Trying To Stay Regular...

I attempted to get back to blogging a while back and stopped again.  No excuse.  I'm just plain lazy and forgetful.  I'm really trying, Ringo.

Well, I'm trying again.

So let's just jump right in.  I've been pretty regular on the social medias during my hiatus at least, posting pictures of rides I've been doing.  And yes, I've been riding...  a lot.  Those that follow along know that I've changed things up a bit but only a few know exactly why.  I have some big shit planned (coming up in a few months), but there is a reason why I started planning this big shit.  And not just so I could write the work "shit" repeatedly.  Shit.  Uh, I mean, who gives a shit.

I always used to say, "I ride all kinds of bikes, but I'm primarily a mountain biker."  I said that shit like it meant something special.  And it did (to me), at the time.  I loved riding in the woods on trails more than any other kind of bicycle riding.

Noticed I said "loved."  I somehow got into a funk and just got burned out on the whole scene.  Local trails were boring to me.  Mostly because everything is pretty much the same nowadays (with few exceptions.)  People want that fast, smooth, and "flowy" shit, so everything you see is just that.  But it's boring.  I like that stuff sometimes, but when that's all everyone wants to ride (and build) it gets old really quick.  And I really don't get it either.  Most folks I see are riding full suspension machines built for them thar hills because they are "comfortable", but my full rigid singlespeed is just as comfortable to me.  I enjoy suffering though.  I'm also an idiot. 

And that's the other thing.  Everyone keeps jumping onto the next "new thing", trying to play keep up in a game that's designed (by bike industry people) not to be won.  And honestly, it's not just prevalent in the bike world.  People do that all the time in everyday life.  Some may call it clever marketing, but I think people are just sheep and want what everyone else tells them they should want.  I'm no innovator or trendsetter by any means, which I guess explains why I don't feel the need to stay with the times.  But if this shit keeps up, everyone will be riding electric bikes on paved paths and pump tracks, comparing Strava times likes it's an old fashioned dick measuring contest.  No, thank you.

Anyway, this is not a rant and this is just like, my opinion , man.  I made the conscious decision to do my own thing, because trying to do what everyone else does is just so exhausting.  Racing was fun for me when I did it, and sure, I miss riding with most of my bike friends.  But while they are worried about their PRs and how much travel that new bike they saw has, I just want to go on adventures.  That's really what this is all about...

Adventure.  I yearned for it.

When I was a kid I rode my bike everywhere and is was always an adventure.  When I started riding again as an adult, I was able to capture that feeling of adventure again.  Eventually, I started being like everyone else and didn't even notice that feeling was gone.  But when I was stuck in a job that kept me traveling all the time, I managed to find some adventures every time I went to a new city.  Unfortunately, that turned out to be the only time I was able to ride.  Once I was free from traveling for work, I decided I would try to do more adventure riding.

It started with the road bike, mostly because loading a bike on my truck, driving to a trail, and riding in circles didn't seem like much of an adventure to me.  But the road wasn't really doing it for me.  I wanted more, and I definitely missed being off road. A buddy of mine told me about a shortcut to the trails near my house, so I started exploring that area.  Those boring (I've ridden them a bunch over the years) trails became fun again, because of how I got to them.  Not having a predefined path to ride was exciting...

I started doing that for a while, and the destination didn't even matter anymore.  I was having adventures in the woods, instead of trying to see how fast I could finish a particular trail.  Then it dawned on me...

Is this what those bikepacking people do?  I wasn't sure since I had never really paid much attention to it before.  I thought it was just another form of gravel grinding, i.e. dirt roadie shit.  Maybe it was, but it was starting to look fun to me.  It was riding a bike, and bikes are supposed to be fun.  I needed to find my fun again...

Could this be it?

Just like everything else I do, I jumped right in.  I did a little research, made some ridiculous plans (more on that later), and even asked one friend who I knew had some great knowledge about bikepacking (shoutout as promised to James.)  I took a bike that hasn't seen much use since I stopped racing, and starting putting some bags on it.

What was I supposed to put in those bags?  I had no idea.  I just knew I needed bags.  Then I started planning rides.  Hours of staring at Google Maps, local knowledge, and a little luck allowed me to find some cool(ish) routes.  I hit paved roads, gravel, powerline cuts, and singletrack.  And even some bushwhacking for good measure.  Riding bikes was fun again.

This was a dramatic change for me.  I had been in a funk and bikes just weren't as fun as they once were.  I remember being on a trail, even riding with friends, wishing we would hurry TF up and get to the end.  I was never in the moment, instead just going through the motions.  Once I started these new little adventures though, hours would pass before I would realize that I was tired and probably should start heading home.  It was a huge difference for sure.

And it was only the beginning.

Some Like It Hot

Me.

I'm talking about me (surprise.)

I've been in North Carolina for a little over ten years.  I love it here.  I had a little trouble getting acclimated to the cold temps in the winter, but summer was always easy.  I mean, Florida and all that.

So yeah, I'm back to riding (and talking about it) again.  The funny thing is, I had to force myself to do both of them.  I had some things to do over the weekend, but I promised myself I would get out for a ride.  And just some roadie shit, either (I've done plenty of that.)  I needed something...

An adventure!

I didn't have time (nor do I have the fitness right now) to head for the hills, so luckily there are lots of unexplored trails by me that I can hit from the house.  I grabbed The Executor and headed down the street.  It has become customary on all of my rides now to stop and talk with my friends, so I did.

My horse friends always love to shoot the shit with me.

Then I stopped to check out a little ass, but the little ass was checking me out...

After that, it was a little bit of pavement (~1 mile) until I hit the woods.  It's not normally so bad except that it was getting close to one hundred degrees out there.  Did I mention that I waited until almost high noon to depart for this ride?

Dumbass.

Anyway, I found my super-secret trail (I'll tell you if you ask) and hit the fun shit.  Words cannot express how good it felt to be out in the woods on an actual mountain bike. 

Mostly because I sucks at words.  So, here's a photo...

I've been through here before, but there are tons of unexplored (to me) trails that I'd been meaning to check out.  It's mostly four-wheeler type stuff, but fun just the same.  I took off in a different direction this time to see what I could get myself into.

Most of that was a vegetable tunnel, but still very much rideable.  The fact that I wasn't riding on well-groomed cookie cutter singletrack made it worth the cuts and scrapes the bushes gave me.

Mucho exploration.  I had nowhere to be for a while, and even though it was hotter than two rats fucking in a wool sock outside I felt pretty good.  My goal was to ride stuff I hadn't been on before, so I did.  I just rode.  

 Eventually I popped out of the woods and into familiar-ish territory.

In the past, I'd always popped out way over yonder.

Out in the sun now and it was getting hotter.  I was digging it so I kept going.

It was a damn fine day.  I took the road back home and noticed that my Garmin said it was 105 degrees outside. 

That was perfect for an old Florida boy like me.

Plus, my friends out in the desert would probably be happy to have temps that low.

Where was I?

Oh yeah, done for today.  That was rad.

More Time On The Water

We've had so much rain here lately that I can't stand it.  That really messes with the little bit of time that I have for bike riding, but I guess "we need it."  I just like to be outside and standing out in the rain isn't what I mean.

Luckily, I haz other things to do.  A few weeks ago, the little lady decided to get with the program and buy herself a kayak so she could join me out on the river.  She hadn't been in one in quite a while, so before we left the store we made sure that she would be okay in her new one.

We pretended that the floor was water.

  She didn't drown in the store so we figured that a trip up the river would be fine.  With all the rain we've been getting, the water was higher and moving faster, and it looks not so pretty.

Yes, we paddled up the ol' Poop River.

Yes, the water looked like shit, but it was nice.  Smelled fine, and we mostly had the place to ourselves.  That allowed the little lady some time to explore and get comfortable in her new boat.

She had a blast (and I did too.)  We paddled around for hours, only coming back in because we required a lunch.  And Little Miss Sunshine made a new friend too.  The nice fella that runs the boat ramp found out that she liked wine, and promptly returned with some homemade stuff for her.

Wine in a jar?  Man, I love North Carolina.

It was nice to have company out on the river.  Now that the little lady has her own boat though, I needed to get my ass moving on that trailer.  Remember?  Well, I had some plans and after getting my supplies, I started making my own kayak trailer.

I didn't take any other pictures during the build process.  I got to the end (where I was making sure they fit on there properly) and said, "Oh shit, I need moar photos."

Mostly finished.  I say mostly because I still have to pull it apart and treat/coat the wood parts.  Other than that, it's perfect.  They both fit on their nice, and when strapped down they won't move one little bit.

With this trailer setup, I think we may taking our adventures a little further away from "our" river.  Maybe the Lowcountry?  Florida?  Yeah, those sound like good ideas.

See y'all tomorrow since I might be on a roll with this blogging stuff.

Part Two For No Particular Reason

Continued from yesterday.  Duh.

We were just sitting there drinking beer and watching this girl hang out on the zipline.  It seemed like forever.  I wasn't worried because we had plenty of beer, but I reckon that she was concerned.  A while later, some guy (that works there presumably) rolled out on the line to attempt a daring rescue.

He pulled her back in and it was all over.  Not very dramatic I must admit, but it made for good entertainment.  We decided that we should head out, so after the beer was consumed we rolled out on our bikes to hit one last trail on our way out.  I was joking about how Lunchbox always gets a flat when we ride mountain bikes and that we finally made it through a ride without that happening.  I was happy, but I know he was.  We exited the park and hit the road home.

About a mile from the house, we hit a downhill and I was flying.  I looked over my shoulder for a second, and I noticed that my two companions were falling way behind.  I turned around to head back, and when I got to them I saw this:

Less than two miles from home, on pavement, and the man-child got another flat tire.  He has such bad luck.  Luckily Ed had a tube so we were on our way pretty quickly.  Once we got back into the neighborhoods, Lunchbox had apparently forgotten about his flat tire.  

He was back to having fun again.

Despite the small issue, it was a great adventure.  I said it before, but I'm happy to be in a new place that lets me ride to some fun trails pretty easily.  We decided that some Mexican food was in order at this point, so we cleaned up and headed down the road to eat.

The little lady decided to join us at this point too.

The food was good, but the highlight has to be when Ed shouted out, "Found him!"  Unsure what he was talking about, I took a picture to see who he he'd spotted.

Have no idea who this is?  Mebbe Lunchbox's clever edit will give you a big hint:

It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be.

Mountain biking, beer, a daring rescue, and Waldo.

Such a rad day.

Back In The Saddle

It's finally Spring.  And it's beautiful outside.  And damn it, I was determined to get out on the bike.  Saturday didn't pan out because the kid and I ended up hanging out together doing other stuff and forgot about the time.  But, there was always Sunday...

Luckily, a ride would not escape me on the last day of the weekend.  My pal Ed from down yonder in the Lowcountry was headed up for a work thingy, and he decided to drop in a day early to stay with us so we could go ride.  And as a bonus, Lunchbox was down to get dirty too.

Hell yes.

We decided to try my backcountry adventure over to the Whitewater Center because well, Ed is pretty much down for anything.  He just wanted to have fun on the bike, and that was the best I could do to guarantee it.  Lunchbox was different...

"Don't kill me."

That's funny.  He's a very technically skilled mountain biker and he's been riding on fat tires since he was four years old.  He doesn't ride as much as he once did (working full time and going to school and all), but he's still in good enough shape to hang with pretty much anyone.  I told him not to worry and we headed on our way.  A short jaunt through a neighborhood and down the paved road put us in the dirt.

These weren't really mountain bike trails, but they were fun as shit.  Sloppy, rooty, rocky, and pretty much everything a good bike ride should have.  The climbs were steep sometimes and required bits of walking...

  No shame in walking.

We weren't out there to have some good Strava segment or anything like that.  Nope.  And no punk ass gravel or silly roadie shit for us either.  It was pure gnarly.

Lunchbox can ride.  And he does it well.  The photo above doesn't do any justice to that descent either.  It was steep as shit.  Just how we like it.

While we did get a few pictures (obviously), our purpose wasn't to have a photo shoot.  We just wanted to ride.  Ed wanted some local Charlotte dirt specials, and Lunchbox wanted to do some product testing for DeFeet and show the average everyday consumer that people that work in the bike industry do in fact ride mountain bikes for fun.

Okay, maybe that last part was my idea.  He still rides for fun though.

Anyway, after our uncharted adventure we finally ended up on some "real" trails.  We didn't take any photos though, but it was still fun nonetheless.  And then suddenly, Ed and I could not resist the temptation of beer.

So we haz.

It was warm outside and we had cold beer (the kid had a sports drink because he's under age.)  We parked ourselves by the man-made river to watch the kayaks and rafts go by for a while.

It was relaxing I guess, but something much more excited was happening.  See those zipline wires up above?  We looked up at one point and some a lady stuck on one.

She was there for a while.  I mean, long enough to wonder if anyone (other than those of us below) knew she was there.  We waited...

and waited...

Nothing happened.

Until the next time I get back here for blogging...

Mebbe tomorrow.

We Make Anything Fun

I took another week off from here for some reason.  Wait, I know the reason...

Who gives a shit.  I do this for fun (and mebbe entertaining you fine folks), so when I don't have a chance to post anything, I don't.  No stress for me.  Awesome.

I've actually been pretty busy.  Work has been crazy but I've also managed to have some fun.  And by fun I mean riding bikes.  Just like always, I'll start with the most recent and work backwards.  And yeah, it involves road bikes again.

I wanted an adventure that wouldn't kill me but more importantly, I wanted the little lady to join me.  I told her we would take a nice, leisurely stroll through the 'hood on skinny tires.  I wasn't completely honest though.  I had a plan, but I didn't want her to know that I'd planned on getting her to ride into the city. We started like most of my rides out of the house, with our new horse friends.

I really should take the time to learn their names.

We had a short visit since they were eating so we rolled out.  We took some nice, easy roads that had little to no traffic.  The little lady kept saying she didn't want to be out all day, so a six hour death march was out of the question.  I kept it fun though, and before we knew it we were in the city.  She was having fun still, so my plan was working.  We hopped on a local greenway to make this a much less serious ride.

Suddenly, we had to stop.  While rounding a corner we both noticed that her rear tire was flat.  We pulled over and I offered to help, but she was all, "I got this!"

A small sharp object was removed from her tire and the tube was replaced.  Moments later, we were on our way.  At this point we were just wandering around, kinda sorta thinking about heading back home.

She wasn't quite ready to go home yet though.  She wanted to hit a local brewery and knew there were a few close by.  She grabbed her phone to see which one was closest, while I looked on.

Across the street, I spotted something hilarious.  I rolled over there to investigate.

Hong Phat, you so funny.  

Just when I thought it couldn't get any funnier, I spotted a note on the door of this run-down restaurant...

"Wi'll see your soon!"

The little lady had enough of my picture taking.  She wanted beer.  We hauled ass outta there (all downhill too) and shortly we arrived at Blue Blaze Brewing. 

Beer was had...

We hung out for a while, but we had to get back home.  She didn't want to be out all day, but I "tricked" her into riding all the way into the city.  She retaliated by "tricking" me into going for beer.  

We both win.

The ride home was pleasant for the most part, until the skies opened up about three miles from the house.  It was raining hard and the temperature dropped about ten degrees...

But it was fun as hell.  

Another adventure in the books.  This riding for fun thing is definitely the way to go.

The Adventure Continues

I meant to be here yesterday, but I had to be at work earlier than normal.  When I left off Friday I was still rambling on about the trip I took with the little lady.  We still had one more day of riding left, but as exciting as it was I won't go on and on about it.

I'll just mention the flat tire that I got...

That little fella there in the background didn't help me change it either.  Bastard.

It was an awesome ride but that's all I'll say about it.  I'll move on to another adventure:

I stayed local this weekend.  Other than doing stuff around the house, I actually got out for a ride (as pictured above.)  Obviously this ride was on a mountain bike.  I feel like I've been on the road bike too much lately anyway.  Besides, where I was going there were no roads.

Or at least I was trying to avoid them as much as I could.

I had a destination in mind but no set plan to get there.  I didn't want to stay on those railroad tracks forever though.  Off in the distance I spotted a dirt road so I took it.

Ups and downs and definitely rideable.  And the best part was no people.  Eventually that "road" dipped off into the trees and I rode deeper into the woods.  I felt like I was in the middle of nowhere.

Soon, that was confirmed.

Spent shotgun shells are always a good ride find.

The "trail" split off several times and I randomly took different paths.  In no time I'd reached a creek.

I didn't cross it, but instead stayed on my current path.  I climbed a big hill where I found a view that reminded me of being up in the mountains.  After that climb and corresponding view I got to go down.  That was fun.  More up and down followed, and I exited the "trail" out in the middle of a field.  I had a clear view from there, so I headed towards a road.  

Under the bridge I went, and after some sweet singletrack I'd reached my destination...

That's right.  I road my bike to the Whitewater Center again.  Who gives a shit.  This time though, I only spend a little over a mile on pavement and the rest was off road.  I was excite.  A few short miles from my house without dodging cars and I was at the doorstep of some of the best trail in Charlotte.

The best part about this newest adventure was that there are many more trails I left "undiscovered."  I can't wait to get back out there again to see what else I can ride out in the "middle of nowhere."  A few people have shown interest too, so if you're one of them don't worry.  I'll get at you the next time I go.

Just meet me in my driveway.