no more whining I promise

No this will not be another post of me talking, (whining) about bikes I would like to have. A call did come via the Bat phone last night,

we don't really have a big red phone here at the house, it's Melinda's phone for some odd reason. Anyway I got the info I needed so enough of that.

Yesterday I headed over to Bays Mtn for a bit of gravel road action thinking the trails would be too wet for riding after two days of rain. I figured some climbing would be good for me with the Hill of Truth race coming up next month. There is one heckuva a nasty climb in that course which I have cleaned but never in a race. Anyway so I started out with the race course loop which starts out with a sucky gravel road semi warm-up then climb climb climb. I made it through the first series of climbs and decended down to the main intersection where I normally hop on the Lake Rd. I stopped to fiddle with my tire pressure and I saw Bill H. And Randy coming up the road toward me. Sweet, some riding partners. Bill said their plan was to head up River Mtn Rd., quite possibly the worst excuse for a fire road ever, hang a left on Bear Run and then down the backside. It sounded like more fun than my planned route so I joined them. Climbing River Mtn Rd. just plain sucks, it's steep, loose and rutted out as hell, descending it is just as bad. I've never climbed up Bear Run, only descended it, ouch that hurt! I was really wishing I had a granny gear about half way through the climb instead of a 1x9 but hey I came to climb and that's exactly what we did. The climb was worth the pain as we descended down the lovely Indian Pipes trail, quite possibly one of the more fun trails to ride at Bays. I've ridden all of the singletraack on the front side that's open to bikes after a big rain and they drain quite well but I was really surprised at how well the backside did too. It turned out to be an excellent day for singletrack riding.

About halfway through the Kiner Hallow loop we stopped to wait on Randy as he'd dropped off the back a bit. Once he came into view we realized why, he had completely severed his rear deraileur from his bike. He told us to go on and he would walk it out. No way I told him, as long as we had all the proper tools we could turn his geared hardtail into his 1st ever singlespeed. I've never actually done this on the trail but I've seen it done on more than one occasion so I knew it would work well enough to get him back to his truck. After about 10 minutes of trailside work he was back up and running and was able to finish the ride.

I'm not sure if the experience was enough to convince Randy to convert to a full time singlespeed but I felt a bit better about my mechanic skills.

Don't forget the NTMBA Poker Ride is coming up next month, if your thinking of coming out go ahead and register here so we can get some sort of head count. I'd hate for Texas Roadhouse not to bring enough food. If your waiting to see what the weather is going to do go ahead and register I made a call to Mother Nature for sunny skies and 70 degrees. If we reach 100 pre-registered riders we may have to close registration due to parking constraints.