Ups And Downs

Life got in the way.  Things happen.  I wasn’t here.  I had some other things going on and free time (i.e. blogging time) was hard to come by.  But lucky for you I’m back.

Who gives a shit.

I guess I can do my best to get back to “regular” blogging, starting with catching up.  I know I have a lot of visitors here that don’t know me on The Facebook, so you either had no idea where I’ve been or you've forgotten about me all together.  That’s cool.  I get that all the time.  Anyway, in case you weren’t aware, Lunchbox had a shitty day not too long ago.

  

Long story short, he was on his way to work early one morning when a lady (not paying attention) tried to cut across two lanes to make a u-turn and side swiped him while he was driving at highway speed.  This sent him into the median and tore his little car the hell up.  He was uninjured somehow, but his car was totaled.  He loved his car and was really sad about the whole thing.  The hard part was yet to come. 

We had to deal with her insurance (she was cited for "Failure to Yield"), and while they worked on the issue I drove a rental and let my kid use my truck to get back and forth to work.  I knew that his little car would never make it back to us so I spent the better part of a week and a half shopping for something new(er) for me.  This was by far the worst part (other than finding out my kid was in an accident of course.)  Instead of buying him another little car, I gave him my reliable truck (which is the one he used to learn to drive) and drove the rental until finally I found what I wanted.

Chevy Tahoe.  Because ‘Merica. 

With my long legs I knew I needed another large truck thingy, and without the need for an actual truck I started looking for a big, gas-guzzling SUV.  The Tahoe fit the bill and I drove it home late last week.  Now I can take moar people along when I go places, which more than not will be mountain cycle related.  The kid is unharmed, he got a new (to him) truck, and so did I.  Everybody wins.

I broke the new vehicle in by taking a trip down to the Lowcountry over the weekend.  There was this big gravel grind event going on and I got talked into it.  I’ve never really understood the appeal of grinding or gravel, but the fact that it was being held in the swamp at night with plenty of beer was enough to get me to drive down there.

What the hell did I get myself into?

I’ll get into it tomorrow.

Srsly.  I’ll be back.

We’ve Been Busy

While there’s no official name yet for “The Trail”, that doesn’t mean that we’re not getting shit done.  We have a small crew out there on the regular busting our collective asses to make this the best local playground we can. 

Just ask TomTom:

That really steep ridge was nearly impossible to ride across, so we had to do something.  Luckily, there is an abundance of cedar to use to make some retaining walls.

That will make a big difference when you descend one of the optional exits in the Irish Graveyard:

Now we just had to keep the trail moving past that point.

You know, because not everyone wants to die an Olde Irish Death.  Except Irish Luke, who for some reason wants to kill us all.

Meanwhile, we needed another wall to get across that steep ridge.  You know, for those of us that don’t have the balls to test our luck on the mighty rocks.  Good Guy Greg was kind enough to rustle up some more cedar logs.

We built a longer wall this time, and now the ridge is passable.  You won’t have to ride the rocks above, and it will keep you from falling to your death in the creek below.  Did I mention that this trail is pretty tough?  Well, it is.  And yes, we’ll let you come out to ride it.  Better yet, you can come out to help us build it.

It’s really turning into something nice, and we’re all about sharing here at B-43.

I’ll be back out there this weekend, and I might even go ride somewhere else too.

See y’all Monday

Nothing Can Stop Me

Even though I’m still on call for work (this is the last night for a while), I managed to find some time to get on my bike.  One of those times was out at Fisher Farm in nearby Davidson for a little single speed action.  After getting out there by myself for a while, I rolled through the parking lot to refill my bottles before I headed back out for another lap.  I noticed that I had some company…

Little Miss Sunshine decided to show up and ride with me.

And she apparently had an issue with her sock selection.

She also brought her single speed, and we took another lap around the trail.  I’m really amazed at how much of a better rider she’s becoming just from riding her SS.  I asked told her how I am starting to prefer riding only one gear all the time, and asked if she would be doing the same in the near future.

“No, I like my gears.”

I used to say that too.

Riding a single speed has done wonders for my strength on the climbs, and I really like the fact that she’s getting the same benefit.  I’ll keep pushing her to give up the gears, because I know it’s the right thing to do.  She has fun every time she rides it, and she can keep up with me just fine.

The single speed…this is the weapon of a Jedi.  Not as clumsy or random as a geared bike, an elegant weapon for more civilized days.

I got in another ride, but I didn’t take any photos.  That’s too bad, because the Dirty Party Cycle made an appearance.  He doesn’t get out my way too much these days.

I think I’m done for today.  I got a lot of shit going on. 

I should be back here tomorrow though…

Testing

I’m busy. Way too busy to be on here posting a bunch of nonsense. I’m busy with other nonsense, if you must know. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. Let’s just say that I’ve been looking for things, and planning for other things. It may be interesting, but most likely it will be about the same as usual around here.


Since I won’t be blessing you with my words, I’ll give you something else. Yes, another video. This is from my trip to Bent Creek a little while back. It’s the last of the footage I had from my GoPro, so I thought I should put it on the Internets. It’s from what I think is the best trail out there at Bent Creek, a little gem called Green’s Lick. The trail is fun, super fast, pucker your asshole kinda downhill. You go a lot faster than you want to on this section of singletrack goodness. The danger factor and penalty for failure is pretty high; just the way I like it.

The first park of the video is the trail, followed by a fast, smooth fireroad descent. Even though it’s fireroad, the loose gravel combined with excess speed can be tricky. I dig that. I also went in a different direction with the music, using a little Flogging Molly. Enjoy.





See y’all tomorrow with my weekend itinerary.