Business as usual

As the title suggests today was a day like many others. Woke up at about 6 am made coffee and breakfast and sat down to watch the Tour de France. The end of today's stage was my calling to head out on the bike for awhile. I headed out on the pavement to Schultz Creek and then up Orion Springs to Newham down Upper Moto then Lower Moto and home via Jump Trail and Buffalo Park. I was lucky the other day to meet up with Denise Garro while I was riding and she showed me some new stuff that was super fun and a nice change from the usual. I was actually trying to replicate the other days ride but happened down Upper Moto by mistake, oh well. Denise is married to Steve who is the fabricator of my Coconino pictured here at the new sign coming into town on 180 and at the overlook on Newham Trail. Good stuff.

The new Coconino

This is pretty self explanatory but here is the quick and dirty. Custom Coconino 29er, geared of course (I pretty much stopped riding my SS when SSer's attitudes,not all of them/you/me mind you, changed from grassroots and just grooving on the simplicity and purity of not shifting to an elitist attitude much like roadies were/are perceived), front suspension, and braze ons for an Old Man Mountain touring rack. The photo was taken on Little Bear which is rumored to be the best section of trail around Flag. Not sure if I agree or have a favorite but I will admit that it is pretty sweet.

It's been awhile

My return from vacation found a blog site that I was unable to upload photos to so this is the first post since Anne and I have been home from Oregon and Kansas with stops multiple places in between. We went to Oregon for the Cascade Cream Puff mountain bike race but we made a vacation out of it by first spending 4 days in Bend. The town of Bend is pretty nice with some good trails surrounding it. I snapped a photo on the ridgetop one day while riding and also a photo of a sign that shows some different priorities on some of the trial than you find around Flag. Amazing trail conditions even though it was so dry out. It is interesting to see how nice trails remain when horses aren't tearing the shit out of them and making the surface super powdery. We left Bend for Oakridge and the Cream Puff which wound up being 105 miles with around 16000 feet of climbing. The weather was nice and hot with temps reaching the mid 90's and humidities probably between 60-80 percent. I had no idea what to expect and made a few mistakes with my strategy and just barely made the time cut and finished the race in just under the allotted 15 hours. My goal was to finish and that is what I accomplished as seen by this fine photo taken by Anne just after I received my finishers hat. My main mistake was spending too much time at aid stations because I was worried about food and fluid intake. I need to grab more stuff and go and eat on the bike. Having done this I probably would have saved about an hour over the course of the day as there were 9 aid stations. The race was very well organized and the aid stations were phenomenal along with all of the volunteers. Oh yeah, the trails were pretty sweet also. Some of the sections were just brutal and seemed to be never ending but if you analyze each section individually each one was awesome. The day after the race we jumped in the car and did a quick trip through a smokey Crater Lake National Park and headed on through Northern California into Reno for the night. Reno is one of the cheapest places to stay that I have been lately. We paid half as much for a room in Reno as we did in Winnemucca, NV on the way up. The next day was a haul as we had to get all the way across Nevada and back to Flag only to have to drive to Albuquerque the following day to fly to K.C. We went to Kansas to celebrate Anne's Grandparents 60th Anniversary which is pretty impressive. We then flew back to ABQ and stopped quickly at my brothers to see family and pick up Yampa. My parents in Los Alamos graciously took care of Yampa while we were gone and my Dad drove her down to my Brothers so we could get back home a bit quicker. When we finally got back to Flag there was a message from Steve Garro of Coconino Cycles saying that my frame was done. Monday came and I dragged myself out of bed and grabbed my collection of 29er part and off I went to Garro's house to build a bike. The bike is definitely a work of art and has already received multiple compliments out on the trails this week. I snapped a quick photo of the headbadge on the way down Little Bear a couple of days ago to show the root beer paint in the sun and the sweet hand cast headbadge with a kick ass design. I rode up Mt. Elden earlier today and was loving climbing on a hard tail. The efficiency gained was nice to overcome the different gear ratios that come with riding a 29 inch wheeled bike over a 26 inch and I was that I was able to ride up in the middle ring and the same cogs on the rear as with my Turner. I did miss the Turner coming back down but what can you expect. I was going to title my blog "Invasion from all points south" today due to the fact that I saw between 50-100 people out today mostly being from Phoenix and Tucson and on DH bikes being shuttled to the top of the mountain. I did see a few people that looked completely lost looking at Cosmic Ray's trail guide which made me chuckle. Rest assured that I asked them if they needed any help and they politely declined and I was one my way. Sorry for the long blog but like I said: it's been awhile.

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.