mediocre mountain biker

Mediocre!!

2010-07-21T21:44:00.004+02:00

If anybody is still out there, haven't blogged in a while...have been riding, but...have a new blog of sorts.

Check out the Bronto Blog, this is Todd's and my project:
http://brontobikes.com/blog/blog.php/

Follow more mediocre adventures there!

Dragons, the movie

2010-05-28T13:13:00.003+02:00

A little video tribute to Welsh riding and the late, great Ronnie James Dio.

Dragons

2010-05-28T12:39:00.006+02:00

It's no coincidence that Wales has a dragon on its flag, and just recently the mighty Ronnie James Dio, legendary singer of dragons and demons, passed away. Well...maybe there is no connection, but anyway myself and the Tachelet Brothers headed up to Wales after RJD's recent passing for some trail riding.

Su-per trails! Maybe the best I've done in Europe. Big mountain riding as it should be. Heaps of climbing followed by seemingly endless singletrack descents. Our first day was to Afan, the most famous of the Welsh riding centers. Multiple marked trails according to different skill levels gave us some choices. We went right for the meat - the W2, a 44km slog fest made up of 80%+ of single track. Heaven! Long descents, technical singletrack climbs, big views, and perfect weather. Awesome day.

After a culturally diverse night (mingling among the Welsh knuckleheads and their terrible tattoos), we went out for another big ride. This time in a smaller trail center, Brechfa. Super nice guy at the Drop-Off Cafe gave us some tips and we headed out for another 40km ride. This time, instead of going up and then down, we went up, down, up, down, and so on. Lots and lots of climbing. But that gave heaps of scrumptious trails, and more diverse terrain than at Afan. It took us about an hour longer to complete this loop than at Afan, and we were pretty destroyed at the end, but it was worth it.

Finally, back (for me) to Cwmcarn for 1.5 hours of 100% singletrack goodness. We got up early as we had a ferry to catch, and were clipping in just after 7am. Peter had hurt his back the day before, so it was just Stijn and me pedaling up the very technical climb. What a fantastic ride! To get so much exercise and thrills in just an hour and a half. Hour and half on the road bike and I'm falling asleep. Mountain biking rules!!

So there you have it. 3 days of some of the best riding I've done. Trails like big west-coast USA trails. Top that off with English beer and Indian food, and you have a pretty ok trip. Except...for the English breakfasts. But you can't have everything, right?

Dio, RIP

UK, here we come!

All those squiggly lines? Trails!

The big blue van saw us through the trip.

Motley crew

One of the rare moments not on singletrack

Some "north shore" features. Clearly I was riding so fast I came out blurry...

The next day at Brechfa. First big climb, Peter breaks a chain

Flowers are pretty

Here we go...

Trails, trails, trails

Stijn getting his groove on

Well-deserved beers at the end.

Ridgecrest, CA

2010-05-15T22:25:00.006+02:00

Ah, the desert. Something magical about it. It attracts artists, loners, writers, and lots and lots of military base families. Ridgecrest (RC), California, is no different. I was here on a weekend with Ivan and Jenise, to check out the legendary RC. We had all heard the stories...ah, the stories. I had to find out for myself.

I imagine if you had to grow up there...you might hate it. As my colleague Craig kind of did. He got out as soon as he could and moved to the beach in San Diego. He also advised me not to ride trails above the college.

"Hey Ivan, where we riding?" "Above the college!" Well, we were trying to bust out a morning ride. No time to drive to something epic. And this was the local network of trails, people have been biking, hiking, 4xing, trucking, and squatting here for as long as Ridgecrest has been in existence. I love riding local loops.

Desert riding usually means getting up at the crack of dawn, or slightly beforehand. In September, it can still get above 30 degrees in the daytime. Hot. We met up with one of Ivan's old riding buddies and set out on the climb, stopping shortly thereafter for Ivan's ritual mid-climb stretch.

We climbed and climbed, getting a pretty good view of the valley. After some steep double track rollers, we went onto some new singletrack that was oh so tasty. It was not super long, but long enough for a local loop. Technical, tight, rocky, rocks to play on - everything you want out of desert singletrack.

Afterwards we had a huge american pancake breakfast. Good day.

Admittedly, I look like shit at 7:30am on the trail

Old mines around here. Pick your line carefully.

Some local hessians had built some hugemongous stunts.

Ridgecrest lies down below

The lummen loop is back!

2010-05-05T16:16:00.002+02:00

A fine and sunny april has erased all the mud and the Belgian trails are in fine form.
I dusted off the Spot, everything seemed to be in working order, and headed out for a morning loop with Jeff. Super fun. So nice riding without mud...

Guest rider Jeff with his beautiful ti IF single speed

The next day I went out again, but found a flat tire waiting for me on the Spot. Luckily, the Spooky cross bike was waiting in the wings. Riding cross bikes on single track usually sucks, but this is Belgium so it wasn't too bad. In fact, the Spooky was pretty quick on a lot of sections - very light weight and with skinny tires, I had no problem pushing a 39x17 around for the most part.

There's still more destruction creeping into the loop, seems every few couple months a huge truck or tractor drives in and tears a bunch of trees down. But, some previously blocked trails were clear and all in all I can't complain.

Houffalize WC

2010-05-03T14:42:00.003+02:00

Anybody who knows their stuff in mountain biking knows that the Houffalize world cup is the most venerated and possibly oldest stop on the UCI world cup circuit. If you're an American and you come to Houffalize for the first time, walking down the road into the little stadium-like town, with 20,000 people drinking beer and cheering on mountain bikers, it's like you just walked into heaven. Despite what I like to call the worst XC course in history, the racing is always exciting, with many vantage points.

One thing I never understood about Belgium, however, was why they run their trails straight up and down the mountains. It's great for cobbled roads like the Koppenberg, but I've been on so many rides in beautiful forested areas, where I just have to scratch my head and ask, "did they intend to make the most boring trail on earth?"

But enough complaining. The race was fun, the Lachouffe beer was good, some girl won on a COLNAGO and some guy won on a Merida. This is a long, long ways away from Oakridge, Oregon!

Always good crowds at this event

American on a 29er lost to a Colnago. How poetic

German doper almost took the spoils...but faded on the last lap

Best line was on the inside of this straight-down-the-hill-boring-descent

Riding with really really fast people

2010-04-22T12:15:00.004+02:00

After a brutally hard 150+km at the amstel gold on saturday, on a "road bike", I thought it would be a nice morning to go ride the local toertocht in Rillaar. It was close to Aarchot/Langdorp, and was heavily promoted, so the chance that there would be some ok riding was pretty high. And if that wasn't enough, trails were dry as a bone, the weather was pretty damn awesome, and I hadn't ridden on Belgian dirt for months. So I decided to take the Spooky cross bike out on its maiden dirt voyage.

However, when I showed up I saw Kim Saenen (top Belgian racer lady) and a bunch of other people with former national champion stripes on their sleeves. "Oh, really really fast people", I thought, "this might be fun." Famous last words.

Let us fast forward to the first food stop where, having lost a lung and a spleen along the trail somewhere, I decided that 72km of super-duper race pace was not for me, and took a shorter loop home. Yes, it was sprint-from-every-corner, sprint up the hills...bleed from your eyeballs kind of riding. Or it was for me, at least. Most of the people in our group were riding with one hand on the bar, talking to each other, and sipping a cappucino as they dragged me all over the Rillaar area.

Do not let this distract from the pretty awesome (for Belgium) trail riding! Sandwiched between Aarschot and Scherpenheuvel, this tocht had the potential to be either really awesome, or really terrible. Luckily, it was really awesome. Lots and lots of fun little singletrack bits. Better even than, dare I say, the Langdorp toertoch. Technical, fast, tricky, fun.

Anyway. The bike was awesome and it was good to get back on the dirt. Going to need to get me a geared mtb here pretty soon...

Is Wales a country??

2010-04-15T17:04:00.005+02:00

When twenty-ten rolled around, I made a pledge to ride in 3 new countries this year. I'm not one for resolutions and all that, but I definitely want to ride more, and in new places. Meanwhile, I've been aching to ride in wales for years now, from before GG and I had our Scottish adventure. But you can already see the dilemma...does Wales count as a country?

Let's see. They have their own incomprehensible language (with far too many consonants, in my opinion). They have their own national sports teams in international competition. Flag? Check. National identity? Check. Is that close enough? Perhaps I should hold my decision until the end of the year.

This was waiting for me in Wales...

So finally the day had come. I had a free day and was in London. That meant I was going to Wales! About 2 hours from the sister's house in west London, I planned to make a day trip out of it. Wales, like Scotland, has a number of purpose-built riding centers just for mountain bikes!!! Pure genius. The original plan was to hit Afan, a center (or should I say, centre) just outside of Cardiff. An uber-epic 46km loop of single track was waiting for me. Unfortunately, those plans were derailed when the most absurd showing of traffic control ever played itself out, right in front of me. ONE TRUCK turns over. ONE TRUCK. The result? Full stop on the freeway, for all traffic. For two hours.

Now I'm sure there are those among you who are saying, just as I did, two hours? With the engine off? For one overturned truck? Didn't the British build one of the largest empires of all time, stretching to all corners of the globe? Didn't they invent a bunch of stuff like subways and little tea sandwiches? Haven't they produced the two biggest rock bands of all time? The answer to all these questions is yes. But somehow, the 21st century skill of traffic routing has evaded this quaint little island. It defies logic, is all that I can say, having experienced it first hand.

This was my view for 2 hours...

End result - new plans. 3 hours later, I passed the singly overturned truck, and headed to a closer riding center - CWMCARN. Now, I have no idea how to pronounce that, but that's not important. What's important was that it was TOTALLY AWESOME. I can say with confidence that it's the most fun I've had on a mountain bike since August, when I was in Oakridge with the boys. 15.5km of delicious singlerack. So so tasty.

It started with a nice opening gambit, a steep little stair-case track strewn with rocks. After some rolls, it settled into a fantastic and extremely technical singltrack climb right alongside a bubbling brook. Green moss and everything. I had just ridden a road bike for multiple hours the day before, but the goesting was high, weather was perfect, and I was so excited to be on fun trails.

At the top there was a pretty ok view, followed by a peeing-in-pants-inducing descent. Fast, fast, fast, bermed to the brim, and fun. Some choppy stuff as well - part of the fun in riding here was the different terrain, dominated by flat rocks in every shape and size. After some more climbing, more descending, hill traversing, more descending, and more climbing, the final descent brought me back to the parking lot. It was brilliant - a roller coaster line of very tacky soil and seemingly endless berms. Like Whistler for 5-inch bikes.

So yes. Wales basically rocks. English traffic people do not. But I will be back in Wales...there are heaps of trails waiting to be devoured.

The riding "centre" had a pretty nice little cafe and info area

I was rocking the Ibis. Perfect bike. That 160 fork in front was perfect going down.

Huh?

Trail info was comprehensive...

Which way?

Cute little welsh boars guided you along the way

If this doesn't make you horny for your mountain bike, you're hopeless

My silhouette in front of some welsh hills

More from Seattle - Black Diamond

2010-04-15T09:12:00.003+02:00

It's shocking sometimes, when you log into your blog, to see when the last post was. March 26. It's been my intention to update twice a week, how did 3 weeks fly by? I hope I've been doing something constructive in that period...

Well, to be honest, there hasn't been a lot of mtbing going on. I've lost the goesting for the lumma loop. I need to go out and build some new features, because as is...it's a bit of a snooze fest. That said, I did do one other ride in Seattle (and rode in Wales this week, that's coming later).

So back when I was a kid...walking to school in the snow every day and all that...the majority of our mountain biking was done out at Victor Falls. Ah, Victor Falls, what sweet memories. Well south of Seattle, up on the ridge above Sumner and Orting, there was a huge forested region that really wasn't ok for bikes, but wasn't prohibited either. A seemingly endless network of criss-crossing trails, we could spend all day out there. Well, Victor Falls is mostly houses now, but the new place is just down the road from mom's house, in Black Diamond.

Yes, Black Diamond. Real America. But the riding is pretty damn good! A vast network of tasty singletrack has sprung up since I last lived in the US. I met Eric and Todd Graham out there (the day before I broke a rib in a stupid road race). Typical Eric was in race mode...but that was fine, it was good to giver' a little bit and burn the legs. And although I didn't know it, this was to be the last ride on the Belgian 29er...I'll miss you B29. We shared a lot together.

Friends. Superbe single track. Fantastic weather. What more do you want?

Eric was in "go" mode all day.

Todd had just finished a time trial on the road bike.

The last photo of the Belgian 29er shredding!!

ZOLDER

2010-03-26T13:57:00.002+01:00

When Alex asked if I wanted to do the Zolder toertocht, I thought, why the hell not? I had imposed a mtb moratorium on myself until the trails dried up...one can wash a bike only so many times in one's lifetime. But, ever since I moved to this crazy little country, everybody was talking about Zolder this, and Zolder that. "Did you know Roel Paulissen trains in Zolder?" So how bad could it be, right?

Sad to say, it was MISERABLE. Ok, riding in the dirt with a friend is always ok. But the course. Oef, the course. The picture above is really the highlight of the day. A short little climb where we tested ourselves to see if we could climb it without getting off. We made it.

The rest of the course was like this. Cold. Dirt roads. Muddy. I'm falling asleep just writing about it. To give the organizers some credit, apparently it's a new group putting this on, and there was some reason why they couldn't use a bunch of the normal trails. But still.

Fortunately, the bicycle dinosaur museum was especially powerful today. Look at this! I don't even know what it is, except it's probably almost as old as me. Full carbon fiber with an elevated chainstay. Magura HS-33! And what is with the strange, sea-foam green bar-ends pointing up to the sky, as if to receive special instructions from the mothership?

Here was another beauty. And I'm not laughing at these riders. I think it's cool that they are still shredding belgian singletrack on them. But you must admit...this one is also a little peculiar. The frame, combined with the wheels. V-brakes on a carbon Specialized-branded Rockshox. This was the sexiest bike in Belgium in 1994.

Anyway. Highlights were few and far between this day. But that's all right. Bike wash. Beer. Home to watch a cyclocross race. It was all good.

Tokul, WA

2010-03-16T16:12:00.003+01:00

It used to be that if you lived in the Seattle area, there were really only 2 or 3 areas to ride: Tiger Mountain, Tapeworm, and maybe St. Edwards park. But over the last 5 years or so, a ton of fantastically excellent riding places have popped up. Grand Ridge, Preston, and a totally new one to me, Tokul. Despite a late night of xbox and whiskey until 4am, I managed to drag myself up to Tokul where Eric, Garret, Chip, and Matt were waiting to ride.

It had been a tough week. 5 continuous days of endless driving, big meals, and little sleep. The crash in the last week's road race gave me a dislocated rib. So I was totally pathetic going both up and down. But whatever. These were totally wicked trails.

Wallace brought me a Turner Flux to ride. Although I disapproved of the tires, the bike was solid. And the trails? Did I talk about the trails? Fantasstic.

For those about to rock...

2010-03-03T21:38:00.002+01:00

Of course, it had to be AC DC

You Yangs

2010-03-03T15:19:00.003+01:00

Ah, Australia. Our last mtb ride took us to You Yangs, arguably the main mtb spot on the general Melbourne area. I had ridden here before with Mark but there had been some improvements to the trails and some new additions. The You Yangs now was a dedicated mountain bike area. Pretty cool!

The two manly men set out on their ride. You Yangs is kind of a lumpy little hill in the middle of a giant, dry plain. It's not all that big but they aussies have managed to cut some fun little trails.

Trails were impeccably marked for idiots like me and also graded on level of difficulty, so you could push yourself to the brink of injury. The Boulder track was a good one. Short and sweet, but lots of slick rock and testy little sections.

And wildlife. Australian wildlife! If you squint really hard you can see in the center a wallaby, which I found out is just a small kangaroo.

This is also really the only place you could ride a big dual-squishy, and they had a handful of dedicated DH trails with some north shore features. We ended up doing a big figure 8 loop that took in plenty of climbing, some little jumps, lots of flowy singletrack, and some technical delicacies.

...as evidenced here by yours truly SHREDDING that rock face. Practically turned it into molten lava...

Not sure if you can tell from this photo, but it was HOT there. We were pooped at the end.

Luckily the pilot had pre-empted our tired thirst by bringing cold aussie beverages. Good day all around!

Walhalla, Australia - a ride and 2 barbies

2010-02-22T18:56:00.004+01:00

Of course, that's barby like "put another shrimp on the barby, mate!", aussie for bbq. You can imagine my shock when I found out that aussies don't even use the word shrimp. They would say, "put another prawn on the barby, mate!". Whatever. We had a barby dinner and a barby breakfast up in the beautiful hills of Victoria. Walhalla is an old mining town with huge, beautiful eucalyptus trees. Think Downieville with lots of humidity. The scenery was stunning.

Mark woke me up in the middle of the night - 7am - to go ride the old railroad grade that was now a hiking trail. Apparently this was the end point for a hugemongous hiking trail that stretched all the way to the Aussie capital of Canberra. We clipped in from the cottage and grunted up the paved road that took us to the trail head.

The trail started at an old gold mine

It was very cool traversing across the hillside. Every now and then a view of town would come out. Once again, the fantastic scent of the trees was quite...dare I say magical? That and the pristine morning air, before the heat and humidity set in...there's something about riding early in the morning...I always hate getting up but once I'm out on the bike it's fantastic. And every time it's deja vu.

The trail wasn't so crazy, but that's probably good since we were both half asleep. Eventually we had to bomb down a crazily steep fire road to the Thomson river. From there we continued on another rail grade, slightly more difficult. At the end, we pedaled back on the road and had our aussie barby breakfast - eggs and meat.

I look surprising good so early in the morning...

Mark shreds

Aussie beauty, mate

G'day Mate!

2010-02-21T13:47:00.003+01:00

On a recent trip down under, I had the good fortune to stay with the Hewitts, who did me up right - bikes and a bed and some good home cooking. Having bikes meant we would get in some rides, and our first ride was to be at Lysterfield, just east of Melbourne, where the Commonwealth Game mtb race was held. This was a new purpose-built mtb area (I love those), with maintained trails, a pretty cool shop, and some fun riding.

My steed for the week - a Norco Fusion. Something like 130mm of travel front and rear, it would roll over any kangaroos who ventured in my path. Our ride for the day was with Rob Eva - Crocodile Rob - of SRAM Australia. Lucky bastard could ride here from his house.

We did see kangaroos on the trail, but more importantly, it was fun, sandy singletrack and lots of it. Being in a eucalyptus forest, the scents as you rode were unbelievable. Like riding through an herbal mist. February being the end of the Aussie summer, Rob was fit as fit and basically tore our legs off. But it was still pretty fun.

After we left Rob, we went for a picnic on the lake. Good family times.

The rain in Spain falls mainly in Belgium

2010-02-03T08:15:00.003+01:00

No riding = no blogging, and since the rains melted the snow and thawed the ground, the mud has taken on epic proportions, a life of its own. At any moment I feel it could ooze out of the fields and forests and completely cover Belgium.

So, I take this opportunity to update some old posts that I missed. Like making a proper introduction with my main bike here, a Spot Single Speed. Not a new Spot out of Boulder with belt drive, this is an original Michael Golinski Spot from Vancouver. MG was one of the first to get out there with steel single speeds, and has himself raced in multiple SSWCs. He was also an early proponent of sliding disc mount on the rear. Smart.

I absolutely love this bike. So much fun to ride. It's a tad small and could probably use a complete re-build, but it's hard as a rock and has served me well. Probably better than i deserve.

The Spot chainguard - I am currently running a 32x16, good gear for flat flat belgium. My trails have some small, tiny little climbs, so this works just fine. I had a 17 on there before and that was good in the mud, or in the winter.

I love bikes in general, but then there are special ones that give you a funny feeling in your tummy. I would take a bullet for my Spot.

Meanwhile, back in Belgium....

2010-01-12T20:39:00.003+01:00

Has been below freezing for a while, and I've been lazy. Finally, enough was enough, I got off my ass and onto the bike. Here is the trailhead near the house:

It was an ok ride, in the snow in the Lummen Loop (aka, the Halen Loop). Traction for the most part was pretty outstanding! I actually ran into 2 cyclocrossers on the trail, it seems I wasn't the only one with cabin fever.

Spain - the motion picture

2010-01-08T16:29:00.002+01:00

A re-cap of the action in video.

Spain - el final

2010-01-07T07:41:00.004+01:00

Last day. We had to check out and point the car north, so we made the rather huge effort to get up at the crack of eight and get in our biking clothes. The restaurant wasn't even open for breakfast until 9 - I love spain. It was cool and crisp but the sky was blue as can be and as we pedaled up the road climb, the splendor of waking up and getting on the bike before noon became increasingly apparent.

Today's trail was absurdly titled "el moabo", because the british authors of the book thought that anywhere with some slickrock bits must be just like moab, utah. Well, it wasn't moab but it was, for me, the best trail of the week. If it had been 3-4 times at long it would be world class. But as it was, dodging in and out of trees, little drops, steep sections, and, yes, nice patches of slick rock...it was dreamy.

I think if you stayed in el chorro for a week and rode this trail a few times, learning all the corners and lines, it would be a whole bowl of fun.

A deceivingly long and steep road climb then took us up to the top of a mountain where, surprise, there was a huge concrete resevoir. Must have been quite a job putting that in.

But the views were stunning, the weather was clear as a bell and it was well worth the climb. On top of all that we got the longest descent of the week, starting out flowy in the trees, but after a few switchbacks turning to steep, loose, and very rocky. Right down the face of the mountain. This is what seat post quick releases were made for. Unfortunately Peter did not have one of these, but he made it down ok. For me, it was nice to get a long, fast descent in before heading back to the flat lands.

Which is what we did next. 24 hours later we were in snowy Belgium. Doh! But the trails of southern spain have only offered a glimpse of their secret treasure. I'm sure I'll be back. Possibly soon if this weather continues.

Spanish trails, part dos

2010-01-05T09:22:00.003+01:00

Day 2 brought showers of rain and cold temperatures, so we fell back on our lazy plan B to do some sight seeing. Nearby Granada proved an easy target so we checked out a lot of old buildings. Afterwards, Peter got a haircut and a shave at a Spanish baber, which was filled with old men singing and drinking brandy. Classic.

Day 3 was really day 2 of riding, we found a loop in the extremely vague guide book that "guaranteed" big views of the sea and lots of singletrack. El Chorro was threatening rain, but by the time we got near Mijas, on a big hill overlooking the sea, the sun was out and it was warming up.

After a coffee, a freshly squeezed orange juice, and some churros, we set out on the climb.

Directions were, to no one's surprise, impossible to follow, but somehow we managed to find the singletrack. The long climb led to a long and nasty singletrack climb, which led, finally, to some tasty spanish trail riding. The trail was mostly angled slightly down but traversed across the mountain, so speeds were high enough and not too technical, just technical enough to make it fun.

This ride was a figure 8 loop, and we connected 3 other bits of singletrack before the end of the day. One of which was a loose, rocky, steep-ish and technical affair. Pure joy. Peter rode tough with his 80mm fork and negative rise stem.

Finishing at the car, we had a fat spanish meal and a san miguel at the same cafe. The sun was shining and it was 18 degrees. Enough said.

Spanish trails, day 1

2010-01-04T12:56:00.004+01:00

Ah, sunny Spain. So warm, so beautiful... Our first day out, according to our trail guide book (written by british people), promised huge climbs, huge views, and huge descents. Perfect. After a leisurely taken breakfast, we set out from El Chorro, pedaling up into the hills and across the Guadalhorce dams. British instructions were extremely vague at best, so we were checking the book just about every 3 or 4 minutes. But eventually we made it on the first big climb of the day, up into the mountains.

Peter's kit matched my bike nicely

The climbs were big and steep. And big. And steep.

But being the manly men that we were/are, we eventually made it over.

Oh, and it was really beautiful.

One of the many stops to check the stupid book...

At the top of the climb I noticed that one of my suspension linkage bolts was gone. Whoops. After some creative problem solving, it looked like I wouldn't have to walk down hill. Thank goodness for that. The descent was long and rocky and fun as hell. Big fork and big tires were hard on the climb but paid off in spades on the descent. The only drama was losing the best bit of singletrack due to poor instructions on our book's part.........

...it made Peter so angry that he had to make this face

More to come!

¡España!

2010-01-03T18:54:00.002+01:00

With nothing but snow and gloom on the belgian forecast, and only similar on the uk forecast, I abandoned the plans to visit the sis in London and drove south to the sun. Tachelet came on board and we headed to the promised land - Andalucia.

It was a bit of a haul to get down there - about 20 hours of driving - but worth it. Short sleeve weather when we arrived, and the place we were staying, www.elchorro.es, was stunning.

El Chorro is a tiny town famous for its rock climbing. The hills promised countless kilometers of technical singletrack above. It was destined to be a fine trip.

The view from the hotel. More mtb stories to come soon.

Another cold Belgian ride

2009-12-24T12:40:00.004+01:00

Aside from a short trip to Asia (where I rocked the road bike), it has been more of the same here in BE. Cold. Muddy. Whatever.

Went with the boys to Zutendall, just nestled on the border next to Maastricht. The ride had a lot of potential - all wooded areas, fairly decent elevation gain/loss. But aside from about 100meters of fun trails, it was a slog.

Still, you can have fun on boring trails when riding with good company. And so it was.
And plenty of heckling to be done.

The group before heading into the abyss...

Alex once again sets the pace

The Douce was back! Out of retirement and putting the hurt on in the early miles

Alex enjoys a good waffle

Ah, the euro mullet...always a classic

Yes, that seafoam green object on your head does look good

Yes, short white socks tucked over your tights does look snazzy

Who needs a camelbak when you can run a fanny pack?

Now while you may laugh at this old bike, it is still pretty cool that someone is rocking trails on it.

Scherpenheuvel

2009-12-13T20:11:00.003+01:00

Hope I spelled that right.
Yep, Alex, Yannick, and myself headed to the environs of Diest to take part in what should have been a decent ride - plenty of hills and wooded areas. Alas, while there were some fun sections, the highlight was really watching Yannick inexplicably cutting the course in the wrong direction.

How many belgians does it take to load a jagermeister machine?

Alex was waiting for us most of the day...

Yannick was excited...not sure why...

Suuuuuuuper windy, and it seemed like half the ride was this insanely muddy, extremely flat road along a river.

So, disappointed, but got to get out and play in the mud, so I guess it was ok.

This bike suddenly appeared out of a time warp

Kickstands are extremely underrated - they can be useful anywhere, any time!

LANGDORP

2009-11-30T15:43:00.004+01:00

For those who have spent any time riding in Flanders, the name Langdorp is usually associated with some of the best mountain biking north of Wallonie. So that means, when it's toertocht time, there are going to be WAY TOO MANY riders on the trails. Such was the case recently when Peter T and I met up in Aarschot for the Langdorp Toertocht.

Peter looking sharp in his new embrocation kit

Its reputation is pretty well deserved; there are plenty of fun pieces of singletrack. And if you didn't know the area, and didn't do an organized ride like this, you'd have a hell of a time figuring out a loop. So we paid our 3.5 euros and clipped in. I was on the singlespeed, fat and out of shape. Peter was on his fancy new niner race bike, pretty much in shape. So there was a disparity there.

But, there were a lot of people. And flemish mountain bikers, especially those who ride in the winter, don't go downhill very well, or very fast. So we weren't able to give'r like we would have normally...give'ner

I've done quite a few tochts now but I'm still constantly amused by what passes for a mountain bike here in Flanders. The Magura HS-33 brake still rules supreme. But whatever. As long as it has two wheels. I've certainly made a fool of myself on the north shore on more than one occasion.

One highlight was my first crash in months. It's almost impossible to crash in northern Belgium. But I was doing something stupid on a steep-ish descent that was all soft sand. Felt good to hit the ground.

Yeah, another good ride. I think we did 40k, and were pretty spent by the end. Fun trails, albeit totally overcrowded. It could be an argument for coming earlier next time? Or just learning the loops on one's own.

A hot room full of sweaty bodies

Filthy Trails

2009-11-28T20:11:00.003+01:00

This is an older one. Back in..September? I was in Belgium for a week and Joop was just across the border, so we met up in Maasmechelen, right across the Maas river from Maastricht, Holland. Filthy trails was one of the premier "free ride" locations in Belgium, supposedly. We decided to go and judge for ourselves.

Completely devoid of mountains, especially where we were in the north of Belgium, trail builders have to be creative. In our region there are several huge mounds that are the remnants of the mining era. Filthy Trails was built on and around a couple of these mounds. We pulled into the parking lot just as a couple were donning armor to go ride the most extreme trails in belgium...

The freeride section is actually just a tiny part of a large wooded area with a handful of cycling and walking routes. All of which are unbelievably boring. The filthy trails themselves are short, and although they feature some good woodwork and fun sections, you could feasibly do 10 runs in about 40 minutes. Whatever. It was challenging and technical and fun. For a few minutes. The rest of the time we wandered around the woods and climbed up to the top of the tallest mound.

Which was actually the highlight of the day. At the top there was a pretty decent view of most of Limburg, the Maas, Maastricht, and the old mines. Burned some calories, finally saw filthy trails, and hung out with Joop. So all in all, a good day.

Belgians in the desert

2009-11-27T10:28:00.006+01:00

After a recent trade show in Las Vegas, I headed out into the desert with a couple of friends to ride some of the best trails this planet has to offer. While Las Vegas may be hell on earth, some of the most unbelievable riding is only hours away. In previous years we had done Moab, Brianhead, Sedona. This year we were returning to Hurricane to do Gooseberry mesa.

The road train out of vegas

A new twist this year - the Belgians were coming. Peter and Gino had spent the week looking at bikes and draining Las Vegas of its alcohol supply. Peter had done some riding on the west coast, Tahoe, Oakridge, etc., but this was his first foray into the sands of Utah. Gino, well...Gino was scared of big tires and full suspension. Coming with us for the first half of this two-day adventure was Semmyo from Japan, my eternal rival and superfit salaryman.

Departing Saturday noon-ish from Vegas, the goal was to hustle straight to the trailhead and ride gooseberry before it got dark. Catch #1 - Semmyo had a brand new bike and it needed hardware to mount the calipers to the frame. Stopping at the bike shop. Catch #2 - the front brake needed to be bled and basically didn't stop. Damn. Whatever, we decided to go for it anyway. Luckily, just as we were finishing, Greg and Wes and the REI junket finished their ride, and Karl was kind enough to loan us his full suspension ride, complete with working brakes. Thanks Karl!

Chaos at the trailhead

And so to the trail we went. For those who haven't ridden gooseberry, it's a big plateau of undulating slickrock. You roll around a physically demanding skate park made completely of stone for about an hour, until you pop out onto the rim of the plateau and are given outstanding views of the valley below. From there, it's tasty singletrack along the edge of the cliff until you come to the point of the plateau, where we arrived right at sundown. Now, let me just say that you could not possibly pick a better time to be on that place. The colors of Zion national park behind, and all the canyons and mesas in between, were simply amazing. Sadly, it soon became dark and we had to eschew the last few miles of singletrack to boogie back on the road. Whatever. It was a fantastic ride.

Gino's belgian energy supply

The fastest japanese salaryman in utah

Gooseberry is a sea of undulating rock - beautiful and challenging

The green machine looks gooooood....

Peter gets his groove on

Gino finally started working the suspension bike

The reward was a stunning sunset at the edge of the plateau

Semmyo left to go find his stranded wife in Vegas and the Belgians and I crashed early. Morning brought a big american breakfast (Gino couldn't believe americans ate waffles for breakfast) and a drive up to the trailhead. Gino, remembering the heat from the evening before, decided to buy a camelback. Peter did not.

Hot Belgians

Sunday's ride was the JEM trail to Hurricane Rim trail loop. Completely different from Gooseberry Mesa, this is a fun loop of dusty, desert singletrack. Swoopy, technical at times, fast at others, this is a great loop to do if you can't explore higher up in the hills. Unfortunately, by 11am, when we were nearing the top of the long singletrack climb, it was hotter than hot.

Desert rules

40 degrees, to be exact. Peter had drank his one small bottle, and the small bottle I brought for him, and was dipping into my and Gino's camelbacks. It was going to be a long day... The JEM trail ended with everybody (we were riding with the entire REI posse) feeling great, turned onto the Hurricane Rim trail and things got grim... Out of water for an hour in the hot hot desert, just about everybody bonked. Gino licked drops of water out of my resevoir and became one with the desert.

But the cars were not far away and we hydrated, jumped in the hotel pool, and headed back to Vegas. From there, the Belgians flew back and I continued on to San Diego.

Landgraaaaaf

2009-11-16T08:14:00.005+01:00

Holland. At first view, you might pass it over. You might say, "the dutch are worthless, and don't know how to make beer". Sure, they clog all the motorways in summer with their camper vans, and sure they talk too loud in public places, usually about how liberal and great Holland is. And yes, they do put peanut butter on their french fries. And ok, so maybe they're even worse than the italians at road signage. But just like anywhere else on earth, they do have some good qualities, some attractive features that compel you to visit every now and then.

A recent weekend was just one of those times. Alex somehow convinced me to go mountain biking with him and Yannick in Landgraaf, Holland. And it was brilliant. Now some of you might say, hey, Landgraaf, that's Limburg, not really Holland. But the Dutch flag flies there and the road signs are confusing, so...it must be Holland.

So those guys dragged me out at the crack of dawn to ride some Dutch singletrack. Landgraaf is waaaay down in the south-easternmost point of Holland. There's a little peninsula of Holland that sticks into Germany like a knife and Landgraaf is the tip of the blade. To rub it in, the dutch built and indoor ski resort there.

Alex does his pre-ride Yoga

When you park at the soccer field/sports centrum in Landgraaf, there's a trailhead with a trail map and 3 loop alternatives. We set out on loop "#2", a 30km jaunt through the woods. Alex had his fitness on as always and man-handled the Blaze up and down with ease. Yannick immediately impressed by executing a steep descent flawlessly, a tasty sample of what was to come. In fact, the trails there in Landgraaf were real, bonafide mountain bike trails. Not straight, flat, wide bridle trails like we get here in Belgium.

Yannick gets his groove on

Alex takes risks when he rides. Sometimes that puts him on the ground

Yannick puts all fingers on the brake levers

Is Alex going fast? Or is the photo just blurry....

DA getting a bit sassy on the single speed

Being in a densely populated country, the trails were broken up by plenty of asphalt sections, but for the most part it was ripping through the woods on fun, and remarkably well-marked, singletrack. Well done, Holland!

Just when you think it's ok in Holland, you see this...

It's been a while...

2009-10-31T09:21:00.002+01:00

The blog has been down. Moving, trade shows, and all that other crap that life throws your way. Luckily, mediocrity is resilient enough to survive a down period every now and then.

So, needless to say, I've done some riding since August. And some good ones, too. Rode in Utah with some Belgians, rode in Belgium, Seattle, and some other places. San Diego is already a distant memory now. So that means I'm back in time for Toertocht season here in Limburg.

There are a few memorable rides to post up, but because I'm lazy I'll post the newest first and go backwards. Or maybe just in the middle and keep going until I'm done. So that puts us at the Tapeworm trails in Seattle. I wrote about these trails over a year ago I guess. This time I was there with the king of Tapeworm, GG, rocking the belgian twenty-niner.

Tapeworm is an hour and a half of intense, technical, eyes glued to the trail, physical intensity. Cut into a small area of woods, the trail keeps wrapping back on itself, sometimes making you dizzy but always making sure you are alert. Some little baby stunts are thrown in to keep you on your toes, and the G rocks a couple of these in the vid.

A little shout out to my Belgian 29er, this bike is insanely good, Tachelet rocked it in the desert, I rode it in California and even at the Tapeworm it rode like a charm. A veritable jack of all trades.

Ok, here's a little video of Tapeworm, more to come.

Oakridge, Oregon

2009-09-15T06:55:00.002+02:00

'nuff said

Old trip to winterberg

2009-08-05T06:45:00.003+02:00

Found this movie from an old trip, seemed post-worth. Especially in times of few mtb rides. Although, I'm back in sunny San Diego and have an after-work ride penned in for Thursday. Andy and I plan to explore some new trails.

In any case, this is from Germany's most boring bike park, with the most annoying staff......still good times had by all.

Back to Lummen

2009-07-26T08:55:00.003+02:00

Back in Lummen for a few days, went out for a ride on the loop with Maarten. Maarten was riding a fancy new XC bike...I was on the Spot.

Tiger Mountain video

2009-07-21T21:49:00.003+02:00

Some video footage from our early morning jaunt.

Tiger Mountain at 6:30am

2009-07-21T21:17:00.003+02:00

Just about 5 hours of sleep after the Rancid concert, GG said the only way he was going to ride was if we got to the trailhead at 6:30. All right.

If you've been to Seattle, you know Tiger mtn, it's probably the most well-known trail in the area and 2 tons of fun. This was a last-minute ride so all clothes and bikes for me, todd, and mike were borrowed and old. Here are my old racing shoes...I used to wear those?? Damn....

But Todd got stuck with the purple polka-dotted mongoose shorts. I win.

Tiger mtn has a 3.something mile fire road climb, hard in the beginning and gradually easier.

But the way down is super fun. Flowy at first, it gets rough and choppy with lots of little baby drops towards the bottom. There' s a fun rolling connector trail back to the parking lot. Waking up was hell, but getting out and riding and being done at 8:30 was pretty awesome.

St. Edwards video

2009-07-19T22:39:00.003+02:00

Here's me and the double G rocking trails in Kirkland....

Manastash Ridge

2009-07-19T17:47:00.005+02:00

Driving back from Yakima to Seattle over Chinook pass gave me an opportunity to ride Manastash Ridge. I had done a xc race there about...18 years ago... But there are a couple big rides you can do, this is the dry side of the Cascade Mountains, so when it's not buried by snow, it's luxurious flowy singletrack, and lots of it.

It is, in fact, a big ridge, 1.5 hours climbing minimum to the top. A big logging road with big trees and big views.

I had last ridden here about 5 years ago, and couldn't quite remember the way to the top of the ridge. So, rather than getting lost, after an hour of climbing I turned down a singletrack I knew would lead me to the camp site.

And it was, of course, absolutely fantastic. You could ride this trail every day and never get tired of it.

Never did quite make it to the top of the ridge...an extra 30-40 minutes of climbing would have given me a sweet open and rocky descent...

But the Ibis and I were content enough.

Big views like this throughout.

Every once and a while was something to keep you on your toes. Here, a steep and rocky trail carved out of the cliff...don't look down!

After about an hour on the trail, it came out to the bottom. This was where the XC race used to finish. Back then there was no bridge, only a creek crossing. In May it was up to your waist. Epic.

Catching up on movies - Grand Ridge

2009-07-18T13:03:00.005+02:00

Have a bunch of video footage that needs editing. For starters here is grand ridge in issaquah...

Yakima, Washington

2009-07-18T12:11:00.003+02:00

Visiting Grandma Alvarez over the 4th of July weekend, a few years back she moved into a new house up on the hill just on the west side of town. For those who don't know, Yakima is smack in the middle of Washington state, just about and hour east of the mountain pass. Well grandma's new house is just about a kilometer or so from a trail center that is supposed to be the best riding in town. After a big grandma lunch, I put the bike together.....slowed down by said heavy lunch, 38 degree weather, and a mariners double header, I didn't finish the bike until about 7:30, giving me just over an hour of daylight left to ride.

And good riding it was. Tight tight singletrack winding through the sub-desert brush. Sections of lava rock to keep me on my toes. The trail would change every few meters to carpet-like trail, to loose and rocky, to volcanic rock garden. My recently assembled Ibis guided me flawlessly. That 160mm Lyrik fork is a bit much for flat or rolling singletrack, though. It really excels in big climbs with big descents, so you can optimize the two-step air 115mm climbing and 160mm settings...

4th of July and a full moon. As I rounded my loop and started back in the direction of the car, the moon was up and starting to provide more light than the sun.

A last view, a nice sunset from the mountains before heading down to the car. Perfect evening.

Rancid Live!

2009-07-17T00:18:00.002+02:00

Ok, not entirely mtb related, but mtb is punk and punk is mtb, and Rancid is the best of the best! Felt a little bit like I was riding whistler for a bit in the pit. Damn good show.

Some terrible pics from my worthless camera phone (should have lugged in the 5D!):

Before work ride - Santee Lakes

2009-07-11T08:17:00.004+02:00

I somehow convinced my colleague Taylor to leave at 6am and do a ride before going to the office - brilliant! It was a chance really to get in a ride in a busy week (as if I was training for an ironman or something), and also to ride some new trails. A double-plus good ride. Santee, affectionately known as Santucky, is right outside San Diego proper and has a pretty huge trail network. We parked at the trail head, got our chamois on, and prepared to ride.

If you meet this man on the street, please give him coffee........

Bone dry trails, that's what we have here basically all year long. This was a flat out-and-back on almost all singletrack. Those hills in the background there would have to wait for another date.

Even with sleepy eyes, this trail rode as good as it looked. Fun, tight desert singletrack.

After about 30 minutes out, we rolled back to the car and off to work. A good start to the day.

Got a new helmet

2009-07-10T06:32:00.002+02:00

Not that I needed one...drove east from Seattle across the mountains, only to realize I had forgotten my helmet at home. Unfortunately it was July 4 and all bike shops were closed. The only thing open was a Walmart, where I picked up this beauty for 16 bucks. You can get a lot for 16 bucks these days. This thing is a lot better than helmets I was using just 6 or 7 years ago. The elastic strap in the back keeps it snug and actually works better than some of those ratchet adjusters. So all in all, a good value.

Did I mention I love my bike?

2009-07-09T09:04:00.003+02:00

Really. I mean it rides like butter, but I can haul it around wherever I go. Brilliant.

Back on-line

2009-07-09T08:55:00.003+02:00

Got lots of rides to update, starting with another day on Ivan's trail, already 2 weeks ago now. Damn.
This time Jenise and Ike joined and rode around on the lower trail with us. Ike is slowly but surely turning into a two-wheeled terror.

It was mid-morning but already warm. Riding up the trail we ran into Michael. He's not doing so well.

We see this a lot on Ivan's trail: joyride.

For a change I was the one riding and not taking the pictures. The plants had lost all their green and were a vibrant golden brown.

And that's me giving the thumbs up after ripping a nice long descent. Got some video to post soon as well..

.

On the road, no internet...

2009-07-06T07:56:00.002+02:00

Been traveling and without any internet...blogging from my phone now in Seattle. The good news - have been riding: santee lakes, yakima, manastash, and more in the coming days. Now let's see if I can join the 21st century and get on line.

After work ride

2009-06-25T03:52:00.003+02:00

Nothing like a hard ride after work to blow out the office stress and b.o. We've been doing these rides for a few weeks now; there's a fantastic network of trails just 100m from our office door. Since we're on top of a mesa, there is a delicious drop-in to start, and a grinder, sweaty climb to finish. Perfect. Sometimes starting from the office, however, means you forget your gear, so today I was in work socks and borrowed shoes - hot.

The opening gambit - a fast but choppy little descent down to the canyon floor. Taylor's been riding this same exact bike since 1998 and he rides it like a bat out of hell, whatever that means. Anyway he's fast going down.

The ground here is so dry it's like concrete, the 5 days of rain a year in San Diego don't give it much respite. If nobody's coming up you can get some good speed, a couple tricky waterbars and rocks force you to keep an eye open...

The trails go up and down the canyon slopes, although they are slowly being eroded away by new home development. I guess that's what they call progress. Here's Taylor losing traction on the notoriously loose and steep last little climb. But sweet desserts were awaiting not long after.

Taylor rides bikes better than he takes pictures I'm afraid. I look a bit like bigfoot dodging trees as I round the bend here. Anyway, it was fun as hell. I'm glad to have such good riding, so close by.

St. Edward's Park

2009-06-19T08:20:00.003+02:00

St. Edward's is one of those Seattle-area mainstays, an urban riding area like Tapeworm but much less technical. Situated at the top of Juanita hill in Kirkland, just east of Sea-town, it's a fun little place to go burn some calories on the dirt. GG and I pulled up to the QFC parking lot across the street from the trails and got ready to ride.

Our bikes were really too big for these smooth, fast trails, but what the hell, it was fun to buzz around. Greg had to adjust his handlebars, gave me a chance to use my fancy camera...

The bikes look gooood, and the Ibis rode tough in only it's 2nd ride. Had some time to balance the suspension to dial it in. This was actually my first bike with a Fox RP23 rear shock and the pro-pedal works pretty well.

A lot of wind storms in Seattle means lots of fallen logs, and while sometimes these are cut out, sometimes they are turned into small stunts, which GG capably rocks... St. Edwards. 1.5 hours of rolling singletrack that is close to town.

Grand Ridge in Issaquah

2009-06-14T17:25:00.004+02:00

Greg's family was out of town, so he convinced me to fly up to Seattle for the weekend. This was to be the first full test for the newly packed Ibis (which we would stay up to 2am building, but that's another story). There was also a promise about Seattle Sounders tickets... Anyway it was guaranteed to be a weekend of xbox and sweeeeet trails. After an xbox session that lasted until 4:30am, we got a bit of sleep, woke up, and loaded our rigs onto GG's pimped out 1997 Honda.

This was really an REI ride, all the REI guys like to travel in flocks. Luckily, there are some a-ok people who work there. So we had a pretty good (and fit) group on the trail.

Grand Ridge is rideable from downtown Issaquah (a suburb of Seattle), and basically consists of 95% delicious singletrack. Hard-packed and tight, Grand Ridge goes up and down, is reasonably technical and just fun as hell.

A little technical trouble on the Ibis' maiden voyage - the hub end-caps unthreaded enough to sieze the hub in the fork. Made a fantastic squeaking sound.

But all ended well and the Ibis rode pretty darn tough. A bit of rain in the last 30 minutes gave us a spattering of mud.

After a big ride, it's time for a burrito...

Best purchase ever???????

2009-06-14T04:54:00.003+02:00

Lo and behold, my most prized possession of the moment, my new Ibis Mojo. Ok, a bike's a bike, but watch Fiona and I disassemble and pack into a suitcase.

Rear triangle comes off easily with a couple allen wrenches. Fiona helps sort out the loose cables. Thanks Fi!

You have to deflate the fork but everything packs in nicely...

Some packing and then lay the wheels on top...

And SHAZAM! Ain't no airline going to charge me 150 bucks to travel with a bike. Best thing of all, it's a sweet ride and I show up with a full-on 5.5" kick-ass mountain bike. I am winning!!!!

This all results in one happy cyclist.

LummaLoop revisited

2009-06-11T15:50:00.003+02:00

A short trip back to my dear, sweet Meldert gave me the opportunity to ride my old beloved LummaLoop. It's not the world's most epic ride, but I miss it just the same.

You don't see many mornings like this in Belgium. Pristine.

Some trails in Belgium stay underwater all year long. If you want to get your mud on.

This is spring in Belgium. What you can't see are the hundreds of nettles attacking you from the sides of the trail...

Sad to say, every time I ride this trail now, there's another section destroyed by tractors. This was one of the tastiest little bits of singletrack, now it's gone...

Taylor's bikes

2009-06-05T06:52:00.002+02:00

My colleague Taylor runs his bikes until they break. He's still rolling his 1998 Specialized Epic. He had to put the long travel kit and a new fork. But it still runs tough.

Direct Max Drive. That's 1998 marketing talk. The front triangle was 2 pieces of extruded aluminum, welded together.

This was a v-brake bike, Taylor had to retro-fit a disc mount, drilling a hole above the dropout.

Also in his garage, something I'd never seen...

A Bontrager cruiser BMX

morning ride @ ivan's - exclusive video footage

2009-06-01T00:00:00.003+02:00

Another hour spent on my apple doing video editing, only for you, the reader:

Noble Canyon video

2009-05-31T12:42:00.004+02:00

Check it out, Taylor and me ripping (or gently massaging) some desert singletrack...

Kentucky Camp, Arizona

2009-05-25T12:26:00.004+02:00

On my life-long quest to cross off all the IMBA epics on my to-ride list, I took advantage of being in southern California (it's not a tumor!) to head over to southern Arizona to seek out the Kentucky Camp epic ride. Nestled among old mining camps just next to the Mexican border, it included part of the state-long Arizona Trail. Arizona. Home of some of the best mountain biking on the planet, from the mountains of Flagstaff to the red rock of Sedona, and the desert trails of Tuscon.

I recommend Belgians to post this sign along their dutch border:

Stupid me had a slow breakfast and even slower preparation, so that by the time I started it was almost 40 degrees (over 100). I had the camelback full of ice cubes and plenty of food to keep me going.

But food and water was not going to be my biggest obstacle. Being in a network of trails and roads meant that following any directions or maps would be nearly impossible. I had to stop about 10 times in the first hour, and just barely missed getting hopelessly lost. Not appealing in a country full of rattler snakes, scorpions, and tarantulas. Ok, call me a softie. But a GPS and even better yet a ride leader is the way to go out here.

The riding was, of course, fantastic. Rocky jeep trails mixed with high desert singletrack. Loose soil and rocks to keep you honest. Big climbs, big descents...it was awesome. At one point the trail came out into a area hit by wildfires within the last couple years. The vegetation was just starting to recover.

The singletrack (tasty as it was) made a pretty clean trail through the damaged area.

And the cacti proved to be stronger than the flames.

The area wound through some old mining areas, there were flume trails, old houses, and old mining machinery here and there. Kinda cool.

With time limitations, heat, and map issues, I had to cut my ride short. Which means, I'll be back.

Life's major decisions

2009-05-25T12:22:00.003+02:00

Breakfast in Arizona, before a big ride. Torn between two classics:

The Donut:

Or the Waffle:

In the end I opted for waffles. The breakfast of champignons.

Early morning on Ivan's trail

2009-05-14T06:01:00.002+02:00

Spent a Sunday at Ivan's, he got me up bright and early at 6 (who gets up at 6 on a Sunday??) to go and ride. After a cup of coffee we threw the bikes in the truck and headed to the trailhead.

In the end, it was the best time to be out, clear and beautiful skies, perfect weather, nice and quiet on the trails. It was the first time to take the belgian 29er and I must say it performed admirably, going up and going down.

We made it back in time to cook up some breakfast burritos. Perfect morning.

Noble Canyon, SD

2009-05-10T19:29:00.005+02:00

In my quest to ride all the IMBA epics, a trip to nearby Noble Canyon came to be long overdue. Just 45 minutes from downtown San Diego, it's supposed to be one of the best rides in California, or possibly the US.

It was also my first ride south of LA, and too much road biking was bringing me down. So my colleage Taylor and I headed out early one saturday morning to tame the beast.

Any epic ride worth its weight in salt will feature lots of climbing, in my opinion. Noble didn't let us down. 5km of steep climbing was a good warm-up, thank goodness it was paved...

This led to a long single track climb that was technical and challenging. Loooong singletrack.

But this led of course to sweet desserts. After a short descent that led to another climb, we were welcomed to some sublime forested singletrack, Smooth, buttery sections were broken up by technical rock gardens.

After a while the trail cam out into some open, rocky desert single track. Super fun, this rolled up and down for almost 30 minutes, keeping you on your toes with tricky bedrock sections and some short little climbs. The last section back to the car was a roller coster of fast, buffed out singletrack, broken up by big rocks that could throw you from your bike. I must say the belgian 29er did admirably on this ride, where normally I would want to have 5" of front and rear travel.

Of course, we're in the US, so it should come as no surprise when a man comes walking down the trail with a big gun...

But usually he doesn't bring his family with him. Ah, the US...

The 29er gets a face-lift

2009-05-03T20:40:00.004+02:00

Bringing the belgian 29er to the US was a big risk. Would it be able to survive the tough desert trails of southern california? Would it be too racy for the laid back west coast? I decided if I was going to ride this thing, I needed to give it a bit of a visual update. So take a look...

Yes that's right, a white bar and stem, and white grips. That's right you gram-counters, it weighs a bit more, but you know what? It looks soooo good. And what's really more important here?

Let's see how it looks outside. Even better. Now it's fit for california.

Getting famouser

2009-04-28T08:12:00.004+02:00

I remember my mom was always writing editors, to companies, politicians, etc. At the time I thought it was a waste of time. Until now! Perturbed by an article in a UK magazine, I wrote a lengthy email and, lo and behold, letter of the month. I rule.

Now they cut just about all of it in the print version, but the full thing is on their forum, here is the link:

http://www.mbr.co.uk/forums/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/23877/an/0/page/1#23877

So enjoy it while I'm busy being proud of myself (although you'll notice, only one person has replied on the forum).

Got a new camera

2009-04-24T00:15:00.004+02:00

And it totally works!!

Santa Clarita mountains

2009-04-08T14:17:00.005+02:00

Last weekend in southern cal, nothing to do but get in some sunny bike rides. Ivan and I pored over google earth for what seemed like hours, looking for some new trails. And since he's completely surrounded by mountains...we found some. We hopped in the truck and headed to the trailhead.

No sleeves, eat that Belgium! Well it was indeed sunny and warm, but up on the top of them hills....a bit windy and chilly. Normally you can see the ocean and LA, but it was so hazy we didn't see much of anything..except haze.

This is about 1/3 up the climb. We climbed all the way up to the top of that big mtn behind me. Actually it wasn't so bad, but kinda steep, steep is not my game. Whatever, it was fine and sunny.

Pretty view with a bench.

Ivan assumed the aero position for the road back to the truck.

The way down was super fun, buttery so-cal singletrack, some fun rocky sections towards the bottom, but they were a bit overrun with hikers. Ivan rang his bell and we went slow around the corners. All in all, a good day of LA mtbing.

back in belgium

2009-04-08T00:27:00.002+02:00

Yee-ha! A trip around the lummen loop is due. Rode 140k of tour of flanders on saturday...brutal...

Jack gets married

2009-04-08T00:17:00.003+02:00

You may know him as "Apendicitis Jack", that's his rough and tumble name, but our boy Jack went out and got himself married. He and Jessica had been dating for a few years now.; the ceremony was held in Taiwan (all these travels keeping me from my blogging duties), in Jack's church.

Greg likes church, but he likes iphone solitaire even better. Ok, it was all in Chinese. There was an exciting moment when the garlands above the pews looked like they might catch on fire. Jessica, a former professional singer, sang one song, while Jack, an karaoke burnout, sang two.

This was actually the 2nd ceremony, they woke up at 5:30 for the traditional ceremony.

Quite a few out-of-towners made it over (or stayed over) for the wedding. Greg, Wes, Henri, Joop, Steve G, Matt V...

The banquet was downtown Taipei, a big to-do and they pulled out all the stops.

Los Angeles

2009-03-30T07:45:00.002+02:00

Ivan's trail

2009-03-28T17:48:00.004+01:00

Whenever staying in LA, I have to ride Ivan's trail, of all the local loops I've ridden it's maybe the best (surely beating the pants of the Lummen Loop). A good butt-kicking climb with some steep, technical sections, followed by a ribbon of fast, sometimes technical, ridgeline singletrack. It's nothing short of completely fantastic.

Too lazy to ride to the trail head (it is a bit of a haul to ride there...), we threw the bikes in the truck and headed up the canyon.

There's a long dirt road climb that keeps getting steeper and steeper. Until recently the locals had used this area as their garbage dump, but recently that had all been cleaned up.

Halfway up the climb, we met a new friend. We called him Michael. Seems Michael had got into a bit of trouble with some drunk, gun-toting locals. They had left him for dead.

We shared some stories with Michael. Ivan in particular made a special bond with him.

We offered to let him ride with us, but he didn't feel he was up to it.

We'll always have a little bit of Michael with us.

So off we went. At the top of the climb (the last 1/3 of which is painful), there are sweeping views of all the mountains north of LA. LA is a desert and you kind of forget about all this. Pretty stunning views.

...and then we head down. Kind of hard to see Ivan here, he's a little speck at the top of the trail. But it just keeps going on and on and on....

It had just rained that morning so the trails were wonderfully sticky. Here's me on a steep little downhill section.

And here's the last uber-gnarly descent, more loose and rutted than ever. You may remember Ivan's crash on the beach-cruiser from here...needless to say today was injury-free.

Always fun, I could ride that every day I think. Afterwards we did some exploring and bush-whacking and found some small bits of additional trail.

Ivan's garage

2009-03-28T17:44:00.002+01:00

Santa Clarita, CA - just north of LA, staying with Ivan and Jenise on a couple weekends. It's an opportunity to get some bikes built up, Ivan has a pretty dialed garage. A little full of wheels (and also my bags) at the moment...

He has a pretty good selection of old bikes, some cruisers from 50+ years ago.
Here's a Golinski-era Spot brand dirt jumper.

Riding Keyesville, CA

2009-03-21T19:20:00.003+01:00

Deep in the Mojave desert outside of Bakersfield, California. Went out with Ivan and Jenise and Ike to the Keyesville Classic, next to Lake Isabella. Unbelievably good desert mountain singletrack.

We rode the XC loop which was 8 mi/12km of swoopy, buttery singletrack. Ivan put me on his Norco hardtail with 150mm fork and dh tires. Yee ha.

Blue skies, fast dusty trails...is there anything better? This can't possibly be belgium.
Ivan hadn't been riding but he rocked everything pretty good.
Big views, boulders, slick rock sections, ribbons of perfect singletrack......finished off with a burrito it was a killer day.

Proletariat Bicycle Company

2009-03-16T04:36:00.002+01:00

Driving south on the I-5 corridor, I stopped by Springfield, OR, to see Todd at Proletariat. Todd and Mike P started PBC together, both used to work at Burley and had a few things in common - love of Hank Williams III, love of Pabst Blue Ribbon, and love of steel bikes. Mike's an engineer and Todd's a welder, so...

If you've ever spent time in a bike shop or work shop that is super comfortable and feels like home, you'll understand the beauty of Todd's shop. Just across I-5 from the hippy enclave of Eugene, Todd's got his record collection and the kegerator on the right as you enter the shop.

Over the past few years they've built a pretty decent little operation, now with a lathe and a CNC machine, the place is pretty dialed.
Here's a road frame they had finished. Recently they started milling their own head tubes and bb shells. Pretty neat.
Here's the uber-fancy jig in the center of the work space.
This is Todd's wife Tiffany's new bike. You can't see it but think pink components on matte gray look pretty good.
Mike was riding his PBC 29er when we rode Hurricane rim and Moab. Check 'em out: www.theproletariatbicycleco.com

GG's garage

2009-03-15T17:34:00.003+01:00

Was in Seattle for about 30 hours and went over to GG's house to say hello and drop off Karen's new frame. Took the opportunity to hijack Greg's tools for a couple hours and get my new fancy road bike rolling.

If you know GG you know he's a bit of a clean and organization freak. Just like me... So needless to say his shop is pretty dialed.

He still has his old original steel bontrager hanging up.

Here's his new bike, it's actually a Turner 5. spot with the decals removed...

A variety of different cranks hang from the rafters, just in case your bike has a square taper or hollowtech bb.

Destruction of the LummaLoop

2009-02-26T16:54:00.003+01:00

First mtb ride in a while today, first solo ride in even longer, first ride on MY lummaloop in a couple months. A couple consecutive days of dry weather created pretty tasty trail conditions, not too muddy but packed and a little tacky. Perfect for ripping around on the single speed.

Much to my dismay the tree-clearing work seems to have been turned up to eleven, and there were huge sections of trail or double track that were wiped out by tractors going in and out.

don't adjust your screen, that's the belgian sky. no sign of contrast anywhere

I've heard that there are some pretty heavy legal blocks to cutting trees; I've heard stories of stiff tree-cutting fines and I know that after heavy windstorms, property owners get a small window of reprieve to clear "dangerous foliage". However what's been going on in Lummen for the last year is different, it's systematic clearing. Furthermore, they seem to be driving army tanks or 18-wheel transport trailers through here, making the trails in many places unrideable, and just plain ugly.

Sign of the times? I don't know what kind of representation this forest gets, but as one of the only significant stand of trees in the area, it's a shame to see it treated like this, especially considering the amount of recreational use it sees.

Progress, I guess that's what they call it. So there are some small amendments to my loop now, suffice it to say. Let's hope they leave well enough alone and let the forest recover.

What you might see on the trail in BE

2009-02-16T12:18:00.004+01:00

They have their own style here, you have to respect it. It's just not like anywhere else. XC racing rigs are king but you'll see the darndest contraptions...

Yes, this is a pink and purple Giant from perhaps the jurassic period. Note the matching quilled stem in pink. Note also that he passed and dropped me.

Why get a riser bar when you can add 20 centimeters of spacers?

I like to call this one the un-riser bar.

Alex and Luc kick my butt

2009-02-16T12:02:00.004+01:00

Possibly my last toertocht in Belgium for a while, the Linkhout edition. A 4-star tocht, so they say. Linkhout is a division of my town Lummen so I could easily ride the bike there in the morning...the bike that I finished assembling 30 minutes before departure. Can't make it too easy.

After weeks of crappy weather the belgians were out in force on a reasonably sunny, and not too muddy, sunday. The trails around Lummen are pretty well known and these tochts are always popular.
Alex was pimped out with new waterproof pants and his 11-euro aldi jacket.
You know it's going to be a good toertocht when they are giving out jager shots at the start!
I learned my lesson on the Lummen tocht - hard, frozen trails and lots of flat sections = no fun on the single speed. So today I saddled up on the 29er. Nice big 2.3" tires just to scare away the belgians.
Here Luc adjusts his riding garments. Despite working at Ridley for 4-5 years, Luc still has one bike - the universal cross bike. A simple tire change transforms his steed from toertocht destroyer to group road ride attacker.
Halfway point!
Some thirsty belgians out there...
Here are two of them. Getting some warm and salty soup on a frozen day of riding is pretty deeply satisfying.
Fluorescent green sports drink, anyone?
And afterwards, into the soccer field bar (start/finish of the event) for a cup of soup and maybe something to drink. All in all, an excellent ride!

Baking not biking

2009-01-16T18:11:00.004+01:00

Geen gusting for biking today, trails are muddy, stayed indoors and made this instead.

Unemployment ain't so bad.

It's practically summer in Belgium

2009-01-13T17:00:00.003+01:00

Yes, the rain is here. It's amazing what 3 degrees celsius can feel like after a few weeks of sub-zero weather. I almost felt like riding in short sleeves. Alas, skies are cloudy and trails are muddy which means I'm washing my bike again.

Today I took the cross bike out for one last snow ride, the wet snow gave more traction. But it was still a wintery mess around Diest, the river was still mostly frozen, minor roads still covered in ice and snow...

Why the cross bike? Usually I would buzz around on the 29er, but on my last ride a giant stick jumped up and snapped off my brake lever. So until I get my lazy butt into the garage to do some repairs, no 29er riding for a while....

Ivan's crash

2009-01-12T14:06:00.004+01:00

Flipping through the photo album, I come across Ivan's famous crash from February 2007. I was in LA and every time I'm in LA I visit Ivan and Jenise (and Ike) and make sure to ride Ivan's Trail. Ivan's Trail (as dubbed by the local mtb community in Santa Clarita) is one of the most fun local loops I've done, it's about an hour and fifteen mintues long with a gradual dirt road climb, and a ridge-line gnarly singletrack descent. It's beautiful.

Mike P was with me and we were determined to ride Ivan's trail despite the fact that Ivan only had 2 mtbs - a 40-pound DH bike and a dirt jumper. Then Ivan found the solution - he proposed to ride his beach cruiser. Sounded like a great idea at the time.

The whole crew set out, Jenise came with us with Ivan in the sidecar as far as the trailhead. We were a surly-looking bunch.
Ivan was looking tough on the beach cruiser. With only one gear and a rear coaster brake, it was going to be a pretty monumental task. Was he up to it?
Ivan is taking the pictures on the climb because he was KILLING us on the beach cruiser. With only one gear, he stormed up the hills while Mike and I took our time in tiny gears.
The DH bike was not suuuuper fun to ride up...but it went.
And eventually we made it to the top. There's a concrete platform of what used to be a cottage (or what was going to be a cottage), with big, sweeping views of the mountain ranges north of Los Angeles.
Spirits were high before the descent.
Ivan schooled us even more on the descent. The long wheel base and huge tires of the cruiser made it extremely stable and fast on the trail.

Was this a warning sign?

Mike and I pause to laugh at Ivan's first crash.

So we got going again. Trail conditions were loose and fast and we were ripping it up. Bringing the DH bike was beginning to pay dividends. Here Mike was bombing a steep section.

Here is Ivan, again flying on the cruiser. We made it to the very end of the trail with one last sketchy section left. It was about a 30-meter trail that was very very steep and all loose, impossible to get any traction and hard to keep the wheels turning.

Ivan started and I turned to talk to Mike when all of a sudden there was a scream - the coaster brake, all the grease cooked out, was locked and he was heading at about 30kph straight into a concrete wall at the bottom of the descent.

He hit the wall head on at full speed, the bike bounced, Ivan bounced, laid on the ground, and screamed. After all the commotion and ambulances, Ivan thought he was ok, only to find out that he had 5 broken ribs and some internal bleeding.......nothing more, thank goodness. If it had been me, I would be dead for sure.

Just goes to show - wear your helmet.

Lummen Toertocht!!!!!

2009-01-07T09:59:00.005+01:00

Yeah, it's that time of year again, or it was just after Christmas anyway - the lummen toer tocht. It's a good one, some of the best trails in Limburg (I suppose) and anyway I can ride there from my house. A few days before it got suuuuuuper cold in Belgium which meant that the trails were basically like concrete.

A couple of real Belgian good ol' boys...

I left home on the single speed and met up wit Jan V and his buddy Wouter at the start, the Lummen swimming pool; we set off for 40km of cold mtbing. Already some km in I had problems with my rear wheel, I hadn't touched it in about a year and it had always been fine, but suddenly in a steep climb out of the big pit the wheel slipped in the dropout and I had to stop and adjust it.

I then decided to hustle to try and catch Jan, when I was almost there, once again, issues, the chain came off and I had to again adjust the wheel. Damn. I caught Jan and Wouter at the halfway food station, had 2 cups of warm soup, and off we went.

The beloved half-way feed tent...
...with its mountain of waffles...
...and its cups of warm, salty, flavorless soup...

The next section was the very very flat section, and the single speed was no match for Wouter, who apparently was in training for the paris-roubaix, sooooo.....i figuratively shifted down a couple gears and watched them disappear into the horizion. Lucky for them I suppose, since I was to have 2 more nagging wheel issues...I guess there's something to be said for bike maintenance.

Some graffiti on the course - punk rock is alive and well in Belgium

In the end the Lummen tocht was rad, fun trails, kinda crazy with the frozen dirt and mud so you had to be on your toes. In total 50k on the single speed was pretty meaty, the 29er would have been a better option that day in retrospect. For the most part it picked up all my favorite trails and took some in different directions to give me some new ideas.

The bar in the Lummen pool after the ride

First (and last?) Belgian cross race

2009-01-06T01:10:00.004+01:00

Ok. Racing is retarded. I admit it. But something deep inside, some dusty cobwebs were shaken and the old competitive spirit reared its pathetic little head. All those years of dreaming of doing a cross race in belgium, mud and cobbles and embrocation and pits with power washers.... So I decided to do a cylcocross race. Ok cross racing is not exactly ripping sweet singletrack. But it's on the dirt and, well, hopefully makes an interesting blog post.

Now there's no fooling anybody here, this was not a call-up to a UCI world cup race, this was the back-yard, sign up at the bar at the soccer field, no license required and no skills required either type of race. Lapped riders did not get pulled. So at least I could finish.

It was cold as can be, Belgium had hit a cold spell and the ground was frozen and hard and fast. The course was more like a Seattle cross course, with fast singletrack and not really and cross-esque course features. It was kind of fun zipping along rolling singletrack trails in the woods. I must say I felt pretty good...except for the fact that I was going much slower than everyone else.

In the end...I finished 22/25 or something like that. Ok, considering I hadn't raced in 3 years or something like that. And it was fun, that's most important right? But best of all - I got prize money. I don't want to know how or why, but I got 2 euros back for 22nd place. Sweet!

Santa keeps on giving

2008-12-29T10:46:00.001+01:00

What a guy. Looking remarkably like my mother, Santa came and brought me quite possibly the most important cycling garment I now own, the Endura Stealth mtb jacket. Used it twice already and it kicks ass.

Santa is my best friend

2008-12-27T11:14:00.002+01:00

Finally got me some new shoes. What a guy!

Bilzen toertocht = mud fest

2008-12-21T11:40:00.003+01:00

Bilzen - the south east corner of flanders, where the flat flemish plains start to break into gently rolling hills and garden gnomes have attitude. I joined Alex and Luc at Alex's house in Martenslinde for the pre-christmas toertocht. It was supposed to be a nice gentle 45 km with rolling hills, perfect for the single speed.

10am start, no rain, here we are nice and clean.

The start was about 200 meters from Alex's house, we rolled down and signed up. The Martenslinde community center was pretty dead, the cold temperatures and bad weather keeping people indoors.
Right off the bat - a bad sign, we head through a grass field that has turned into a mud bog. Herculean efforts are required to move the bike forward.
Lo and behold - mud to make your bike stand up. Spinning wheels and somersaults and the whole ball of wax. It was a complete mess. And slow.

22km in and nearing death...mud soaked through even garment. The hot soup at the bevooradering (the halfway waffle tent) was salty and a gift from heaven. From here it was only 16km from the finish....16 long, wet, muddy, slow kilometers...

Best investment of the year by far award - mtb booties. Kept the feet warm, dry, and clean! Worth every euro cent.

Swiss breakfast of champions

2008-12-19T09:27:00.003+01:00

Picked this up while driving through switzerland, hans "no way" rey on the cover of a bag of muesli. Is he even swiss?

Kinda cool though. Nice product placement for Fox.

A mystery unraveled...

2008-12-18T11:09:00.002+01:00

Why the company espresso machine espresso tastes like crap! This must be affecting my riding.

Lummaloop night ride

2008-12-11T12:17:00.005+01:00

It's cold in Belgium at night...

Our international crew rolled out last night in the deep dark forest of Lummen. Conditions pure Belgium - endless mud pits and myriad consistencies of the slippery stuff. Jo, Alex, Maarten, and I donned our lights and cold weather gear for a good slosh in the wet.

It had been a while since I had done a real night ride, and it was good to get out there. Maarten was on his new bright orange Cobra (no brakes!), Alex with his busted-ass Blaze, and Jo on a racy carbon Ridley Ignite.

Despite Alex's rear shock blowing up early in the ride (that's what he gets for riding a fully suspended bicycle in Flanders...), things were pretty ok until Maarten took a header into a ditch, in a spectacular fashion.

No mtbing for one month. No, more.

2008-12-09T09:42:00.003+01:00

Ja it is kind of starting to suck. Too long without a spin on the lummaloop. We're planning a night ride with the belgians tomorrow but if it rains.....could be cancelled.

In the meantime here's a pic on Mike Parsell's fat chance in oakridge.

Visiting old rides

2008-11-28T12:44:00.005+01:00

It's 12:18pm in Belgium, and "Heart of Rock and Roll" from, yes, Huey Lewis and the news, is on Belgian radio. It has been a week since a good mtb ride. No, more. Snow fell then rain fell and now it's just cold as can be.

So since I'm trying to figure out how to edit video I figured I'd tool around with some old video. This one is from a trip to Scotland with Greg for his 40th b-day. We arrived at Prestwick and drove right to the most famous of the seven stanes, Glentress. How do you say super fun in Gaelic?

The next day took us to Mabie forest near Dumfries, still in Lower Scotland. This one had a ton of woodwork, it was pretty impressive. From there we drove up to the highlands to ride on the Isle of Skye. Rated as the best single track in the UK, the Glen Sligachan ride was everything we had wanted - sublime trails, stunning beauty, clouds of midges, big mud bogs and peat moss, and a good dose of freezing rain. It was excellent.

That was our last ride. We made our way back to Glasgow the next day and spotted a mythical Scottish creature on the way.

Langdorp Toertocht

2008-11-11T14:35:00.000+01:00

What's a Tour Tocht? Every weekend in Belgium there are multiple organized mountain bike rides call tour tochts. Hundreds or even thousands of belgian mountain bikes show up and pay around 3 euros to ride a marked course, followed by the ubiquitous beer (or 5). Riders can choose one of three lengths, those generally being around 25, 40, and 60km. And while you could hardly call them epic.....they can be super fun, especially if attended with friends, especially if it is not freezing and raining (which does happen in belgium), and ESPECIALLY if you're riding a single speed. Because it seems that just about all these courses were designed for single speeding.

The registration/beer hall can be a soccer field clubhouse or community center.Every good toertocht has a halfway break with chocolate covered waffles and bananas and sportsdrink.
By far, the perfect machine for such a ride is a single speed. Especially one with green grips.

The gang prepares for their ride. Thankfully, no suicide 7:30am start.

A weekend or two back Peter from work invited me to do the famous Langdorp toertocht. Langdorp is reputed to be one of the finest trail areas in Flanders. It's where Sven Nys lives and does all his training. It's where Davy Coenen won a flanders cup race. It's where Peter has been trying to get me to go for about 2 years now.

Peter's brother Stijn is on a racing frenzy and super fit, luckily for the rest of us he was sick and taking it easy. So we meandered through the 40k course fairly easily, grunting up the climbs and enjoying what I must admit was some tasty bits of singletrack.

The great thing about a tour tocht is that you see all types of bikes out there. A lot of people are road riders staying fit, others just riding what they have in the garage...the new mtb revolution is on in Belgium, and although nobody is riding a mtb fixie with a full sleeve of tatoos...slowly but surely we're seeing fewer hydraulic rim brakes and cable v-brakes in favor of real live disc brakes. Every once and a while...a riser bar...can you feel the excitement?

Heb je honger?

The LummaLoop

2008-11-01T12:26:00.000+01:00

Everybody has their home loop. For me, it's the lummaloop, located in Lummen, Belgium. It's not epic but it keeps me occupied for about an hour and a half to two hours, almost all on single track. Not scary, but scary enough to keep me from falling asleep or thinking about work.

It's super fun on the single speed, but lately I've been riding the Ridley 29er prototype, the PERFECT mtb for flanders trails, which are invariably straighter, less technical, and flatter than just about any trails you've ever done.

Luckily, I got me some curves and small little challenges on my loop, and it's kind of an ugly figure eight so I can reverse direction on some parts and keep it fresh. Which I rarely do, home loops are not supposed to be fresh...

So in the 2 weeks I was home I did a couple laps on the lummaloop. AND I bought me a collapsable avalanche shovel to do some trailwork. For when I get the motivation. Anyway pictures and such to come.

TAPEWORM

2008-10-08T11:30:00.000+02:00

Any rider who has spent any time in the Seattle area has ridden the tapeworm. Located just southeast of SEA in beauuuutiful Renton, WA, tapeworm is some of the best trailbuilding and maintenance I've seen. Hand-sculpted on a slope just above Renton, it's a chunk of forest saved from certain cookie-cutter home development thanks to a power substation and some pretty thick powerlines overhead. No worries. Us mtbers don't mind cancer.

Tapeworm is actually a network of 3-4 trails, most of the time we start with DNA. All of these trails are slightly different but similar in that they pack a ton of riding into a very small area. They are constantly turning back and forth on each other, and keeping momentum and speed is key to both having fun and keeping the pedals turning. It's a sublime example of urban trail building in a compact area, Belgians - take note!!! The trail is dotted with little baby stunts to keep you on your toes. After DNA and Tapeworm you finish on Parasite, which is more of the same but with several log crossings across the trail.

I did a solo ride here (GG once did solo rides before work here on a more than weekly basis) before a flight out, you can come to the tapeworm and do 1-2 hours and be super sweaty no problem. Rocking the carbon single speed...

the colonnade

2008-10-07T11:03:00.000+02:00

Seattle mountain bikers have always been creative (being the smart people that we are). So when the Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance decided to make a mountain bike skills park under the I-5 freeway, right in downtown Seattle, it seemed like a good idea. And it rocks. You can go rip for a couple hours and stay dry and get real better at your skills. Unfortunately, when GG and I went to check it out, I had a Ridley carbon single speed with 1.9 inch tires.

The Colonnade is a muntain bike skills park located right under the freeway, with all types of structures from beginner to pretty gnar level stunts. Teeters, skinnies, jumps, drops, rocks and bridges... It's pretty short and not for getting exercise per se...but you could easily kill a couple hours there getting better at riding your mountain bike.

Rolling there on the carbon single speed was kinda silly but we just wanted to check it out and roll around, turn the pedals a few

times. There were some underage kids there making us look silly, I offered to race one of the downhill bikers up the hill but he declined. It's a pretty amazing set up for a local group of people, tons of woodwork and very solid structures, and all very safe.

GG runs away from the big drop....

Damn this free rider looks talented...

MOAB

2008-10-07T06:05:00.000+02:00

What else is left to say about Moab? Best town in southern utah, cool people, good restaurants, stunning setting, sweeeet riding... But...2 years in a row and 4 visits in the last 6 years...too much in my opinion.

That said, if you twist my arm... And there's that new trail, Hazard County. Which was itself reason to visit Moab. So I conned the others to make the haul across Utah state for 1 day of riding. Sweet.

Last year's hazard county ride was unbelievably fun and epic. Top three in a lifetime ride. This year we were expecting nothing less. The dark clouds hovering above the La Sal mountains had a different idea...it was freezing and raining when we got out of the shuttle van so we donned the rain jackets and started pedaling.

Hazard starts out on a gentle downhill slope with sublime singletrack that winds in and out of the juniper trees, with spectacular views of the Moab valley below. The trail was super slick with fresh mud, lucky me had big tires and had a blast.

Mike was the hero of the weekend, Porcupine Rim is not an easy trail on any bike and he did the whole thing on his 29er hard tail...studly.

Rain jackets...

As Hazard trail merged to Kokapelli, the trail had suffered under the rain and the soil had turned into something like nearly-set concrete. Without a ton of momentum you couldn't go 10 meters without your bike coming to a complete stop. Luckily for us Eric ignored the warning from the shuttle driving and bombed down, leaving the rest of us to walk... After a bit the trail dried out and became rideable, but we missed a nice fun section of fast double-track. Damn.

Since last year there had been a fairly big forest fire, and it wasn't too long ago as the burnt smell was still in the air and riding through the burned-out section was pretty surreal.
The beauty about this trail is that you descend for an hour plus, all single track, then come to the very top of Porcupine Rim (stunning views, don't let your gaze linger as that is a cliff there...). From there it's another 1-1.5 hours of ridiculous fun in the hot desert - rain jacket long ago discarded.
By this part of the trail the hard tail was starting to kick Mike's ass a bit. Long washboard sections of sharp rocks. But it was beautiful as heck and a stop every now and then would let you to look around and appreciate the Moab desert.
During the last 30 minutes or so we passed and got passed by a fairly old guy who was out there keeping it real on two wheels. Pretty cool. Hope I'm half that active when I'm his age.
All in all a extremely excellent ride. Would do it again in a heartbeat. The conditions mixed it up for us and made it interesting. But one day was all we had, from there we headed back to Vegas to board planes....

Utah - Hurricane Rim

2008-10-04T20:16:00.000+02:00

Time for our annual post-vegas mtb trip, an exodus to escape the sin city as soon as possible and get somewhere...real. Luckily some of the world's most beautiful, and best for mountain biking, places on earth are within striking distance from LV.

Our trip was a little balled up this year since the seattle crew went to moab with half the rest of the civilized world, plus half our crew could not leave until Saturday, not Friday like the rest. So we did a more local ride on Saturday afternoon - Hurricane rim in Hurricane, Utah.

I had to scramble for a bike and managed to borrow an Endorphin from Knolly - usually a perfect bike for the Utah desert but it had big tires and a heavy fork and a huge coil shock, so it was a little heavy for pedaling. But when the trail went down it was sublime.

We all felt pretty terrible after a week of Vegas, so pace was slow (well Eric and Chris were doing their best XC racer impersonation). We were chased around the desert by thunder clouds but just managed to escape the rain.

Mike was rolling his custom hand-build and self-designed Proletariat 29er, perfect bike for this trail.
I was dead last but glad to be turning the pedals and the trails were siiiiiiiick...
Eric had 2 flats, setting a trend for the weekend...
A nearly lost phone and 2 hour car ride later we were in the general direction of Moab.

AUSTRIA!

2008-09-18T09:05:00.000+02:00

The fabled Austrian alps, slightly more exotic than those of France or Switzerland, have pretty much remained off my radar due to the extra driving distance from BE. And let's face it, sun sets in the west so why head east, right?

Luckily for the country of Austria we were in the nearby Bodensee region of Germany, which meant our international rag-tag group was able to make the relatively short drive to...where? The randomly selected location turned out to be a small town called Bad Ischl, which would prove to be fortunate for Jack.

In typical fashion, already late upon leaving Germany, Wes insisted on eating dinner at a German truck stop. In typical fashion, I was able to keep a cool head and we rolled in a bit late into Bad Ischl. Bad Ischl in the dark at midnight looks like a lot of other towns in the dark at midnight (although in the daylight it was quite charming). Our hotel was the Goldenes Schiff, and the 5 of us packed into 2 rooms after 1am and crashed.

Having only selected the destination 2 hours before departure, and having no idea what exactly happened in Austria, we were a little in the dark on riding locations the next morning. A trail map from the tourist information center helped that, though, and by mid-morning we had bikes sorted, gear donned, and were pedaling. First issue - the front brake on Jack's bike was dead. We gave the bike with better tires and functioning brakes to Jack and made Wes ride the disabled one with dutch tires.

Pristine sub-alpine valleys and picturesque farm houses resulted in over-abundant photo taking, plus we got lost already in town. When we finally found the trail it was....steep as hell. Walking. Jack's stomach was still hurting..... We got to the top of the singletrack climb and Jack was in a bit of pain so he wisely decided to head back a bit early to town, taking the fire road down to the main highway. Wes gets the good bike again.

From there we climbed fire road for another 30 minutes or so before taking a trail that would normally be fun with big tires and suspension, but was outright dangerous on belgian carbon hardtails and skinny rubber. Mark demonstrated this for us beautifully with a pretty damn good crash over the bars.

This dropped us on the Ewige Wand, a trail cut into a cliff face which looked much more daunting in literature than in real life. But it was fun, from there we (after fixing two flats) found some singletrack heading down the mountain and back to town along the river, not epic but a fun ride in a beautiful area.

The adventure began in earnest later that night when Jack thought his stomach pain was in fact not a lack of toilet activity, but in fact something a bit more serious. Greg and I navigated around Bad Ischl until we came to the hospital around 1am, where the night doctor told us it was most likely appendicitis and Jack would need to stay. For a week.

Greg had to leave at 5 in the morning; since it was 2:30 when we got back to the hotel he decided to leave directly for Munich. Or so he thought; I got a call around 2:45 (deep in sleep); GG was still in the parking lot and could find his way out of town (to his credit, there were a lot of one-way streets).

So Jack was drugged up and passed out. Mark and Wes and I tried to find a chair lift and do a couple DH runs on the XC bikes. The chair lift in Ischl would not take bikes in the summer, so we went to Obertraun where they had a big gondola. They, too, did not want mtbers so we were left to our own for riding. We found what looked like a good route on the map, only to find unrideably steep fire road, filled with rocks the size of first generation ipods. We went up for one hour and down for about 6 minutes. But it was pretty.

The last day Wes and I, Mark having left for australia, hit some singletrack right out of town. Janzerberg was the small mountain overlooking Ischl and the map showed trails. After a bit of hike-n-bike we found a nice viewpoint and some fun single track, potential for a fun loop if you lived in town.

So not epic. No huge alpine descents. No cows with bells around their necks. No Von Trapp family or alpen damels singing "guten tag". But some fun riding, minus one appendix, beautiful scenery. On the day I left the check-out girl let us know that she herself was an avid mountain biker and knew ALL the good secret routes...damn....

Important Bad Ischl facts:

Nicest damn hospital i ever did see

Not a lot of exotic food unless you consider pizza exotic

Beautiful area

Real estate is cheap!!

Farmer's market is Friday morning

2008-09-17T13:39:00.000+02:00

i exist, therefore i think