louder and louder so we figured it was best to take the party to the streets of Portland, on the bikes.