another epic

Ryan Fowler: if you're about to read this, the day sucked. nothing fun at all happened. the ride was so bad i'm thinking of selling all my bikes. you really shouldn't read this. i know you had other obligations and couldn't make the ride. sorry you missed it... but you didn't really miss anything... honest.

Everyone else: read on.

the skinny: rose to marlette. chimney beach dh. hwy28 to spooner summit to kingsbury grade. fox and hound for cheeseburgers. heavenly to armstrong pass to corral trail. misc. roads to meyers.

the stats: 107km/66.48 miles 10,000ish ft of climbing w/ 12,000ish ft of descending.


the good: rain showered/tacky/oh-so-good trail from rose to chimney beach dh. trafficless ride on hwy 28 due to bursted water pipe. cheeseburgers for lunch. epic views at 10,000ft by Freel Peak. 12ish miles of descending from armstrong pass finishing juuuuuuusssst before dark. (no, actually it was dark)


the bad: mike t's broken frame. super slumming climb to armstrong after cheeseburgers. lack of time/energy/motivation to swim in star lake. waayyy too much driving after the ride.


It started like most rides in Tahoe.... an hour late. Nonetheless, the trail was ALL TIME from a nice rain shower the night before. I'm sure Conrad was regretting his choice of rides as we saw him climbing up Rose on his road bike on the wet pave'. At about 6 miles in, we stop to re-group. Sam arrives with news of a broken frame and we backtrack 2 miles to assess the damage.

Yep, that's broken...

.....that side as well. Nice job mate.

We hand the keys off to Mike and he starts the inevitable hike back to the car as we continue on as a group of 6. Our next stop would be flat #1. You don't need mechanicals to qualify the ride as an "epic" but it doesn't hurt. Continue to Tunnel Crk, Marlette Peak and hwy 28 without incident. We were pleased to find that a water pipe break had shut down the road almost the entire way to our next trail head. I had a buddy (Larry the Legend) get hit by a car while riding his road bike on this section of road about 7 years ago. I saw the whole thing go down from about 150 meters back.... and it wasn't pretty. I'm amazed what the human body will endure. Anyhoo... it was comforting to know that we had the road all to ourselves this day and to celebrate I planted my front wheel right between the yellow lines, put things into auto-pilot and stared at Tahoe Lake while climbing towards hwy 50.

Next comes Spooner to Kingsbury. This trail can be a real bastard.... or the best thing ever. The first climb can and will bite you if under prepared. Like a month ago when we did it as an out and back. Nothing like a 6 mile climb with 2,400ft of elevation gain to start things off. No warm up. No gears. No chance. But, today things are good. Today the cards are in my favor. I know how the trail unfolds and choose to start the climb in the back of the pack. At 3/4 of the way to the top I catch Sako and Matty who were dictating the pace. "Nice catch" Matty mumbles as we soldier on. I'm too tired to comment and we leave it at that silent, slummin' pace as we hit the top of what would be the second hardest climb of the day. One by one our group summits the climb and after taking a nice break it's time to descend the 6 miles of epic single track to Kingsbury Grade. The trail points mostly downhill with tecky bits thrown in to keep it interesting. We encounter our second flat and loose another rider from our crew on this section due to time constraint. The single track finally terminates and after a short road ride it's time for re-fuel.

FFWD 45 minutes. The Fox and Hound has treated us well. Five riders sit around a table cluttered with empty plates of food and crinkled napkins. We decide to get back on the bikes before the "food coma" settles in and start the next part of our journey which will find us on the hardest climb of the day. It's 10.5 miles w/ 2,500ft of soft sandy climbing to the base of Freel Peak.... and it's no picnic. Although my saddle usually looks comfortable, my backside feels like I've been sitting on a cheese grater for the past 7 hours. I ride off the deck of the Fox and Hound slow... reeeeaaaal slow. I know that the next 2ish hours will be spent climbing and that the first 15 minutes is the hardest. Get the legs turning. Start that rythmic breathing. Try everything to get comfortable on the saddle (to no avail). Get the mind into the task at hand.

The next hour is hard. It's loose, sandy, rocky... usually everything I look forward to... but not today. Eventually, things mellow out and the trails gives in a bit.

The views from near 10,000ft are incredible.

Nate @ Star Lake. I really don't think this guy EVER gets tired.

Sako with his game face on... or maybe he's farting?

After more time than I care to remember, we reach the base of Freel Peak. You can go up from here, but not us. We're turning right. Right+North= Downhills Car & Beer. The next 12 or so miles is blazing fast. The trail starts straight and scary eventually ducking into deeper woods where the pace slows... but not too much. Then to Corall trail. Can you say burmed turns? I knew you could. Still fast, but not the warp speeds from a few miles back.... and good thing too as it's starting to get dark. This section makes you earn it as you twist and turn down the side of the mountain. There's log rides and a few doubles to keep things interesting along the way. It's amazing how sore body parts seem to disappear and you forget about the past two + hours of climbing after a few miles of killer trail. You hope that the sun takes its time setting and that the trail goes on like this forever but then it happens. First a flicker of light from the back porch of someones house. Then the beam from a cars headlights on the road just up ahead. The trail spills onto the road and it's over. As you spin the last mile or so back to the car, nobodys' talking about "the next epic" but I'll bet everybody's thinking about it. I know I was.

More pics here.

Tahoma Cruiser Rally

"You'll know when you're there" Shana tells me on the phone as I'm asking directions while on my way towards Tahoma. As I head out towards the lake with my Dad and Girlfriend, folks are out in their boats, family's are riding in masses down the bike path and there's the seemingly endless string of rafts heading down the Truckee River.... a typical day in Tahoe.

We ride through Tahoma and head for 6th street where I was told the action was. As we round a corner, I see at least 100 people, just as many bikes and lots of kids and dogs just up the street. Yes indeed, we've arrived. As I park my bike, I'm told I'm "on course". A quick survey of the street reveals chalk lines, a few cones and a make-shift ramp set up in front of someones driveway. I'm pointed towards a fully stocked cooler in the garage as crackled voice comes from a bull horn advising to "clear the course people!!" and continues on with the names of the next rider/passenger in the parent/child obstacle course. This 40ish second course starts riders in a driveway, navigates a slalom of cones, goes through a looped driveway, out onto the street, over the jump, through another looped driveway culminating in a sprint to the finish line... all while pulling your (or at least someones) kid in a trailer. Good times! Now, anyone that's been to Tahoe knows that the people that live here are typically athletic, competitive and not afraid to "push it" a little bit. This would be evident in "heat two" as a trailer with not one, but two passengers highsides in the right hand sweeper coming out of the first driveway. Good thing for helmets.

After the obstacle course, the crackled voice from the bull horn instructs people to head down the street a few blocks to the next set of events. Here, there's a kids event navigating some of the street and a dirt course that goes through a set of lawn sprinklers. For the "big kids" there's a circle outlined with chalk where two riders enter simultaneously. There are two rules to this event. You need to stay within the circle and you can't put a foot down. The last rider still on his bike within the circle stays in the circle and the next rider comes out to try and "de-throne" the previous victor. Needless to say, anything goes as riders use everything from grabbing the other rider to aggressive full on ramming speed tactics.

A little later, we move on again. This time to the relay race, slow race (where the author was quite successful) and skidding contest. Again the crackled voice from the bull horn "The band comes on at 6:00 and the DJ at 8:30.... pace yourselves people!!" I think about this as I've already had more than a couple of "cocktails" and choose the cooler that was labeled "for kids" as apposed the the one that said "NOT for kids" by the dispenser button.

This would go on throughout the day and be quite the good time. With the Tour De Fat not coming to Tahoe this year, we definately have some other options... some might say even better. Check out some pics from the days events here.

the van.... again

Well, it's back to more fun with van conversions. It starts with an idea. You move some stuff out of the way and begin the process of throwing in some miscellaneous tools, doing some measurements and thinking about how you want/need things to work.

This time she's gettin' a wall with access door between the cargo area and drivers compartment. To start, we'll build a framed wall out of punched angle steel right behind the seats. The wall is similar to something you probably have in your house complete w/ a bottom plate, studs and top plate.... kinda.

Layout marks for anchoring the bottom plate.

My dad takes over in an attempt at, what I started to call, "the bastard screw". No, my dad's not wearing a headband. That's a headlight. You really want to have a headlight when your doing van conversions at night. After anchoring the top and bottom plates we frame in the door and call it quits for the day/night.

The next day, my help heads to the coast as I soldier on. I really believe in positive thinking but as much as I tried, when I opened the doors in the morning the wall didn't automatically build itself overnight. Moving on, it's a new day. I'm well hydrated with coffee, well rested and best of all.... I have daylight!

After getting all the studs in the wall, I built another shelving unit, re-routed the compressor line and anchored an existing set of shelves in place where the compressor previously lived.

I'll give it a "test drive" for a few days before we commit to sheeting the wall with peg board and installing a door. The framework is all bolted together making it easy to tweak things slightly if need be.

good stuff

so, i get an email w/ "bike shop" as the title from my old pal "big air" w/ a link to craigslist.
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/sea/1192150038.html
no wonder my customers think i'm so nice.

funny shit e-rock. mad props.

OUR RIDE

When you make plans for a road trip with anyone more than yourself, there's always the question of "who's car will we take?" I'm never afraid to take my truck... although most other people are. When we travel beyond the distance of being able to get a bike out and simply ride back home if there's a breakdown, most of my friends start to question the ability of my 15 year old Nissan with its clapped out, under powered 4 cylinder engine. I've got faith, but as we're crawling up and over Donner Summit in 3rd gear in the truck lane generally being in the way, folks start to question my trucks' ability to handle the task at hand. I'll admit, heading across Hwy 50 through Nevada and Utah as we make our way to Durango Co with literally no towns or services for huge stretches of the trip does make me think a little bit about reaching our destination at least somewhat on time.



Enter the Toyota Warrior. I don't know what year this thing is, but it's ours for the trip out to Durango for Single Speed Worlds in Sept. Although it's probably slower than my truck, it sure will be more comfortable once we arrive at our destination. It's got all the amenities a bike racer needs. A place to sleep, shower, cook food... what else could you ask for! Daron borrowed it for the 4th of July weekend to "feel things out". So far so good. He brought it over so I could check it out and it's rad, really rad. Nice, but not too nice. Just what we need for 10 days of road trppin'. It's a comforting feeling knowing that if we get lost or need guidance, we've got Homer Simpson in his tighty whities on the antenna ready to steer us in the right direction. I can't friggin' wait. See you in Durango.

lost.... again

What is it about me and directions on a ride? It seems like I can get lost pretty much anywhere. Sometimes even the most obvious of turns escapes me, like yesterday at the first Chickadee. The route (if you don't know the area or don't care about the route, skip to the next paragraph to avoid the boredom of description): Sawtooth trails to Shaffer Creek into Northstar to 06rd to Fiberboard to Rim. Rim to Missing link to Western States to bike path to Alpine Meadows rd. Climb Alpine to Snow Crest up and over to Rim Trail into Tahoe City for re-fuel. Fairway Dr to Bunker (this is where it all went wrong) to gas line to Rim Trail (by missing link) back to 06 to Watson Tr, then back to Truckee via Happy Face and various Sawtooth trails. All told the route was supposed to be about 50 miles. Start time: 8:20AM.

So, I get into Tahoe City for the re-supply trying to figure out why I can't catch Conrad and his team-mate. As it would turn out, the reason I wasn't catching them would be that they were behind me. A quick check of time/11:00. Fill two bottles and I'm back on the bike. I remember my phone ringing a few times on the way into TC so I decided to take the next few minutes to check my voicemail while "idling" up the road. Soooo, I guess while on the phone, I unknowingly missed the left onto Bunker Dr. Oh, don't get me wrong, I made a left. I don't know what street it was on, but I went left and started to climb. After a mile or so, I saw some water tanks and realized that I took a wrong turn. The road terminated into a soul robbing dead end so I turned around and went back to a trail I thought might get me back over to Bunker. Hike-a-bike. Damn. I turn around again, backtrack and try yet another trail. After traversing a ridiculously technical trail I come to a fire road.... off course, but not lost. Getting lost and aimlessly riding around trails I'd never been on took its toll. I contemplate the idea of dropping back into Tahoe City to Daron's house to eat all of his food and watch some TV in an attempt to recover. Never the less, I continue. The fireroad climb was in the sun. It's hot. I'm slummin'.... big time. I get back on course, but the damage is done. I'm tired and my legs don't have the "snap" they did before missing the turn. I realize that I've got quite a ways to go to get back to Truckee. My agenda turns from "steady gunnin" to "slow & slummin" as I make my way back towards Truckee. I skipped some of the course and added a trail or two that wasn't on the "agenda" for an epic day of riding.... right from the house. The downhill on B.W. trail sure did get my head into the game of riding again to finish the day off strong.... or at least just above "slummin" pace. All in all, a pretty fun day.

The Nevada City Classic

The Nevada City Classic happens every fathers day for the past 49 years. Race report here. It's one of the oldest and hardest pro/am cycling events in North America. It's also one of the more epic road rides I'll find myself doing all summer... I think.

The ride starts off early in the morning in Truckee and heads North on hwy 89 into Sierraville. From there it's onto hwy 49 as you pedal up and over Yuba pass topping out at 6,700ft. I'm not sure of the exact stats, but it's safe to say that the road points predominately downhill for the next 15 or so miles as you loose more the 3,000ft of elevation as you head towards Downieville. With the topography of the land and 6 good riding partners, that section goes by really quick. We always stop in Downieville for a bite to eat and give the cigarette smoking downhillers something to gawk at. If they only knew that most of the lycra clad guys their making fun of will probably be yelling "on your left" as they zing by at the race coming up in a few weeks. Fortunately, you get some more gentle descending out of Downieville as you try and digest your brunch. Soak up the benefits of gravity now, because in a few more miles, it's going to be working against you. There are three climbs on hwy 49 between Downieville and Nevada City standing between you and the awaiting BBQ.

Thanx to Lucy and her dad for rounding up the burgers and sausages for the apres' ride. Also thanx to another good riding crew this year. See you in 364 days to do it all over again.

Some pics from the days ride here.