Doing "B52 Bomber"

Awesome views today with a 19 mile, 4 hour, 2,400’ elevation gain ride. Started from Summit Lake area up B5200 (a.k.a., the “B52 Bomber”) to Rock Candy Mountain saddle and back. Legs got spent way early in the ride while trying out a new seat. During the first 2.5 miles and steep 1000’ pitch, the seat was initially angled down far too much. It changed the whole dynamics of leg leverage and peddling. Adjusted the seat two more times and finally found the sweet spot but legs were tapped after already experiencing such a l-o-n-g edgy muscle burn. Here’s pic of the Sound from Rock Candy and a vid of Summit Lake and South Sound.

Hike-a-Bike-athon

Note to self: Memorial Day weekend is too early to ride Cultus Lake. A normal 2 hour, 12 mile ride was a five hour marathon of pushing bikes through snow and much hoisting of iron ponies over winter falls. Egads. Notwithstanding, Pete and the boys (Christian, Michael and Bryant) were troopers. The effort was rewarded with shakes and fries for the boys and pie a-la-mode for the men at Cultus Lake Resort when all was said and done. Looking to ride the lower elevations around Sun River tommorow with the wife (on her new (used rental) full-sus Giant Yukon FX). Here's to seeing today's ride in the rearview and tommorow's ride yet a dream of bliss on rubber on dirt.

mtbMistress.

Edge 705 Initial Exploration

A 01:44:20 ride covering 11.48 miles and 623 ft of elevation gain. That is what Edge tells us. The Edge misses, of course, the sun, the trees, the roots, the puddles, and the companionship. A good exploration ride today, mostly on double track and a few single track sections which had been previously discovered. And, the maiden voyage for the Edge. Will be nice when the Topo Maps are loaded - still hoping I can add trails to the Topo using some third party software. Will have to wait for that. In the meantime, you can (I think) check out the ride.

Mystery Poles & "Go Figure 8" Work(aholic) Out

One is wondering about this mystery of poles found today on a trail waaaaay out in the woods off of Kennedy Creek area. Any ideas? (They are 6-7' tall poles, and mostly all debarked.)

Today was “Go Figure 8” (like last weekend) and “Then Some” (extra special pain hill-riding) today at Kennedy Creek. Goal was and has been to focus on hill climbing skills, and middle-gear workouts. We didn’t do the very steep “Heart Attack Hill” today but the next one, “LSDH” – Long, Steep, Daunting, Hill.

Today there were about 80-100 horse trailers parked under the power line at Kennedy Creek for the “Back Woodsman, Fun Trail Ride.” We talked to the organizer and she told us they got approved a bunch of new trails in this area (Green Triangle), and started punching them in shortly before this ride. They are well marked with yellow and orange hanging survey tape. We went on a few tails but kept running into horses. Some of the new trails are steep, very narrow, and rocky "baby-head" rough, especially dropping DOWN from “Windy Gap” (the scenic area previous pics were taken from.)

Stay in touch. Phone is on. So are we, except for Jell-O-ee legs. (They're out of commish for the evening until they can "get pumped" . . . up again tomorrow, maybe? Please? Please!)

Garmin Edge 705

At last I have taken the plunge and it has arrived. The Garmin Edge 705 - the ultimate in bike tech geek according to one article I read. Just out of the box and no playing with it yet. It is smaller than I thought it would be. Not a lot of information out there on how to use it, particularly in the manner I hope to - cartography 101: riding our home trials and creating accurate maps to share. Looking forward to the first ride this Saturday and the ensuing learning experience in map making. Stay tuned - hope to post maps of Ft. Lewis riding areas soon that make sense of the maze.

Remembering Mother's Day in a Fatherly Way

In honor of Mother's Day -- an early Father's Day ride yesterday with 2.25 hrs of hill-climbing, 12 miles & 2,200 feet elevation gain. 1st pic shows Eld inlet (?) near Shelton, and 2nd pic shows Olympics in the background.

Gum Surgery Recovery Ride and Nothing to Say

A ride with friends that took John's mind off throbbing pain (in the mouth). [Jeff, Don, Todd, Lisa]

This just in over the AP wire...

Galbraith Mountain, Bellingham, WA. - On a bright, sunny Monday afternoon, two brothers set out to conquer the mountain and did. A nice long burn going up as the elder adjusted to clipless pedals. The younger stopped at one point causing the elder to also stop. This led the elder to gracefully tilt to the left, whilst struggling to unclip, ending with full contact with the gravel road. Much loosening of the pedal tension later, the elder began clipping and unclipping with practiced ease. Upon arriving at the top of the mount, with cell towers pointing to the skies, the descent began. A full vista of Bellingham and the Northernmost waters of Puget Sound glistening before them, the brothers carved up succulent single track like it was so much medium-rare prime rib. With horseradish spicy dips and turns, the trail led first down and then across the mountian. An unbelievable run with only short intervals of gravel road to traverse before the next course was served up. But for a fading sun and a child to be picked up, the two would have stayed for dessert. A four-star day - both the company and the trail. Will look to repeat in June, perhaps starting earlier in the day so that we may repeat the repeat in a single repast. (Sorry no photos - the knucklehead younger left the camera in the car!)

Gum Surgery and Not Really A Ride

Other day one had gum graft surgery. Plus drugs. One tried to ride a bike on flat trail surface tuday and tupid bike wobbled way much side-to-side. So, after hour. One quit. But had to go down steep hill and fall down. No pain though! Happy happy!

Teen Nephews Visit to “Kick-Out-The-Jams” (Ref. MC5)

Jeff’s teen nephews Christian (center), and Eric (right) were up from Redding, CA for a visit, and joined us for a MTB ride today. They did excellent on the single track (well duh, they’re young, and full of testosterone!), and though we sort of got slightly displaced (never lost), they still were exclaiming “at least we’re having fun.”
Today’s jaunt was about 2 ½ hours, 90% up and down swooping, and twisty-turning single-track at area #21 and numerous trails at the power line. “Love the paths off the line."

Have a healthy and stellar week ahead . . . and better than the last!

More Please . . . Cross Country?

Little to say here yet could we have a little more please? Pic: John E, Ron (pointing to more), and Al on Saturday. Sunday, Jeff H. and John S. walked out the door to push for more . . . new single track -- some brutal. John went "man down" two times and another "stupid one" over the handle bars going over a log. (Jeff: "Let go of the front brake dude!")

Riding time this weekend about 6 hours. It’ll have to do. Whoot for more!

Wet, Not Slippery, Little Mud, and Man-euvers

Don (right side of photo), and Tom (middle) a virgin rider to the area we rode today, area #21 at Ft. Lewis, joined Jeff (left), and John on a 2 ½ hour ride on many great trails today. Even though it was wet (and sleeting at times), there was little mud and not much slowing down either! Having them along was great company and a boost in the sense of humor department. (See video) There was one mishap today when a stick jumped out and overly probed Tom’s derailleur, bending his derailleur-hanger in toward the spokes. He finished out the last 2-3 miles just fine yet confined to only a gear or two. (We are all sorry for and regret the “trail-hazing" Tom received. The only thing that makes it better is knowing that we’ve all experienced this in various degrees at one time or another.) As far as finds today? The ride almost climaxed at a point when Tom found a box of Trojans near a trail head at the end of the ride. It was a conundrum (Sp? or, is it condomdrum?) yet Tom proved to be a man of wisdom because he sited to the rest of us that most likely the troops were out on man-euvers.

Meet Noah -- Meet Bruce

Today Noah (at Right)

and a friend Bruce (below) went out with us to some of the trails at the place we usually ride.

Your host can’t speak for Noah or Bruce yet what I can do is show a few pictures.

Brothers Mop Up . . .

Jeff (left of the pic) and his bro' Mark (from Ferndale) joined us for ride today that had everything. Gradual yet long lung-busting hills, steep heart-spiking short hills, sweeping / swooping single track, twisting technical single track, low jumpable, and high groin-busting logs.




The boys mopped up for 2 ½ hours.

Your editor was sucking wind really good today (not a good thing!) after one particular steep hill shown in the video. It took him four tries to finally make it up. (His excuse = not having worked out for three days because of intensive training, late nights studying, and an exam.) Jeff cleaned the hill in the video 3 times just to "encourage" the editor and show him how to keep a steady line. (B.S., it was to keep the editor humble and on the teetering edge of puking or losing it.)

All was well at the end though -- especially with a "good cup-o-Joe" at the end. (Thanks Mark for the caffeine hit afterwards.)

Digital Camera Gone Wild

You are so right.
The digital camera and mount went wild and didn’t prove to be stable enough for the dual track today. We’ll work for better stability this next week.

Barbed Wire, Bleeding First Aid Sign, and a Roadie

Went for a late ride today. No e-mail. No calls. Just . . . quiet. Found stacked up barbed wire along with a first aid sign near single track I was riding. The First Aid sign was bleeding (ink, no kidding).

On the way home in the dark I passed a “roadie” who was pulled off the side of narrow Rainer Road with a flat (sew-ups so no spare). He was “texting” for help and a ride home. Name of Vaughn – road races with The Valley (first year on the team). Real nice guy, late teens, stellar shape, loves speed of the road. Gave Speed Road Racer Vaughn a ride home. The end.

Little Mud -- Great Single Track @ Secret Forest

Little mud today and some great fast single-track at a secret forest.

No Snow Birding or Migrating . . .

We’ve been busy consuming large amounts of single track on the weekends but not at Capitol Forest and most certainly not “down South.” Every weekend since January we’ve been hitting up single track at Fort Lewis and working hard to clear and punch out trails.

But, today was . . . “and now for something totally different” (Monty Python). Today was all about climbing B5200 (very steep road) at Capital Peak just for the endurance – an hour of nothing but climbing (1,400’) from no snow to snow. And sadly, about 10 minutes to descend.

Vail Exploratory and Conditioning Ride

How does a dose of 1,000’ elevation gain in approx. 1 ½ mile sound? A couple of us headed out to do a different ride today by exploring the Vail area - - in the sun no less!. Did you know you can ride from Vail (near the town of Rainier) all the way to Alder Lake (Elbe area) on dual track – logging roads? (That’s not what we were after today.) Today was about exploring a new area for single-track. No such luck. Everything we saw was old overgrown logging roads-- very steep climbing, and great conditioning.

At one point, John swore he saw single-track (he was friggen’ delirious from sucking wind going up hill), and took off riding after it and immediately (yet ever so slowly), plunged over his handle bars. (Hit a hidden rock in the grass he did!) Well, he got up laughing (way to cope with stress and relief he wasn’t injured), and upon getting up, saw a scale for weighing big meat. We didn’t have any big meat. So, Jeff thought it’d be a good idea to see how the bikes weighed in on the matter.

We took a couple of improper turns today. One went downward for about 2 miles appearing very hopeful. Nope, it dead-ended. Up once more. Pound-for-pound a great conditioning ride!

Foghat would be proud: It was a "slow ride" in the snow ride, we had to "take it easy." The Great Northwest Snow Storm of 2008 led to two Kennedy Creek rides of note: The first was a journey of discovery as we left the normal route and found ourselves in a mystical place where distant banjo strums from the Deer Hunter (squeal, HEEEEE, squeal) melded into the background around a half-built log cabin in the middle of nowhere. Just a bit freaky, but an interesting discovery all the same. The second ride was simply a brutal push of time against a short distance in deep snow - see John ride: Ride, John, Ride.