the return of Sully

It had been a while since I'd last seen Sully the Warriors Gnome, a few of us were actually beginning to get worried about him. His last finder took him somewhere, not sure it was in the park trail system. From the funny clues we were getting it seemed Sully was flying around on some sort of magical carpet.

Then a couple of weeks ago when we were just getting ready to begin our monthly club meeting in walks our waitress with Sully in her hands. I'm not sure what Sully was doing with the waitress but he had the biggest smile on his face. I asked him where had he been and the only answer I got was something about a "it's been a long strange trip man."

He left it at that and join the rest of the crew for a few beers while I rambled on about the local trail news.

Once the meeting was over and the beer was gone he hoped into my box of club swag and said let's go. I figured he needed a few days of R&R so I took him home to my house until I could get him back to the trails where he belonged.

Right off the bat Sully and Sneaky Pete hit it off. They both looked strangely alike but when I asked them if they were related they both shook their heads no. I swear I saw Sneaky Pete wink at Sully shortly after.

Sully hadn't been there but a few days when I noticed he was beginning to get a bit restless. Pacing about, staring at the bikes in the bike room.

He even got into my beer stash, which was ok at first but after 2 days he'd drank it all.

He tried to blame some of the beer drinking on Jackson but I knew better.

He even tried to get Moonshine to take him to the trails but she said, "What makes you think I can drive fool?"

Finally once I had a couple of days off I took Sully out to Warriors. I think he was really glad to be home.

He found a nice hiding place, mumbled something about looking for John Kay and layed down for a nap.

slam dancing with trees

Sorry for the delay in blog posts, last week I was suffering from lack of sleep, time and desire to blog. Actually I guess I had time to and I almost worked on another video from Utah but I decided to rest because my head just wasn't in it and I'm not sure anyone even watched the last one.

I'm beginning to wonder if the three other actions cams I saw mounted to helmets, bikes and various other parts were even on? I've only seen one other video from our time there. What gives fellers? I'll try my best to edit another one, maybe add some sort of flair to make this one a little more interesting, I do need some new music, my selection sucks.

Last Wednesday, Melinda and I made the drive up to the New River Gorge near Fayetteville, West Virginia to scope out the Arrowhead trails and the area for future camping trips. There was too much to see and ride for one measly daytrip and with a 3.5 hour drive one way. a third of our day was gobbled up driving. There was alot of road construction and 2 separate toll booth willies that kept slowing us down.

I've seen this bridge from photos and was excited to drive across but was severely disappointed when bridge construction forced us into the inside lanes going both ways, killing any view from the bridge. We did do the touristy thing and stop to hike down the to one of the overlooks with the rest of overweight, out of shape America. I wouldn't really call it a hike, these days most places take the hike out of hiking with paved paths or stairs. This path not being any different was completely built as a wooden deck trail of sorts but the abundance of stairs still winded the couch potatoes who probably thought it was a BIG adventure. At least we got to see some of the gorge.

Our main mission was to check out the trails and we did just that, until it started raining. We got in about 8 solid miles of singletrack before it started. What we rode was fun, not really much effort involved but tight enough to keep you on your toes. I guess I got a little to cocky trying to take a corner at speed. I was coming in hot, trying to cut the small tree on the inside as close as possible to keep from having to scrub any speed but what I didn't see was the smaller tree hidden behind the one I was trying to squeeze past. I cleared the first one but the second I clipped with my right hand, basically punching it with my fist. I'm surprised that I didn't break anything as hard as I hit, thank goodness I drink milk.

The impact spun my handlebars so fast they spun hard right at 90 degrees but the rest of me and the bike kept going straight. I heard a loud squeal as I rolled the tire off the rim and burped Stan's and air. I rolled the tire just enough to pick up a few small sticks which lodged themselves between the tire bead and rim when the tire found it's way back into place. I don't know how I didn't completely roll it off the rim or taco the wheel but everything stayed in tact as I did a flying squirrel move toward the ground.

I hit the ground jarring me hard enough I had to do the basic body check to make sure I didn't break anything and all of my limbs were still in place. After everything checked out ok, I had to take a minute to walk it off but was able to get back on and finish the ride. Two days later I was still finding new bumps and bruising, aching from just about every limb.

During our reconnaissance mission I stopped to snap a pic of this old heap sitting on it's roof deep in the woods. As I stood and stared at it wondering who and what kind of mischief was involved to bring this car into the woods and land it upside down was intriguing.

Although we didn't even get to ride half of the trails in the NRG, I can see a ton of potential in what the area has to offer. Hopefully the trailbuilding has just begun.

Last Monday as I prepared to hold our monthly mountain bike club meeting a familiar face showed up at the door, Sully the Warriors Gnome. It's been a while since we've seen him last. I asked him, "What's up?", and all I got was, "It's been a long strange trip brother." We welcomed him back, Spencer bought him a beer and he's currently resting up and getting ready to head back into the woods for some much needed trail time.

Video footage from Utah, Dead Horse Point

Finally got around to editing my first ride from Utah, we got everyone rounded up and headed to the trailhead, all our luggage in tow which made for unloading bikes in the parking lot a freaking mess. It was pretty windy that day and a little on the chilly side, similar to our first day in CO. but the sky was dry and blue as can be so no complaints here.

Dead Horse Point was a bit more on the tamer side of things compared to some of the trails we rode but it was still a blast to ride. Also a bit shorter so we took full advantage of another nearby trail down the road and put in some more singletrack time. That video will be up next.

Enjoy!