My new job

I guess jobs are pretty important. You pretty much have to have one. I loved working on bikes but I had to move on. Until all the gas runs out the bike industry will continue to lose good mechanics to jobs that take less skill and pay double.

Anyway, my new job takes plenty of skill, I was just making a point. I does, however, pay almost double what I made working on bikes.

Here is my cube

My ride to work is great. 8 miles each way, 7 of which are on a "rails to trails" type path.

This is the view from our managers window.

My thule T2

I love my new Thule T2 hitch rack. I took all the roof racks off and have been using this for a few months and my life is so much better. It takes 30 seconds to load two bikes and I don't need a ladder. Sure I can only cary 2 bikes but since Kerry and I moved we don't have any friends anyway so it works out great for us. I'm kidding I have lots of friends. On myspace.

This is the rack "stowed"



"Deployed" and ready for action



Loaded

Works well with Lefty fork too!

Now if it would just stop raining

Lee

I love this video

What is a "2 to 1 road acceleration ratio"?

He's Ronin

We named him Ronin.
It's a good name. Ruffles was good too but, I think he's going to be ahudredpoundog and that name is just too funny.

I am excited about this:

Capitol Forest Revival XC Race

It looks like fun. I used to race there when I was in high school. Back then the courses were over 35 miles and 3000 plus feet of climbing. I am certian that I used all 21 of my gears and both inches of travel in my fork. The race usually ended in a 100 foot long puddle that was two or three feet deep. A real crowd pleaser. The promoter said that this will be a bit less "epic". At least the puddle isn't there this time. I'm sure the 3000 feet of vertical will still be in the mix, I may be tempted to ride a Geared Bike! The great thing about Capitol Forest it that after the climb, the downhill is always worth it. Here's what it is like:

Also on the horizon is this:

Friends of Capitol Forest Super D

These courses look like much fun. I have always wanted to do the Downieville Downhill. It combines a XC race with hardly any climbing and a DH race that isn't too hairy. All three courses look to be around 10 miles or so. Each has a little climbing thrown in. It is a great race for someone like me that cam climb and decend pretty well, not awesome at either but can do well at both. I think my Slayer is perfect for it. I love the way it rides on long flowy downhills like Noble Canyon. I can still climb up quickly but it sucks up all the rocks just fine on the way down. I may ride the STP, it would be fast as well. I'll just have to preride the course.

And get in better shape.

Lee

More puppy

I have been trying to take him for a walk on some singletrack everyday. I am pleased with the way he stays with me and his ability to move at a fast pace. I think I'll ride around our house a bit and see if he follows me.

We might name him Ronin. I still like Ruffles but I am the only one. I like it for two reasons.

1. Ruffles has ridges

2. I could teach him to say his name. "rrrruffles"

Ronin is good too.

Kennedy creek falls

Last weekend Kerry and I took a bike/hike to Kennedy Creek Falls. The falls aren't too far out of town. They are on land owned by a logging company. I am so used to seeing private proterty and no trespassing signs that I had to take a picture of this

So even though it is private property we were allowed to ride our bikes and hike around. Cool. No fires, No trucks, No motorbikes. I don't see anything about beer or guns. I'm sure those are fine.

Later on I saw another sign that basically said that you can do whatever you want as long as you stay away from the loggers and logging trucks and if you hurt yourself than you were probably doing something stupid and you deserve it so you're on your own. Sweet.

We followed a logging road for a few miles. The map I had showed a logging road leading right to where I thought the falls were so we planned on riding our cross bikes to it and then having a picnic once we got there. I had loaded some waypoints into my little GPS unit so we would know which way to go when the road splits. These logging roads are pretty organic and it always seems to me that they come and go as they please. Every year some are made fresh and others just go away. The forest reclaims land pretty quickly up here.

The map turned out to be over 10 years old and the road we wanted to take has been blocked off for some time now. It was turning back into a singletrack. Normally I would have been stoked but after all the windstorms this year, there were trees down all over the "trail". The trail was also pretty soggy at parts. We ended up just hiding the bikes in the woods a few miles in because we were having such a hard time carrying them over and around all the fallen trees. I can honestly say that if we didn't have my GPS we would have turned around. The trail was degrading so bad we weren't sure if we were going anywhere. We were relieved to find a road about 400 yards from where the falls were supposed to be on my GPS. We found out later that if we had wanted to we could have taken a few different turns and just ridden fire road the whole way there. If we hadn't ditched our bikes we could have taken it back to the car but we were forced to return the way we had arrived.

Once we got there and saw the falls it was all worth it. I had a hard time taking photos. The falls were raging because of all the snow and rain that had fallen in the previous week. There are a series of drops. The first is pretty small. I would consider going over it in an innnertube. The second one seemed to be about 40 feet straight down. It had sheer rock walls and plummeted down what looks like a slot in the rock. The sides of the slot show octagonal formations of igneous rock. I am not a geologist but it looks like some kind of basalt crystals or something. It was hard to photograph the whole falls without falling into the pool below. I hope to get some more shots from the bottom later this summer. The only way I could see to get to the bottom was to crawl along the side of the cliff and somehow make it to the wider area of riverbank below. I wasn't about to try it in my SPD shoes!

This is looking downriver at the top of the falls

This is the big drop. Click to enlarge and see the basalt.

This is the best shot I could get.

I think there are a few more smaller falls down stream but I haven't been able to get to them yet.

I felt like this was a pretty cool waterfall and a great hike but for some reason the trail isn't marked at all and there is almost no info about it on the web. It was kinda hard to find it. For this reason I will not give any information about where it is. If you want to see it or go there you will have to go there with someone who knows where it is. Like me.

Puppy

We now have a puppy.

He is a Lab and Rhodesian Ridgeback mix. The puppies were unplanned. There were seven.

.

Our neighbor has the Ridgeback and our landlords had the Lab.

I think we got the biggest one. Kerry loves big dogs, me I like the medium size ones. I am kina medium size myself.

He was born right before Thanksgiving. We are having a hard time coming up with a name for him. I am open to suggestions. My first two ideas were shot down.

1. Klaus

2. Ruffles

I also wanted a cool bike related name but all I could think of was "shanchion".

I am planning on making him into a good mtn biking dog. Right now all he wants to do is bite stuff.

I took him to the park for his first walk this morning. He isn't too fond of riding in the car yet. It seems to make his food come out his mouth. I thought all dogs loved vw vans? His manners were exceptional on the trail. Here he is digging for a clam or something.

where have I been

I recieved a reminder e-mail from littlemonkeytown the other day about a shortness of information on my blog. I needed a small prod.

I have been working at olybikes and thats about it. I haven't been riding offroad too much lately, just commuting. I got a new phone with cingular and it has a 2 megapix camera so it will become my primary camera now, it also plays MP3. So I got that going for me, which is nice.

We drove to the beach just cause we could two weeks ago. It is the winter up here so no tanning and lying on the sand.

I took that pic with my phone.

took a hike

Took a trip up to the forest the other day. It has been nice and sunny lately. Still pretty cold but not raining at all. We rode our bikes the day before, this day we only had time for a hike. This is the veiw from Capitol Peak.





All the forest below us is fair game for riding, all year long. There is 166 miles of singletrack and 575 miles of gravel roads. The forest area is 91,650 acres. The trails are closed to motorcycles and horses in the winter but mtn bikes and hikers are still allowed. It snows a bit in the winter and rains a whole lot but you can still ride all year long if you can handle being a bit cold.

The video isn't clear enough to see the all the volcanoes so here is a still picture of the view from the peak.



Sweet

Finally, we ride our mtn bikes.

We've had such horrible weather all winter that we haven't ridden off road at all. Except once right when we moved here when we had a chance to ride at Dash Point State Park with Whitey. That was in November. Needless to say with the recent dry spell and temps soaring up into the high 40's Kerry and I couldn't wait to get out there and explore. The weather had been clear and sunny all week. As soon as we were loaded up and hit the road to the forest it started raining. We pressed on anyway, both of us have an obscene amount of foul weather clothing. We decided to do a short ride called Fall Creek #3. It was great.

We hit some mud at the bottom of the trail.

On sunday we rode part of the Mt. Molly loop. It's a motorcycle trail so it's much wider and has berms. The trail was in pretty good shape. Here's a little sample.

and Kerry




It was fun.

There's still some snow up there.

I can't wait to ride these trails in spring!