opening day

a low-key opening day
cold dry snow
good surface early

The Eddie happened this week for the first time in 4 years. Jaws opened up too. There was even a good piece on the Eddie on All Things Considered.

Since I didn't get my invite to this year's Pipeline Masters, I guess I won't be going to Hawaii this weekend (lefts are not good for me anyway...). I figure Whitetail is a good enough proxy. Been watching all this Wx and Lake Effect as usual, and looking to all the regional ski lifts to see when they'll spin, and to see how much they'll serve this weekend. The kid and I got the jones.

It seems pretty odd that Whitetail will probably be the best option within 4-5 hours for this weekend. Cuz their lifts only go bottom-top, they have to open bottom-top. Others like Blue Knob and Seven Sprgs. will open with only about 300'-400' vertical, and places like Wisp and Hidden Valley only have about 700' to work with when they're fully open. Denton is probably in that 4-5 range for me, and could possibly be the best option if a 2-day is possible..

The other annual irony is that snow farming beats snow making again. A trip there with the kid is also possible so we can upsize his gear thru the really cool WG kids program.

running home after the first day as a 2nd-grader

winter rules

the ratio of ride time : post-ride time has been shifting over the past few rides

backyard in PA

Just had to post this,

this was done with all hand tools
with no imported dirt
steep fast buff
voluptuous, it has been aptly described

ephemeral lines

the timber sale

Dysfunkshun junkshun

the sale from 3 years ago

4th Street

desired terrains

BQ
noon patrol
high road
low road
creek trails
sought and missed the Lion

urban

More stuff on the way?

"Two hundred years of American technology
has unwittingly created a
massive cement playground of unlimited potential.
But it was the minds of 11 year olds
that could see that potential."
C.R. Stecyk

IMBA Epic

Looks like our our trip to Spruce Knob a couple months ago bore some fruit and helped result in a designation of "IMBA Epic", which will hopefully keep the Big Bad W from blowing down that house for a while.

Pretty sure this is Joel, taken by Mumbles last Fall

Helmet

Helmet smacked earth hard. First time hitting anything other than a low branch. Thought of all those laps I've done at the pump track w/o a helmet on. First lap, lofted over the first double roller, hit the second one OK I thought, but I slid off the side and the front wheel turned. There was none of that plenty of time to think on the way to the ground on this one. Nanosecond.Crunch.WTF
Sore jaw, really sore arm, sore shoulder, lat and neck. Lucky.

I should mention that the Man, Jessee, is in the pump track design-build business. I know many peeps have asked me about who can build these things for them. He can do it. Landscape Architect, free rider, downhiller, pump tracker, xc-er. He knows how to get it done. Just add dirt.

PT v. 2.0

My new ride

new things to ride

When that last heavy chunk of clay rolled off the tri-axle dump on Wednesday, I hit the panic button. How is this huge load of heavy-ass dirt gonna get moved and spread and shaped into fun ridable jumpy things? By Saturday? I start calling friends with skid-loaders and asked questions like, "So, um, hows it going? Do you happen to have a Bobcat and a skilled driver available?.. like this afternoon, ...and willing to do it for free......?" Those calls proved pretty unfruitful, so I rented a skid-steer for a few hours to move one pile into smaller, better located piles.

Superhero Jessee arrives on scene with skid skillz, tape measure, flags, paint and gets to work laying it out. He's not sure about my S-turn idea, but we go ahead and dump several buckets and a few hours on it while the clock and daylight tick away. We finish it and try to ride it, and it wasn't happening at all. Triple-check the Pump Track Nation diagram, shake our heads and do a little more shaving and tweaking. A few more test rides by us and some kids that showed up, and we're doing more damage to the S every time we try to ride it. The entrance to the S is real tricky, and it now affects the original non-S line as well. We give up on the S for a while and start moving dirt for the new rollers.

the Man

The rollers went in pretty easily, helped along by 3 locals who stopped by and helped at various times during the 3 days. The original gaps were looking a little big and the first test rides showed that. We softened the landings, knowing that everyone was gonna come up short for a while. Jessee built a drop-in that helped get some speed, which then proved to be a little unnecessary by Saturday. By Saturday the S had miraculously turned ridable too.

cool to have the PA Mountain Bike Club leaders here to burn in the new lines. It's like we have a brand new pump track now. Thanks to everyone.

Ben set up a cool trials demo for the club leaders to watch and brought a couple spare trials bikes to try. Most of it was far tough for us gutless xc riders.

36 degrees this AM

Oliver's been asking to ride his bike to school several times lately,
hard to say no to that

the school is just up the hill a few blocks from this

leaving a Mark

Sounds like Jake's celebration was big time. Sounds like most of the 'cakes got a hold of a bad batch of Makers Mark, cuz it didn't sound like it stayed down much. Phunky heads and bellies gave me a rare chance to see something other than the back for a change.

a nice run

Have had 3 Michaux rides in the past 5 days. I feel like a logstar. I didn't get that much in during any part of the prep season. I got to ride with some kids from the BOPR that I've never ridden with before. Have known them all, but never ridden with them. They were pretty tolerant of my chattyness and alternate line choices.

Another qwality loop, this one pretty concentrated for 2 hours before dark. There are some worthy lines in the Caledonia area. Some nice logs in that sector.