Spikefest II

Work was cancelled Friday, so packed up early & rolled to Como to set up camp & loosen up the legs. A few of us took Gold Dust up to Boreas Pass & back for a sample of what Saturday would bring.

I even stopped to smell the flowers coming down the top section of GD. 

Sweet start to the w/end!




Saturday, 05:45
Spike, guac & I pedaled the bottom section of GD to meet up with PBRMe, MGE & canyonrat. Mateo, ThatGuy & Troy met us all in the big red truck & we loaded up & shuttled up to our starting point.

Shuttling is for long-travel bikes!

MGE starting out.

Canyonrat going for it.

Art is anything you can get away with.

This is the man to blame.

Sallie's machinery.

Just as we bottomed out in Breck, the thunder & darkening skies got us thinking. Fortunately, the brewpub was already in the plans. Minutes after stepping in & grabbing a table, the sky opened up. We pondered our options while waiting out the downpour. As calories were consumed, the blue sky opened up to us again. We split up into 2 groups at that point: MGE, PBR, Canyonrat & Troy took the quick route straight over Aurora Borealis Pass in order to make a quick exit: while spike, mateo, ffej & I followed the 'official' shorter route. This route didn't seem nearly as punishing the last time we did it, but today threw out many more miles & hours up to this climb.

 You know he wants to take us up this.

Our fearless leader.

Mateo looks very pleased to almost be back at camp.











Rolling through the flumey zone of GD, I said to spike, "I love this section of trail, but damn, I'm ready for it to end."
That kinda sums up a spikefest in 1 sentence.

The 4 Rings

Audis - it's a love-hate relationship with those cars.
Planned on getting up early Friday & rolling to G-town to hit up stuff we missed Thursday night, but once again the AT selector switch acted up, so by the time I got it corrected it was a bit to late to try for a long-ish ride. Got word Friday from MGE that he & PBRMe! were planning on a big Waterton-IC-Ringtail-CT ride starting at 5:30 the next morning. I wasn't happy about the pre-dawn conditions, but I said, 'Yeah, I'm in.' I had to pedal a bit more before SpikeFest next week.
Around 9:30, I got a call from MGE telling me he was out - another frame bit the dust.
So PBRMe! & guacomole peeled outta the lot at 7:10 & headed out. Rolling up through the canyon, we saw that MGE's spirit animal was watching over us from about 100' above. Very hard to see in the pic, but there is a goat standing on the rock surveying his domain.

Guac had just done a week in Texas, so he wasn't in the best shape & turned off for the Roxy loop, while PBR & I headed to the IC trailhead. We were chilling there & we noticed a biker coming up the road, pedaling with a SS cadence.....then we saw that Canyonrat was back on the bike after a big downtime w/back troubles. Good to see ya, rat!
PBRMe! & I headed out Ringtail after Rat telling us that we'd be regretting it while climbing back to 800. About 1/2-way down, I was thinking to myself that it would definitely be worth it, Ringtail was a Bl'ast!

Rolling along a fast, smooth section I was about to let PBR know this when I heard the nightmarish hiss of a rear flat. Sidewall cut, again....but there was nothing to cut it on right there!! Fixed that & continued with the fun-ness of Ringtail.

The climb back out was hot in the open sun, but well worth the enjoyment given by Ringtail.

Cruised back through the powerline & down the final section, which used to be my favorite, until I rode the wooded section of 800 before the powerline. Today, it fell another notch as Ringtail had me smiling from ear-to-ear, thus putting it up in one of  the top spots.

PBRMe! impressed here by rolling straight down the rocky dropoff that most riders skip in favor of the easy cheater line to the left. Bravo!!

33.22 miles & 4,030' of climbing in 5hrs. It was hot & I was tired - good times!


Turn it up!
Here's the 1st set from Tuesday's Melvins show..........enjoy, or not.








You'll enjoy'em if you know what's good.
Happy Amerikka day!

Influence of Atmosphere

Tuesday evening saw the heaviness of the load brought to Denver.
King Buzzo, Dale, Coady & Jared rocked Ogden Theater, playing 2 45-minute sets since previous headliner Isis was done with the tour.  It was Melvins, so of course it was allgood!!

Videoed the 1st set & was pleased with the results: sound & visual were OK for a hand-held digicam.

Got out the bicycle machine Thursday evening for the T.I.T.S. ride - this week's plan was all about the silver: Silver Creek, through Silverthorne, then return via Silverdale.

Didn't turn out as expected. Thunder & lightning started as we were finishing up our 1st section of trail & heading back into Georgetown. Opted to get beers & pizza at BeauJo's. Off work tomorrow, so I think I'll head back that way & spend the day there hitting everything we didn't get to do.

Celebrity Sighting

Spike had feeling back in his legs, so we did a laid-back cruise of BC w/Brian Tuesday morning. He also had his broked up Ground Up resurrected by Chris (Podium29ers). It looked real nice, with a bead blast & clear coat by Precision. (which helped me to decide on the upcoming Xvelo paint scheme). Spike was quite pleased to be back on his familiar steed.

CDR is on & racers are rolling through our way. I figured te one place I could get in a pedal & catch any of them would be to roll Como-Breck. So Wednesday morning saw me getting outta bed early & cruising to the mountains again. I saw that Matthew Lee had passed through Tuesday evening, but I thought I might have a chance to encounter either Blaine or Erik on Boreas Pass Rd. Unloaded in Como & dragged ass up Gold Dust, feeling the past week of riding in my legs, & the lower content of oxygen in my blood.

Spikefest 2010, here we come! Real nice dirt for the most part, with some little puddles in the flumey middle section, then a few more sections of running water on the top 1/3. 







Popped out on the road & chilled on top for a few minutes looking at my map to figure out what I wanted to hit on the other side. Decided on just popping into Baker's Tank & following it down to the lower parking, then taking the easy back, grinding up the road. Had my plan, so started the 4 mile coast to the tank. Just a bit before I got there, I saw a loaded down rider & knew it was a CDR-er, so I turned it around & rolled back to find it was Erik Lobeck. Chatted with him as we headed back up to the pass. He had both derailleurs blow & 1 other mechanical that cost him a lot of time, else he would still be rolling with M. Lee way out front. He was enjoying the weather in CO after dealing with nasty conditions in MO & WY, & hoping he wouldn't hit any monsoons in NM.

A Pixburgher wheels his way north-south.












I wished him good luck & turned around just before the pass & rolled back down again & popped into Baker's Tank trail.

Great fun & great conditions! At the bottom trailhead, I met a group that had about 25 bikes hanging out - found out they had a hockey camp going on & were taking the kids on a bike ride up the road to the pass. Nice cross-training!! Left them & did the grind back up, really feeling the weight in my legs this time.

Used this spot as a good excuse to stop & snap a pic of Goose Pasture Tarn.










Took another needed breather at the pass before bombing Gold Dust - which was soooo much fun now that I had an enormous 80mm of front-end cush. The high-country trails are ready & willing!!

After a nice lunch & searching flights in order to get mom a long w/end out here (Yeah!), I hopped on the beater to meet up w/Steve & attend the MileHigh All Colorado Tasting event @ Lucky Strikes lanes. All the usual suspects were there - GCB, Wynkoop, Upslope, Avery - as well as some others I hadn't seen. Guy Drew Vineyards & Garfield Estates both had some tasty reds...and since they were on super sale at the store, I swung by to grab a few bottles on the way home. Making some stuffed manicotti tonight, so one of those will go well with dinner.

Summer's here.....

The Mercury is rising, & so am I.
At least in elevation, we got above Idaho Springs last week, led by the Goat up a loooong dirt road, then down the gnarly Warren Gulch trail in the dark.

We rode up above that waterfall & it was cool.






Good stuff!
After reading of the road up Waterton Canyon closing soon, I felt compelled to hit up that & some Indian Creek Friday afternoon. Did the 'long loop' around & was spent afterwards.



Saturday brought me to BC, as the Bailey Hundo was in effect - no chance of me riding it myself, just went to support/cheer on spike, as well as others I recognized (The Chad, Nate, Looney). Spike came through Aid #3 looking/feeling good.

Go spike, do a wheelie!!








He took off, so Bryan & I put in a quickie pedal around GM, down Tramway then back up Gashouse & followed the course markings along Millers, Charlie's & Sandy Wash. A nice easy pedal felt good after feeling like Hell the previous night.


Sunday, I had an urge to get really high, so I headed to Kenosha to see if I was able to make it to GA Pass or not. Recent reports & weather had me thinking it would be all clear.

No surprises yet......

Above treeline & looking good. Only 3 drifts just before this, which were easily passed.

Almost there........the breaks were becoming much more frequent.

Mandatory cheeseball pose.....

2 SS dudes I ran into near lunch rock, who smoked me on the way up there. They had a Father's Day kitchen pass & rolled Kenosha-Breck. Heard reports of 1/2 mile of drifts close ahead, but they decided to go for it. Hope ya made it, gents!!








Horribly slow time up & back, but glad that I made it up so early in the year. Everything on the north side will be definitely be gone by the time Spikefest rolls around....no slogging over a dozen 5' drifts this year!!

Win with Jets

Coulda used some sugar-coated goodness yesterday.......the pedal & heat whooped me up but good.

Snowblind

It's been warm lately.
So warm, most all the trails down here are dry & some of those up higher are getting better.
Got out a few times week - it was both full of pain & joy at the same time. Got in 4 rides: 3 Sisters/Evergreen, C. Cone, Bergen Peak, & 3 Sis /Evergreen again.
Was pleased to get my out-back time at the Cone down to 2:25 Tuesday afternoon, racer boy styley.
Hit up Bergen w/e, spike & avion.nomad, who all proceeded to punish me & put me back in my place as the Omega rider. Only 2nd time riding there. I hit it up once just after moving here & got so beaten up that I avoided it like the plague since then. The Bergen climb was tough, but in the end I liked it much much more than Mt Falcon. Being in the trees rather than in the blazing sun makes a huge difference. Even with the new squishy bike, coming down was also a workout. I have to admit I even got off & walked through 2 sketchy sections - Say what you will.
The next night, joined up for the T/I.T.S. ride at Dedisse/3 Sisters/Evergreen Mt. Started out w/7 - 4 of whom were east coasters. Felt the after effects of the previous days' rides as we hit the climbs. However, once we started rolling down of Evergreem Mt, all that was a thing of the past. Fun & fast descent!! As we were about head down the techy section of Sister's trail, Funrover came rolling up, as he had arrived late & got in some solo miles.

Took a shot at the FATS trail today. Left Gtown & headed over to Silver Plume & had to roll the path since the conductor was making it difficult to hit the singletrack over there. Headed up to Pavilion Pt & made it there quicker than I expected. Couldn't quite remember the entrance to FATS & put in an extra mile or so turning around, before realizing I had to go further.

Did the hike-a-bike for a bit until I succumbed to the cold, white nasty stuff. Didn't know exactly the layout of the trail & didn't want to get off course, so I gave up & headed back down.

The next section of singletrack was hidden to my eyes. Could be b/c I'd only ridden it once & followed the Goat, or b/c of all the construction going on. Barriers erected beside the road, so I had no idea where to turn off & ended up rolling G Pass Rd the whole way back into town, and continued to the east end of town to hit the Silver Creek? trail. I love this section of trail: a slight grade on the way out with fun tech the entire way.

Turned out to be a lovely CO day - too bad I didn't get all the dirt I was hoping for.


.....next time.

Directives

Yes, sir!
I shall obey.

Traffic Jams outside of Golden?

Aye aye, sir!
Your word is my command, Sheldon.








This week, I went back to hit some faves that I ain't been on for months.
PBRMe! moved this week's T.I.T.S. ride to Tuesday since he had to leave for Vancouver Thursday morn, so the Rig has it's 1st taste of 3 Sisters & Evergreen Mt that night. 
We met at Nate & Rachel's place to roll through Dedisse to do the normal route around 3 Sis & up the Mt. GotDirt tried out Nate's WFO for the ride & was quite pleased.
I finally had the chance to unlock the Fox fork & truly give this suspension fad a try while descending Evergreen Mt. Oh yeah! The difference was amazing - normally the Monkey is clanging & banging through the rocks, while the Rig was as  silent as a ninja slipping in through the window. Only thing I heard was the rubber rolling the whole way down.
Terry enjoyed the descent as well - the grin on his face had to compare to mine as we were both enjoying the cushion for the 1st time in a long while.


Work got cancelled for Friday, so I decided to get back to one of my favorite weekday morning ride - Centennial Cone. I wonder if the Monkey got jealous, cuz when I went to load up I found the rear tire on the Rig was dead. 
No problem, CC ain't got nothing that needs cush, just fast rolling fun. 
When I arrived, I was astounded at the great work on the new parking area, as well as a much better entrance to Mayhem Gulch trail.

The new Mayhem lot. None of those cars, 'cept mine, were there 2 1/2 hrs ago!






CC was just as fun as the last time I was here. No monstrous lung-buster climbs, nothing too techy, just a nice 21.7 miles of ST that gives you a good workout & keeps ya honest. The sun & heat have done some work b/c it was Dry as a Bone today.

Out yonder is the 1/2-way point.








Thought I was gonna luck out & be all alone at the cone. Didn't see one soul the whole way out to the north parking area. But, by the time I got back over the rocky high-point, the others started to show up. Ended up seeing 11 riders & 4 hikers....weekdays at the cone are allgood. 

And now for something completely different!

Met up w/canyonrat, PBRme!, s.s. spike & av boy to head west outta the 543 lot.

Nice weather, so already at 9am the lot was starting to get filled.

Yep, the rumor's true.
Today my bike was cleaner than Jerry's!
However, that should be the only time we'll let that happen.

Wait a minute! Who's bike is that?









C'est le mien.
I shocked everyone with my new toy today.
As I hinted at in previous posts, I've sold out & gone front squish on a major-brand bike.

Never fear, it ain't got no shifting pieces. You probably won't see any of that on one of my bikes for a long time to come.
Been comparing bikes over the past year, trying to come up with what I would roll next. Schemed up lotsa options, tweaks & ideas, & the Rig ended up being the best value only a bit above my price range.

As for today's pedal, Spike led us around some lesser-known routes, eventually working our way out to the wilderness boundary.



Coming back from there, we ran into nomit, who was making his attempt at mountaingoat's spiderweb ITT. 4h40m into it & he was looking good. After what seemed like eternal climbing (spike was leading, so whatdya figure?), I was finally able to unlock the bouncy thing up front & see what happened. It took some time to get over the thought that I was running on a flat tire, and when I did: WOW! Those FOX things are hella fun. Ran out of water just before reaching the CT-tip top of Shinglemill, so I was dragging ass to the bottom on our final sweet descent, but still smiling.

lubes is pleased! A nice break-in ride of just over 40miles at BC.


PS - It's an Al frame, so, who is in for setting up a pool on when I break it? You know it's gonna happen, but how soon?.

Sold Out

Gang Green used to rock. Their tunes from 'This is Boston, Not LA' are their best (which I've mentioned several times as being THE BEST hardcore compilation).
This 1984 7", 'Sold Out' is still on the better side of their stuff, before they changed their sound to the more stadium-oriented rock shit that they went to later in the 80s.


From KFTH:
"Two great hardcore songs on the first side, similar to the Boston Not L.A. tracks but with a little better recording quality. Chris Doherty's vocals are fuckin great. Side two is a dub version of "Sold Out," kind of interesting...                                                                                                        -CHRIS"


From FlexDiscography:
"Their debut 7” remains their best release, along with the tracks on Boston not LA. Ultrafast Boston hardcore, excellent drumming, good production, wild and powerful. A hardcore classic, except for the ultra short playing time. [9]"


It's ripped from green vinyl, it's gotta be good, right?!

Download here.
Speaking of selling out, you just wait........

Extreme enough for ya?

Right you are, Ken.

As for bike riding:

The Front Range 50 at BCLP was last Saturday, so Steve & I pedaled over w/supplies to enjoy the day by watching others suffer.

We found a nice vantage point to cheer on contenders & non-contenders alike over some breakfast beers.........started out hi-class, then immediately dropped to the bottom of the barrel.

'Twas a nice day to sit back & watch, rather than punish ourselves like so many others did. Saw some whom we recognized (avboy, nomit, besoft, kerkove, looney & yuki), along with some other happy riders we befriended by heckling/cheering on. Fortunately, Oskar Blues had some kegs lined up, so we continued our day by the start/finish zone, as the coimbined effects of the sun & beers started to kick in stronger.

After seeing the results, Steve headed up north to meet his family for a younguns party (w/adult bevvies which he tried to use to coerce me into attending), but I wanted to save some energy for the next day's ride - on dirt, where it counts.

I decided to punish myself the following day, by linking up BCLP, Mt Falcon & Lair o' the Bear. Did most of the trails at BCLP, then surprised myself (just a little) by walking a bit less than the last time going up Mt Falcon. Still walked a bit, but pushed my old, fat body a little further this time. The entire time, I was asking myself what I did wrong to ask for such a punishment - I hate that hill more than any other I've ridden!

As always, going down Lo'B was a Bl'ast! By the time I got there, it was getting a bit crowded so lots of stopping occurred. (which couldn't be said for the Turner guy I kept catching, who almost took out a few riders more than once. Finally decided to chill out for a few & give him some room so I wouldn't run up his ass so quickly.) Ran outta water as I was back in BCLP on the way home, and the sun was bearing down on me.

After enjoying 5h10m of Sunday's beautiful weather, I rolled back into the garage feeling quite spent - which is good seeing the crappy weather Mother Nature has in store for us starting in a few hours.

Ready for something else extreme?

Stay tuned.........

No more Steamer

Saw some good music in the past 2 weeks: Peelander-Z (pure fun)........

....and Hank III/Assjack (pure volume).

I will wear earplugs for the upcoming Melvins show @ Ogden.

The warmer weather has raised the temp of my cold blood enough to try my legs at the biking thing again.

A log of my latest pedals. I start timing as I roll outta the garage & it stops when I unlock the garage door & look at the clock. My local runs to GM are 4.8 miles straight west on FL Ave till I hit the lot at Alameda (500').

APR03: straight up from the lot, down Box-o-Rox, up Zorro, left on DR, lower GM to lot & home (3h 10m)

APR04: straight up, down RV, up Zorro, left on DR, left on RV Rd, up Zorro, left on DR, left on Rooney Rd, up BoR, down RV, lower GM to lot & home (3h 40m)

APR08: straight up just past service rd/singletrack where mud became way too much, u-turn to lot, lower GM – mud packed up drivetrain & both wheels, so I hopped on the I-470 path & headed to BCLP. Miscellaneous trails there & followed Stonehouse to Wads & home (3h 00m)

APR 10: rode the beater into Park Hill, then to Ogden Theater, then a late-night pedal home. (beer, whiskey & music were included)

APR11: straight up, Summit loop, down & up eastern traverse, continue Summit, down BoR, up Zorro, left on DR, left on Rooney Rd, up BoR, down RV, left on middle GM to lot & home (4h 30m)

APR13: straight up, Summit loop, down RV, up Zorro, left on DR, left on Rooney Rd, middle GM to lot & home (2h 40m)

Off to BC in a few to ride with other humans again....it should hurt.

Oh yeah, I sold the Steamroller frame/fork........PayPal account is slowly building up for a back-up MTB.