I think there was some moisture this winter

I left home this morning at about 9 a.m. headed for the high country on my Turner. I was only barely out the door when I thought to myself wow it is actually hot out today. Then I got lucky. The majority of the way up Schultz Pass and the Waterline Road it was fairly cloudy and about 10 degrees cooler than when the sun was out. I took the first picture within a half mile of the cabins (downhill) along the Waterline Road. It was amazingly green I could not believe it. There were plants that were like green carpet combined with the brilliant green of the aspen leaves to make it very surreal. I snapped a photo at the top of the Waterline Road where just two weeks ago I could not even access because of the snow. The last photo is of one of the shitty Maxis Larsen TT tires that I have. I have owned three of these and they have all formed these massive air bubbles in the casing. One of the tires was warranteed and I was stuck with the other two. Pure crap I tell you. Never again will I buy a Maxxis tire of any type. Plus when you use their email contact form on their website they never get back to you. At least with the crappy Specialized tires that I have dealt with lately they have an unconditional warranty. You just take them back to the shop and they give you another one that will be great for about 200 miles until the sidewalls get thousands of little pin holes in them.

Just tending to the garden

Today I took a recovery day and tonight I will head to our softball game at 9:15. I did not do a whole heck of a lot today except some bike maintenance and some work in the garden. The photos are of some calavacitas that I planted. My grandmother and great uncle gave me some seeds and I planted them in various places in the garden. They are actually the best looking plant in the garden right now. The calavacitas are green pumpkins that get picked when they are very small and end up looking like zucchinis when they are cut and cooked. My grandma makes a dish of the same name that is the squash, corn, onion, green chili, some oil and a bit of butter and it is by far one of my favorite dishes. We eat it at Thanksgiving and if I am lucky I get it when I go home made specially for me. I am hoping that these plants continue to grow and produce the squash and that I can let one grow big so I will have seeds for next year. I am also hoping that I can keep them growing because the seeds will always have come from the ones my grandma and great uncle originally gave me.

Don't come here if you have bad allergies

Today in Flag was surprise surprise windy. As it gets increasingly more dry here and more and more pollen is produced you can see waves of it blow by on windy days. I snapped a photo of the pollen just sitting on the back patio. Yampa seems like she is tired all day long these days until about 7 p.m. when the sun goes down then she is really wild. The photo of her is after playing for about 20 minutes during the middle of the day. She also has a habit of chewing the faces off of her toys and then gnawing on them some more but never really tearing any other parts of the toys up. I have been riding everyday for the most part recently and I took a forest road tour around the Peaks yesterday for about 47 miles and today I just rode an easy 21 miles out at the Campbell Mesa/Arizona Trail area for a little recovery. I have some lactic acid in the muscles that I want to go away. While out at Campbell Mesa I thought I saw some green in the middle of the trail so I stopped real quick and back tracked. When I got back to the spot I noticed that sure enough there was a twenty dollar bill laying in the middle of the trail. I also got my prize money check fom 5th in the time trial at the Iron Horse which is for forty dollars. Hey anything is better that nothing.

This post ain't got no pictures

I know what you're thinking. What good is a blog with no pictures? I'm with ya. I usually don't like anything without pictures (mostly cause I don't read so good). I just figured I would jot down a bit about the riding that I have done the past couple of days. Yesterday I went for a 55 mile mountain bike ride. I hooked up to Ft. Valley and rode to the Snowbowl Road and then up to Freidlein Prairie Road which I took until I could descend the Weatherford Trail to Schultz Pass. At this point I was feelng pretty good so I decided to go up the Waterline Road to the Inner Basin. When I arrived in the Inner Basin I was so excited to see that the spring water spigot had been turned on so I took a bit of a break and filled all of my water containers up. From there I headed down into Lockett Meadow which has phenomenal views of the Peaks and continued around until I hooked up with the Deer Hill trail. The Deer Hill Trail lead me to the Horse Camp (my second option for water) and then to the Little Elden Trail which I ascended until the Little Bear Trail which I had to climb also. I had recently heard that Little Bear was completely clear of downfall which it was and it was in incredible shape. The top of Little Bear put me at the top of Onion which put me on the road home. This morning I waited until about the last minute to decide I was going on the group road ride and frantically got all of my things together. My body did not fell altogether that great so when I got good and dropped on the steps I decided that a 48 mile ride instead of a 65 mile ride was going to be good for today and I turned around with a group of 5. The wind was pretty hourendous out and back so it was a little tougher that usual but still fairly enjoyable. Just about a mile from town I had a bit of bad luck with a bunch of glass in the road and slit my rear tire pretty good (thanks a lot asshole bottle thrower). Nothing like having to replace a $65 tire with only a couple hundred miles on it. Oh well I am over it. Maybe riding my bicycle today will keep my health care costs down in the future and that $65 dollars will be recouped. Enjoy your weekend everybody.

A little more riding

The past couple days saw some riding of great trails with my good friend David who was visiting from Tucson. He was escaping the heat for a few days before he starts nursing school at U of A. We went out to the Campbell Mesa area the afternoon that he got here to break him into the elevation and get a quick ride in before the sun went down. The next day we drove up to the Sunset trailhead with Anne and Yampa. Anne was taking the dog with her for a run and we just hitched a ride. We rode up the first part of Sunset and then turned around and headed up the Weatherford trail then down a rocky old road that connected to the pipeline and then we headed down Lower Moto and back around to Buffalo Park and home. Today we went out to the AZ Trail and rode out to Fisher Point. The wildflowers were going off the whole way out to Fisher Point and the scenery was amazing. I attached some photos of David at the Sunset trailhead with the 2 Turners (his Burner is my old steed), a photo of my bottle after it popped out on Sunset and rolled down into the only water in the drainage and settled smack dab in the middle, a photo of David's bike on the Weatherford Trail, and a flower photo. More good news is that my Coconino 29er is almost built. You can check out the progress at coconinocycles.com and then head to the blog. It should be all brazed, defluxed, and polished so it can go to paint by early next week.

I think I'll turn around now

Today I welcomed June in with a long mountain bike ride. I started at home and made my way over to Schultz Pass Road and headed up to the Waterline road which I took into the Inner Basin which was phenomenal and I had to get the camera out and snap a couple of photos of Humphrey's and Agassiz. I then backtracked a bit and headed up the Waterline Road again and began to climb over trees and snow banks mixed in with some riding here and there. I was determined to get to the end of the road and as long as I could see dirt on the road in front of me I pressed on. I made it within about .5 of a mile to the end and ran into continuous snow at least 4 feet deep and that was that. I took off down toward home (25 miles away) and proceeded to run out of water about 12 miles from home with no options to refill. Enjoy life in the high desert. I could have filled out of Schultz Creek but I wasn't that desperate yet. There is a spigot in the Inner Basin with untreated spring water but when I tried to fill out of it low and behold it hadn't been turned on yet. I returned home after about 5.5 hours in the saddle and a little over 51 miles of riding under my belt. I felt pretty good but the real test will be how I feel when I get back on my bike tomorrow.