I heart trails

I used to dread going to trail workdays, they're not easy, I always go home sore and head straight for the ibuprofen bottle. Yet I still went because there was always a certain satisfaction when the job was completed. Now I go to trail workdays and I actually look forward to them. I still walk away sore and looks for the pain meds as soon as I walk in the door at home but I always have a smile on my face and look forward to the next workday.

Now that Chestnut is pretty much finished I'll admit I was dreading starting the task of fixing Big Oak. I knew it wasn't going to be easy and I'll admit I'm still a little on the fence about how well our plan will work but I do know that if it doesn't anything will be better than the swamp that was there and I know we'll keep plugging away at it until we find a solution that does work.

Our trails coordinator identified 2 or 3 natural springs that were feeding directly into the trough that we called the trail and instead of draining off it was staying put right smack dab in the middle of the trail causing a huge mess. Instead of moving the trail to higher ground we are exploring other options by request of several local riders who for some reason have grown fond of this area. I'm not really sure what attracts them but we're going to give it a go and see what happens.

Several spots we were able to knock the edge off the trough and drain the water and then going back in a filling in the lower sections.

As for the natural springs we dug a channel and routed the water across the trail and down the hill like it should. Then we added rock to keep this flow going in the right direction.

This job will definitely call for more rock armoring that we've seen at any other trail at Bays Mountain. Last Saturday several of us did nothing but hunt for rocks worthy of trail armoring. Armed with a wheel barrow and a keen eye for all things stoney we paved several feet of the trail with large rocks.



I'm sure you've probably already heard about the fundraiser tonight at Texas Roadhouse in Johnson City hosted by our local mountain bike club, NTMBA, or now known officially as SORBA Tri-Cities. Come out and enjoy dinner with like minded folks and present the flyer above to your waiter. 10% of your bill goes to the club and our quest to purchase a trail machine. Trail machine = more trails, and more trails built quickly. Who doesn't like trails? People who don't like trails should be drug out into the streets and whipped with a dead rabbit. You don't want to be beaten with a dead rabbit do you?



riding with friends

Evidentally Blogger has updated their dashboard which I tried my best to ignore for as long as I could but they've forced it on me and now I'm having to relearn how to type up a blog post. Things are not working so swift for me just yet, I'm not sure if it's me or blogger. Inserting photos was never an easy task and while sometimes it seems to work good, today it was a nightmare. 

Last weekend was the huge Southeast Bike Expo down in Georgia which benefited SORBA/IMBA. I would have liked to go but it was Melinda's birthday weekend so we hung close to home and rode what she wanted to ride. There really wasn't a huge selection of bikes I was wanting to ride and the ones I did want to ride were waaaay out of my price range. Getting to try them out would only have been torture and I'm sure they were among the more popular anyway so I would have spent most of my time waiting in line.

 

Melinda's trail of choice for her b-day was Bent Creek in Asheville. We invited all the lady's out for a ride and luckily for me she allowed some of their significant others to join us so I wouldn't be the odd ball only guy.

 

It was a beautiful day for riding with friends, the pace was nice and casual with plenty of stops for scenery admiration, stunt riding and some refreshments. I've been eyeing this log ride for quite some time but usually skip it, Sunday I decided it was time for me to buck up and ride it. I swear it's me, Andy's photo skills were lacking, he blamed cutting off my head on a rabid bee.

   

  

 The birthday lady.

  

  

I downloaded a cool little camera app that adds some interesting effects to my photos. This one is by far my favorite, the first day I actually tried it out. I had a little time to kill while waiting on some friends to ride a couple of weeks back and decided to play around with the new app and got this. 

I've been talking of buying another singlespeed frame for some time now, one that's made of steel and has the capability of running gears. Melinda gave me the green light and I threw my AIR9 up for sale. 30 minutes later I had a buyer so I made a quick call to my LBS and ordered a new frame. Last night I stripped the AIR9 down to just the headset and seatpost. I tried to remove the BB but instead of loosening it I only managed to booger up the contact points, a problem I've experienced quite a bit recently. I think my BB removal tool is no longer up to par so rather than do any further damage I'll hold off from trying to remove it any further and let the professionals help me with it.



what to do now?

Yes I realize my recent blog posts have lacked any interesting subject matter but it seems as that's the case for most I've been reading as well. Maybe it's the crappy weather, maybe it's the rising gas prices, maybe it's all the hard core training going on that some feel is interesting to read or maybe it's just that there is nothing interesting going on worth talking about. I got up early today thinking I was going to sneak in a ride, but as I was sipping my morning coffee I heard something funny on the roof. Unfortunately it wasn't Santa, but our frequent friend the rain storm who has definitely overstayed his welcome. If you're paying attention yes the rain didn't start until 10:30 and I said I got up early but 10:30 is early when you didn't go to bed until 6am. So I'm sitting here watching the rain and I figured I might as well try to coax a blog post out of my head that might be worth reading. There's definitely nothing interesting to read as I have my morning breakfast of PB&J so I might as well write.

I squeezed in a ride yesterday at Bays Mountain checking out the new trail additions that so far have gotten rave reviews from my peers. I think we did good, but it's funny when you standing out in the woods trying to decide how to get the most fun out of every line and turn and then as you start to ride it you realize the line in your head was way off the actual line you ride. Everytime I ride it I find new spots I think that can be improved to squeeze a little more fun out of the flow. Add a berm here, place this rock there. "Is that tree too close to the landing zone if I build a jump there?" I'm almost to the point where I want to carry and handfull of pin flags and a black magic marker to mark these spots so I won't forget what I discovered when I come back with the weapons of mass trail construction. I'm not a parent but this almost feels like raising a kid. You groom it and work with it hoping one day it will become a trail of epic proportions. What did I just say? I've got to get out of the house.

The weekend does look promising, no rain in the forecast and plenty of riding on tap. Sweet Melinda has a birthday this Friday so we'll be riding where she wants and having beers where she wants. The cool thing is, we usually agree on what's fun and tasty. Well except for shopping, I'm not much of a fan unless it's in a bike shop and there's a wad of cash in my pocket.

new artwork

There has been some new artwork coming down the pipe for our local club, I would love to tell you I had a hand in designing all of it but I didn't. Our newest t-shirt, the "Trail Gnome" shirt, I was working on and before I was even halfway through my computer bit the dust. Luckily I had saved what I did do to my external hard drive. The bad part is I lost all of my graphics software and had to had it off to a friend of mine to finish. He is also a local screen printer, Torbett Designs, and he also printed the shirts for us.

If you're wondering what the cost for a sweet Trail Gnome t-shirt is, it's 15 hours of local trailwork and you must log your hours at ntmba.org. With all the work we have on tap there is plenty to do, a few of the shirts are already spoken for so if you're interested get one while the gettin's good.

Also on tap is our new NTMBA jersey that Anthony has laid down his superb graphics skill into. The topo map is of local origin, the Cherokee National forest. There will be matching short/bibs and Sock Guy socks. These are for sale so if you're interested visit http://www.ntmba.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5777. The dealine for orders will be March 5th.

brakes, who needs em?

I've always used Avid brakes and not for really anymore reason than it's just whats came on most of my bikes. With several mountain bikes in the bike room, to start adding a different brand would just make things a hassle. I've ran pretty much Juicy's for years with no issues, just change the pads and go, never had to bleed them. Then along came the Elixers, I bought a set for Melinda and they worked pretty well for the first couple of years so when I ran across a used set for what I thought was a good deal from a local I went ahead and scooped them up. Right off the bat I had to bleed them just to get them to work. Since I've had them less than 6 months and I'm looking at a 3rd bleed I think it's time to send them to an early grave. Change the pads, bleed the brakes, that pretty much sums up what I do with these brakes.

Since I bought the used ones, Melinda's Elixers have joined in on the bleeding party. It's been ridiculous and I'm seriously considering buying stock in DOT 5.1 brake fluid. The newest Elixers are supposed to have fixed this problem but since they are still new I'm not ready to take that chance.

Not wanting to dump more money into brakes that don't work properly I went ahead and pulled the trigger on not one but two sets of Shimano XT's. I've heard nothing but good reviews about them and I'm not talking about what the local yay-hoos have to say either.

If you're looking for a set of used hydros don't ask me if I'm selling the Elixers, I'm not going to sell them to anyone I know, knowing they're not worth a crap. I found out after I bought them that there was SRAM memo sent out about the bleeding issue but that was a little too late.

work is good

I've been working overtime, at least that's what it feels like. Not just the job I get paid for but everything in between and even though most of the work I've been doing doesn't pay me in cash it pays me in other ways like that sweet feeling of riding your bike trough the woods on singletrack you've worked hard on. It's totally different than riding a trail that someone else built, trust me.

This has probably been the wettest winter we've ever seen, I'm not sure which is worse a cold winter or a wet one. I think we've been able to ride more but only if you've been lucky to be off when the skies are dry. Those days I've been torn between, "Should I ride or should I spend time trying to get this trail finished?" I've tried my damnest to do both but one eventually ends up falling short, in my case it's been the riding.  I did try to sneak in a ride a couple of hours before the club meeting this week but half way through the ride we pulled the plug and went home due to muddy conditions. Honestly I thought it would have been dryer but I guess the whole "freeze thaw" was in full effect and I hate the thought of damaging the trail. I was off three days this week and it rained 2 out of 3 of them. The one dry day was right between the two rainy ones so I opted to do trail work. Me and another guy put in a solid 4 hrs of work finally getting the trail open. It felt really good to get it rideable but I later found out some yay-hoo rode it in the rain the next day no doubtly screwing up the work we had done. Who rides a brand new trail in the rain knowing full well it's not ready for that kind of abuse?

These pics are a couple weeks old and alot of work has been done since.

A sweet natural berm.

It's kind of hard to see but there is a small drop here. We actually ended up putting in two. They were there almost naturally, I just merely sculpted them into something fun to ride.



A little more polishing work to do and maybe some rock armoring here and there and I hope we can call it good. I'm ready to move on to the next project which is more on the maintenance side of things and be done until next fall, my trail tools could use the rest.

After we finished Wednesday I could barely move but knowing it was going to rain the next day and I would be at work all weekend I had to ride. I went home ate lunch, popped a couple ibruprophens and grabbed my bike to see how my handy work rolled. It felt good, the trail that is, a bit soft and in need of packing in but good flow. Me on the other had, by that evening I felt like I'd been hit by a truck.

trails and Madonna

It's been hella busy around these here parts, and the blog has suffered a bit. First things first, I finally figured out why the last 2 videos I posted would automatically start playing everytime I went to my blog. Two videos playing with two different songs at the same time can kinda be irritating I know and I apologize. The "auto play" button in the Vimeo settings got clicked on somehow, not sure why but it's been clicked off so no more annoying noise when you visit.

In trail related news, we've been hard at work trying to get all the necessary paperwork work filed for the many approvals we need to build new trails. Yeah sometimes you have to fill out applications and get letters of support just to build a trail. The trails in question are the additions we are trying to add on to Warriors Path. The land across the interstate is owned by TVA and was recently zoned by the TVA for recreational purposes. We have found a way to access this land via a small corridor under the I-81 bridge which is owned by TDOT. So basically we have to get permission by 3 different government organizations to build a couple of miles of trail. Imagine how slow moving and the amount of paperwork involved just to dig in the dirt, sheesh. It's worth it though, I just hope it happens in my lifetime.

There is more mountain bike club related going on lately but that's stuff I'll skip on discussing here in the blog. If you're interested in hearing, come to the club meeting next Monday. I'll fill you in on all the small details.

I'm trying to keep this post short as I've got a date with a bike shop mechanic. Melinda bought a Chris King headset for her BMC a few months ago but when she upgraded to the Niner it wouldn't transfer over because of the tapered headtube. Well I asked around and found I could order just the bottom portion of the headset to make everything work for her JET, yeah! I originally was supposed to have it installed last Friday but I managed to drive all the way over to JC with her bike leaving the necessary headset parts at home. I was too busy thinking about all the other crap I had going on and the other items I was taking with me that I walked out the door and forgot all about the headset. The good news is we finally sold most of the parts off her BMC, all we lack now is the frame. Know anyone looking for a high end women's specific frame?

I did watch the Super Bowl game last night, the first game I've watched since the last Super Bowl. It got exciting the last 10 minutes of the game. That's all I really have to say about it. Oh yeah and evidently MIA flipped off the camera during the halftime show upstaging an aging Madonna (if you caught it) who looked like she was going to fall down at any minute. It wasn't as bad as last year's Black Eye Peas performance but I did catch myself yawning during the show.

That's all for now........

my measly little Pisgah video

Here is the Pisgah footage I shot a few months ago, alot of it didn't turn out due to a CamelBak straw flopping right in front of the camera. Don't ask what trails we rode because I have no idea. The only one I'm sure of was the Black Mountain trail and most of it was ruined by that stupid CamelBak straw. I'll admit the Black Mountain trail was a bit disappointing, I'll admit some of it had to do with my lack of downhill skills. I do need to step up my game in that dept. I feel like we climbed for a really long time only to go straight freaking down the mountain. It was steep, rutted, rooty and rocky as hell. I have nothing against trails that are over my head technically, I need the challenge. I'm not one of those pansy riders who won't ride certain trails because they're too hard.

I'm totally ready to go back and explore some more, that place is just too much fun.

some long awaited video and a different TYPE of post

Today I writing my blog post from my "smarter than me" phone with my new handy dandy blogger app. I downloaded it but have yet to write with it until today. I have used it to add pics from my phone directly to my blog, something I've been struggling with on the iPhone but not anymore! The reason I'm writing with it today you ask? No I'm not globe trotting around the world. Our laptop here at the house bit the dust after 7+ years of service. I had just hit the save button on the video above when it went so the ending is a bit abrupt but what can you do. Luckily I've been backing up my stuff for a while so I don't think anything was lost, fingers crossed.
After alot of searching, review reading and penny counting I realized we couldn't afford a Mac so we opted for another PC but we did spring for an iPad, I'm calling it our early Valentines gift to each other.

So the video above, this was the triathlon I did last June, my first ever. Yes the turnout was low, mainly because of the nasty wet conditions, at least that's my story. Had the course been dry and free of rain I probably would have seen some stiffer competition and wouldn't have scored a 2nd place finish. I'll take it though, just showing up and running the race says something in my book, the guys who stayed at home while they might have been faster on dry ground are pansies in my mind. I'll be back this year for sure to tell them just that.

I apologize if my grammar is worse than normal, typing and editing is not that easy on my "smarter than me" phone.

non-riding post but yet still entertaining, I think

I'm sure most have you might have heard this already but I will give the short version for those who don't and who might actually be interested. Last summer we hired a roofer, who came recommended, to replace our roof. He came over with a younger guy, we agreed on a price, signed a contract and wrote him a check as a deposit. We had a couple of date changes due to this and that but the 3rd date we set that they were supposed to do the job came and passed without a word from the roofer. After 3-4 weeks of harassing phone calls and him promising us he would get someone out to our house we'd finally had enough. Once we threatened to call the police that finally got his attention and he stated he no longer worked for the company.

Fast forward a couple of months and some nasty phone calls.

The Kingsport police arrested him, and his mug shot in the newspaper was the first time I'd seen his face since the initial contract signing. Fast forward a couple more month's we were in court yesterday for the second time, the first time he said he had a witness, who wasn't there, that could prove he gave the $$ to his boss, the judge gave him a 30 day recess.

Yesterday the roofer showed up without his witness and the funny thing is, there was never any mention of it, I think his public defender was a little irritated. His P.D. proceeded to badger me on the witness stand trying to prove that I never allowed him to finish the job. I simply stated that I did finally request a refund after nearly two months for a couple of reasons. 1. He and the actual owner of the company both told me they no longer worked for the company nor did they know who owned the company. 2. They had never showed up to do any work nor had any materials been delivered. I think that was reasonable on my part and I guess the P.D. really didn't have anything left to say as he left me alone after that. Yesterday was basically just a preliminary hearing to decide whether or not to send him to a criminal trial which he is and I'm calling that a win for us. It won't be until March before he's back in court so it will probably be a long time before we ever see any of our money back. I've got my fingers crossed and a strong will to fight, fight, fight!

The only thing that kept us from going crazy sitting in the court room for 6 hours when we could have been out riding was the entertainment. Everyone in that court room had some sort of ridiculous story or excuse. Both times we were in attendance we witnessed people being arrested for showing up high or drunk, they always use the same excuse, "I'm on anything I'm just tired." We sat and listened to idiots all around us laugh about their DUI's, shoplifting arrests and what not. I clearly remember hearing one girl state she didn't understand why she got a DUI, she only had 4 shots? It was true redneck entertainment.

Ok enough of that, my hopes to get in a ride or two the last couple of days didn't happen due to rain and court hearings. Tuesday it was just too wet to ride so I mixed things up a bit and went for a trail run at Bays Mountain. I normally run at Warriors when hitting the trail but I felt the need to try Bays and I liked it alot. There are less roots and rocks to deal with which lowers the twisted or broken ankle chances by a mile.

Wednesday was the same, too wet for riding but just dry enough to work on the trails, talk about a full body workout, wow! We are getting closer and closer to finishing the upper section of the Chestnut trail. This section is a bit more challenging than the lower section. It's still a cakewalk compared to Warriors but it's going to have some really sweet swooping turns, berms and jumps.




This berm was pretty much there naturally, Jay just helped it along a bit with some shaping.




One of the first berms in a nice "S" turn.





A jump smack dab in the middle of the "S" turn. There wasn't a plan to build a jump it just kinda evolved. There was a nasty stump in the trail that could've been dangerous due to it's natural camouflage. It was going to be a huge chore to remove it so I decided to cover it making it rideable. As I covered it with dirt a small jump began to form so I said what the heck and kept building. It's the first jump I've ever built so I'll accept a little constructive criticism, I just hope it flows well.




The second berm in the "S" turn.

It's going to be an awesome trail and hopefully we'll be riding it soon. I was hoping to be done with it by the end of this month but I don't think it gonna happen unless we have a huge turnout this weekend. I think we might build another jump or two, who knows.

jonesing

All this cold wet weather is driving me crazy, I've only been able to ride once this year and with the new Bike "Bible" sitting around the house with all it's great photos of people riding doesn't help things.
Melinda and I visited the trails today with the dogs but we left the bikes at home, we do plan to ride tomorrow but it was pretty rough once we realized how nice a day for riding it was and how great of shape the trails were in.

The Whole Enchilada: Top to Bottom - Moab, Utah from Phil Shep on Vimeo.

Then I ran across this video of the "Whole Enchilada" in Moab Utah, a place we have made plans to go visit and ride but not until April. I think I might just explode soon. The video above I thought was really cool, 27 miles into an 11 minute video is pretty good, I'm sure they skipped alot of really good stuff but you can only show so much. I plan to find out for myself come April.

a review of the bike review

I've still yet to figure out why everything from pics to text is posting up centered in my blog, it only does this when I add photos via my blogger app on my "smarter than me" phone. I played around with the settings on my phone but they were very limited. The only thing it would let me really do was adjust pic size and translate my text to Pirate language but that crap's so yesterday.

Saturday I finally received the Holy Grail of bike reviews, Bike's "Bible". I've been waiting impatiently for this jewel ever since I found out that all the testing was done just over the hill from me in Western NC. My go to, road trip destination source of many many sweet trailheads. I'm not gonna lie that after scanning through the list of trail worthy machines from every category I was a wee bit disappointed that there were no Niner's listed. I wasn't expecting to see the whole fleet or even two or three but I figured the JET RDO would have at least graced the pages. Something else that was lacking were the hardtails, very few of them were shown.

There were several 29er's but a majority of the rides were full squish 26er's. The only thing I didn't miss, hardtail 26er's, not a single one.

The best part about the "Bible" review was what the Bike crew had to say about the Western NC trails, Pisgah, Dupont and Beech Mtn. They showcased many of the local trails with plenty of good things to say and lots of pretty glossy photos. They even did a nice little piece on the town of Brevard and the two local bikes shops. Although the review was not as entertaining as I'd hoped I still thoroughly enjoyed it.

One of the things on my Christmas wish list this year was a new Camelbak Mule. My old one was showing signs of wear, wreaking of stink and missing a few straps. The newish design in my opinion fits much nicer and stays in place better without that top heavy feel like my old one. I've been holding onto a Niner "Pedal Damnit" patch for several months just in case I scored a new pack and today I conned my Mom into sewing it one for me. Thanks Mom!

If it's been a while since you've ridden with us, Melinda and I, then you might wonder why I've been hawking all of Melinda's bike parts on Ebay. No she didn't give up riding, she finally pulled the trigger on a new Niner JET9. The wheelset she had on her BMC were the Mavic Crossmax SLR's, which came with two fancy canvas wheel bags. I never really understood the need for these bags. I understand their purpose but I seriously doubt that half of the folks who own these wheels ever used the bags. They layed around in our basement for several month's before Melinda found a use for them that blew away their original purpose by a mile. A couple of years ago Melinda bought a wreath bag to store the various wreaths we have that adorn our front and back door during the changing seasons/holidays. Not surprising we quickly ran out of room and the two Mavic wheel bags were brought into service. Held up side by side to the "wreath" bag, one might wonder if the idea of the bag was stolen? They are almost identical with the exception of color and the Mavic logos. Now we house all of our many, many wreaths securely in our basement, free from dust and bugs. I just hope the cat who bought the wheelset doesn't hit me up for the wheel bags, Melinda will definitely put up a fight.

re-evaluating my 2012 goals and some beer

So I think I may have a change of plans in my New Year resolutions, originally I stated that my goal was to achieve 1500 miles on my mountain bike with a hopeful goal of 2000. Well, I've had some time to think this over and I realized that by trying to achieve this goal, it might leave little time for other types of workouts that I really need to focus on like core and weight lifting. Two of definitely my most weaker points in my over all fitness and it shows. I'm constantly plagued with lower back fatigue and strain because of my lack of upper body & core strength. I know this does not make for a very interesting read so I'll try to keep this short but I felt like I needed to address this so that maybe I'll do a better job at other workouts than just riding my bike. While my mileage goal might suffer my overall fitness should be better making me a stronger and better rider. So far I've gotten off to a great start, partly due to the really nasty wet weather we've had. I've been mainly focusing on strength training and core workouts the past two weeks.

I'm really jonesing for a good hard ride.

One of my weaknesses with the changing seasons is the ever changing selection of seasonal beers on display at my local grocer. With 3 different grocery stores within a 5 min. drive from my house, all with different selections, I've been bringing home waaay too many six packs of high calorie beers to try out.

It all started with this little jewel I found in Asheville a couple of weeks ago, New Belgium's Belgo. We can't get it in TN so I had to buy it before we crossed back into hillbilly land. It's hoppy, like a punch to the mounth on the first sip.

Then if that wasn't bad enough I was walking past the beer isle last week on my way to get a gallon of milk when this tasty selection jumped into my buggy. How could I put it back? Thunderstruck Coffee Porter? With a name like that I had to make it mine. It was delicious!

And then it happened again earlier this week, I've seen this jewel before but I'd always passed it by for some odd reason. After sampling a couple of these that will prove to be very difficult in the future.

When it comes to my mountain bike shoes I tend to wear a pair long past their intended life span, why I do this I'm not sure. I guess since I don't wear them anywhere but while I'm riding I feel like they should last longer. The last pair I bought were the Shimano M-182's, a bit more racier and stiff than I probably needed but a definite upgrade to my previous pair. In the past few months I've been dealing with more foot numbness and fatigue that normal. I tried numerous cleat positions to try and remedy this but nothing seemed to help. Then a week or so ago I wore my winter shoes for the first time this year. They are less worn and not as stiff and surprisingly I experienced less numbness and fatigue which lead me to believe it might have just been a need to buy new shoes.

This time around I opted for more in the way of comfort and less racey. I scored a pair of 2012 Shimano M-162's, yeah they're a bit flashy and WHITE but it seems like everything is going with this trend. After a bit of research everything I read about these shoes was great including the durability of the white. I've been running a white WTB saddle for over a year and its had all kinds of mud and clay ground into it and with the help of a little simple green it still shines almost a brightly as the first day I mounted it up.

There was one big difference in my new kicks, the lack of toe spikes. I've always ran them and while they're great for muddy hike a bikes they suck at just about everything else. There are pre-drilled holes for them if I decide to add them later but for now I've decided to see if I like them better without. I'm all about trying new things lately so why not.

Speaking of new things, a while back I mentioned that had had downloaded the Blogger app for my "smarter than me" phone in an effort to increase my blogging. Well that hasn't exactly happened BUT I did realize it makes for adding photos taken by my phone super easy to add to my blog posts, hence all the fancy pics. I haven't figured it out just yet so if things look screwy it's my lack of tech savy. Please be patient.

what I plan to do this year

2011, what a great year it was! First off I would like to thank all of my sponsors who made this race season possible!

Oh wait, I don't have any sponsors? I'll put that on my list of things I need to get this year. I think I might have done a race or two? Did I? Yeah I'm pretty sure I did. I'm pretty sure a majority of them fell through the cracks due to other responsibilities and what not. Maybe better luck next year, I still call 2011 a win win.

Early in the beginning of the year I set the goal of 1000 mountain bike miles, I achieved it much faster than I anticipated and so I set another goal, 1500. I fell short of that one by 154.7 miles, meh. This year 1500 will be my minimum and I'll shoot to make 2000 and no I don't plan to be doing any hill repeats on gravel roads to boost my mileage.





As long as the Mayans are wrong 2012 should be even better. I try not too pay much attention to that crap, if they are correct I'll be ready. I know where I'm going to be. I think the Mayans just ran out of room when they made their calendar and December 2012 was just a coincidence.

Doesn't someone predict the end of the world every year? How's that working out so far?

This year Melinda and I will be heading out west for a much needed vacation. My Mom has graciously offered to come and dog sit for us while we're away. We rescued both our dogs from the pound and I can't bring myself to board them in a kennel. Thanks Mom, you're the greatest!

We plan to spend a few days riding in Colorado and a few days riding Utah with friends. I've been out west a few times but never to ride. I'm toying with the idea of buying a new GoPro HD for the trip but I can't decide if I want to spend the time and effort shooting video, editing and thinking about what would look cool rather than focusing on the "ride" itself. It's always cool to go back later, watch the footage and share it with friends but damn if it doesn't require alot of my free time. I'm struggling lately just to sit down and write something for this blog.

I don't think this year will be a year of weight loss goals or anything like that. My goal for 2012 will be to participate more in trail workdays with my local mountain bike club. That in itself should be a good fat burner. I'm not sure I'm going to set a specific number of days I want to attend, just that I plan to make an effort to attend more of them and hopefully encourage others to attend. I see alot of take and no give in our cycling community, it would be really cool to see some of that change.

Maybe I should set a goal for 2012 to be more bloggy bloggy? Hey yeah that sounds good. I did just download an app for my smarter than me phone so I can blog on the go. Hmm.....

Twofish

Now that night riding season has finally descended on us, well for those of you who work regular work hours that is. I typically don't do much night riding since my schedule allows for riding during the daylight hours but I still enjoy a good night ride here and there. My last night ride was back in Sept. during our local club camping trip to Wilkesboro. We snuck in a late ride on Friday evening and I decided to try out one of my new CREE LED flashlights strapped to my helmet. I wanted to see if I could ride with it alone and nothing else. I had loaned out the rest of my riding lights anyway. The LED flashlights aren't quite as bright as say the Magicshines but at $9 a piece I couldn't resist picking up a couple just for kicks.

My test ride with them was on the famous Warrior Creek trails and with all the twists, turns and berms I knew it was best to be mounted to my helmet. The little flashlight worked great, not necessary the brightest but certainly bright enough. I wouldn't hesitate to race with it but my Magicshine would be my preferred light. The thing about my LED flashlight I like is it's small size and the internal battery. No cords to route or batteries to stash the only drawback was the lack of mounting hardware. I opted for the zip tie route which worked but I went a bit too low and found myself having to ride with my head at a bit of an awkward angle to see further down the trail, once in place I couldn't adjust.

Recently I was looking around for a suitable mount that might work for my flashlight and ran across this site, Twofish. At $6 a piece I ordered a lockblock and a bicycle block hoping one of the two might serve my purpose.

Small, lightweight, cheap and simple in design. They're small rubber blocks with a durable velcro that will allow me to attach them just about anywhere. The feet are somewhat flexible and they both seem to hold strong to a helmet and or handle bar.

The Lockblock

The Bikeblock

I've yet to try them out on the trail but plan to do so soon.