Reboot - followup

I figured that since I mentioned Drew's lack of enthusiasm for mountain biking, she'd want me to elaborate a bit on her true love - soccer.  So for Drew's sake:

These are some older pictures, plus one of her getting to enter the field at Dick's Sporting Goods park with the Rapids (in our family we're all big soccer fans, so this was really cool).  Competitive soccer is an option starting at age 11 (the biggest change being professional coaches) and Drew just got accepted to St. Vrain FC's top-level team for next year.  Go Drew and go St. Vrain!

Reboot

Whoa, last post I made was in February. Not sure if I'm cut out for this blog stuff, it's one more thing to try to find time for and on the priority list, it has obviously dropped off the bottom. Also I work in front of a compter all day it's hard to do it in my free time. However, I think it's still worth the effort, so I'm gonna renew my commitment here again. One thing that will help, I really need a decent, non-fragile camera, I'm still lugging an old, bulky point-and-shoot around, I'm amazed I haven't destroyed it yet. There are a ton of rugged point-and-shoots on the market right now, I just need to get one.

So does the lack of posts mean I haven't been riding? Definitely not!!! (See next post which will justify my use of three exclamation points).  I've been riding lots, but right now here's something far more important. A fun camping trip with my daughter Drew.

Here we are after setting up camp in the West Mag area (in the national forest just south of Nederland, some nice free, primitive camping):


BTW, Drew is 10 and is the best daughter a dad could have. Smart, fun, athletic, and most importantly, she's growing up to be a really great person, appreciative, respectful, and curious about the world. A friend once said his definition of success as a parent was raising kids who became adults you would want to hang out and drink a beer with. Drew is too young yet for beer, but we have a great time hanging out, so I think I'm doing OK.

After setting up camp we drove north a bit and got in a quick MTB ride at Mud Lake and a picnic lunch. Drew really isn't into MTBing too much, but she does it for her dad's sake. Mud Lake has just a few miles of trail but it's very beginner friendly stuff, I figured she might like it. We rode an easy 2 miles and she actually had fun. Here we saw a deer, which got her excited. Just a week ago, I saw two moose with my buddy JP in this same area, but no such luck this time:

Next on the agenda, we drove up to the Caribou mine site above Nederland. This is an old mine site and an intersection of a few forest service roads which is right at 10,000 ft of altitude. I had a dual mission in mind coming here, I had biked up here last week where JP and I were amazed at how much snow there still was at this altitude in June. We had hoped to connect through FS 505 to Eldora, but had to turn back. I wanted to see what one week's worth of melting had accomplished (the answer is a lot, but still not enough to free up the roads), but also to let Drew run around and have fun on the snow. There just something really cool about playing on snow in 60 degree, sunny weather and falling through drifts up to your waist:

And finally, back to camp where we did another quick hike (Drew was prepared, she had a walking stick, sling shot, and home-made bow), then we cooked some dinner and enjoyed burning stuff (including Drew's shoes which we were attempting to dry out next to the fire. They got dry, for sure, but melted too - good job, dad!)

All in all, much fun was had by all!

Marshall Mesa from Longmont

Got a good ride in this weekend. My goal was to get some decent mileage in and get a solid test in of my new rack (see previous blog entry). I decided to ride from the house to south Boulder, get a decent loop in at the Marshall Mesa area, and return back the same way. Also I figured I'd get a patrol in too while I was there, first of the new year.

I've ridden this same route a few times before, it's good winter ride. The ride to Marshall Mesa from east Longmont one way is a little over 30 miles. Depending on the route chosen at Marshall Mesa, total mileage ends up around 75 - 85 miles, ride time around 7 hours. And what an incredible area we live in, at least half of the route to the trail head is on bike paths. The only stretches of road are 95th between Longmont and Niwot, 61st between Gunbarrel and Boulder, and a little bit on Marshall road to the trails.

Leaving my neighborhood:


En route through Longmont on the Left Hand greenway:


Oh no, it's Them! (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047573/)


A short climb up through Niwot:


Every ride requires a gratuitous bike shot with a good background. So far my new method of carrying a dry bag on the back of the Fargo is working very well:


I'm thirsty but my water is frozen:


Fast forward past the boring stuff through Gunbarrel and north Boulder, here's the South Boulder Creek trail:


Marshall Road, close to some single track!


Finally, the good stuff!


Have I suddenly been teleported to Wyoming? This stretch of "triple track" looks just like the terrain covered by the Laramie Enduro:


Start of the High Plains trail, a nice swoopy, rocky stretch of trail:


Prairie Vista trail - this shot could have been taken anywhere in the Midwest:


And then back home again, by the same route. I ran out of food going back through Boulder, when I got home I immediately ate 3 bowls of Cheerios (it was the first thing I could find).

Here' the route:


About 80 miles or so, not much climbing. Lots of fun had, no gas burned. My rack and dry bag tested out fine, the bag never budged. I think this approach will work very well going forward. Next step is to work on a method for carrying another bag off the handlebars.

Salsa minimalist rack

This weekend I got another piece of the puzzle in place for my bikepacking plans this year. I've been going back on forth on how to best carry gear on the back of the bike. Basically I was deliberating between the following two standard approaches:

1. A bikepacking-style seat bag, e.g. what Revelate Designs offers (https://www.revelatedesigns.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=store.catalog&CategoryID=4&ProductID=1).
   
2. The more touring-oriented approach of a rear rack, with panniers and/or strapping a bag on top of the rack.

I was definitely leaning towards option #1, it's light and it doesn't make the bike wide and less nimble like panniers would. Quieter too (panniers would likely rattle a lot on rougher terrain). Then I saw a new offering from Salsa, their so-called minimalist rack. As the name implies, it's a simple rack that doesn't support panniers but only allows a bag to be strapped on the top. It has strap loops to keep the load in place and attaches simply and reliably to the rear of a bike using a Salsa specific seat collar.

This idea looked worth trying so I pulled the trigger a while back, got it installed this weekend and got some good mileage on it to try it out. Compared to a seat bag, it is about as light, doesn't add width, but with a good dry bag it is completely waterproof and you have the potential for more capacity (I'm using a 15 L bag, whereas the large Revelate Designs seat bag is about 12 L). Need less capacity? Just use a smaller dry bag. Also I've been toying with the idea of trying a ThudBuster seat post, with this approach I don't have to worry about a seat bag being compatible with various posts.

Here's my Fargo with the rack installed:


And with a 15 L dry bag stuffed with random crap:


Pretty cool! I put the loop of the bag closure around the rack so in case it jostles off I won't run the chance of not hearing it and leaving it miles behind. Only problem is I have to figure out another place to attach a tail light. Maybe to a seat stay?

Not much riding last week. No riding bikes, that is, instead I was riding this:






This is the Rocket at Universal Studios in Orlando, one of a few pretty exciting roller coasters. The family and I spend most of a week here, focusing on the new Harry Potter section of the park. We're all fans, and man did we get our dork on.

My girls next to the Weasley flying car:


Hogwarts castle:


Hmmm, hard choice, Guinness or butter beer?


And of course the obvious landmark:


Lots of fun, but was I glad to get home to the bikes. I felt like a total slug, stiff and fat, after eating too much and all the time on planes. The bike ride to work the first work day after I got back felt so good!

So, with vacation over and spring not too far away, it's time to focus on getting my mileage up. Giddyup!

Super Poorman - a little winter climbing

A winter day with highs in the 40s is a good day for a canyon climb. It's always good to get some climbing in occasionally throughout the winter, so it's not such a shock when you make that annual spring trip to Fruita. So with Saturday's great weather, it was just a question of "which canyon to climb"? Four Mile canyon and Sunshine canyons were the choice for today. Starting and ending in Boulder with Gold Hill as the mid-point, this is a great ride with good views, little traffic, and some reasonably steep sections. I call this ride the "super Poorman", borrowing from the colloquial phrase "super Walker" (another awesome ride) which involves riding Walker ranch starting from Boulder, climbing Flagstaff to get there. In this case, climbing Four Mile, connecting to Sunshine by way of Poorman Road, and dropping back to town is a popular loop, but Gold Hill is a much longer alternative to the same basic concept. I tried to coerce the Punisher into this ride, but he had ski plans, the bum. Guess he buys into the whole "cross training" concept, maybe I should look into this idea... I started just off the Boulder Creek trail at 30th and Arapahoe. Here's a gratuitous bike shot at the start: This is my Salsa Fargo, the SUV of the mountain bike world. It's a drop bar mountain bike, great for off-road touring. Not the lightest MTB I own but it's comfortable, stable, it can carry a lot of crap when properly equipped (e.g. with the custom Epic Designs frame bag and gas tank I have on it here) and it thrives on dirt roads and moderate single track. This bike will be the basis of my bikepacking ambitions later this year. The ride started with a gradual climb west up Boulder creek trail, dodging peds, dogs, and patches of ice. Here's the end of city maintenance, things get more fun from this point: Finally, something more interesting than pavement and crusher fine: Then begins the long climb up Four Mile canyon. This climb is all asphalt though the end of Salina, then it changes to dirt which is typically snow packed this time of year, and fun to ride. Here's the turn off to Poorman road, the quickest way back to town while still feeling like you accomplished something. Today though we're going higher, so onwards and upwards: I had forgotten about the fire that happened in this area last year until I started seeing the damage. I realized I hadn't been this way since this happened. Here's just one small sample: Just below Salina, here's where we turn off onto Gold Rim road: Salina is a pretty place, at this point it appeared it had thankfully escaped the fire: Except perhaps for "Cold Beer" this is the best sign you can ever see. But where's the snow pack typical for this time of year?? Guess it really has been dry here on the Front Range lately: It was unfortunate to see some houses were affected at the upper end of Salina. In this case all that remains of this lot is a tub and some scorch marks on the trees: A view off to the plains, where we started. More fire damage is evident on the trees here: Approaching Gold Hill: And we're here. Ahead is Lickskillet road, supposedly the steepest two-wheel drive road in Boulder county (in other words a hella fun climb). At this point the more masochistic side of me is thinking it would be fun to drop down Lickskillet to Left Hand canyon, then climb to Sawmill, then descend back to Gold Hill, making a figure 8 out of my loop. I ponder a bit but another part of me comes up with the fact that I probably don't have enough water. Nice excuse, so I turn right towards Sunshine. The climbing's not done yet, in fact the steepest part of the day is just ahead. This is why this is a great route, like any good climb the worst part is at the end, just past the point when you think it should be over: Near the high point of the day looking backwards to a nice view of the Indian Peaks. A great view is all the sweeter when earned: Near the top: At the top, a good place to pee, put on a coat, balaclava, and dry gloves. Oh, and double check that my quick releases are on tight. Please pardon gratuitous shot #2 of the rider and bike. Perhaps I should pick a more level rock next time for the camera: And so begins the downhill. I recently installed new rotors on the Fargo and jumped up in size on the front from 160 mm to 185. I had been getting some scary brake fade last year on some long descents on the Fargo. I also threw on some organic brake pads to see what they were like. This was my first real test of my new brakes. I'm alive so it appears I installed them right: I was too busy enjoying the downhill and avoiding sand to take many more pictures, but here's one. The fire damage appears to have been the worst here at the top of Sunshine canyon. My thoughts go out to all those who lost their homes, and the heroic efforts of the fire fighters who saved so many others: Done! Time to scare up some food: Here's a map of the route and some ride stats: Distance = 25.7 miles Total ascent - 3380 ft. Max elevation = 8492 ft. Moving time = 2 hr. 41 min. Total snot rockets blown = 27 (what, your GPS doesn't measure this?)