Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Brief unplanned vacation

Sarah had to make an appearance in court today in Gunnison (don't ask, I'm not explaining) so we made a day of it (well, we didn't have a choice - it's a 5 hour drive each way) and rode with CB Steve and his narc friend Pete (dude, I hate narcs...)

Highlights of our 3.5 hour ride at Hartman:
-My front brake stopped working at about mile 3. F*&^ing XTR... should never have "upgraded"...
-My chain managed to wrap itself into the gap between the chainrings (dinglespeed) so tightly that I had to remove the wheel to get everything working again. Given that my drivetrain is on year 4 (yes, including the chain) I guess it's not surprising that weird stuff is starting to go wrong. Maybe I should spend $25 on a new ring and chain.
-My lockring fell off my hub, and Pete and I had to brainstorm like McGyver to get it back on tightly (eventual solution, jam a screwdriver in lockring, put the wheel in the frame, spin wheel forward while keeping screwdriver jammed against frame).
-Steve got stung like 50 times on the head by a wasp, and did a flying half-backflip trying to ride up what looked like a 3 foot rock wall.
-Sarah taco'd *another* wheel (that's 2 in a month) on Rattlesnake and we had to whack it rollable again. Luckily that was about 10 minutes from the car.

We also learned how to interpret Steve's riding vocabulary:
-"Little stinger coming up here" = "Forget trying to ride this next bit"
-"Cool move coming up" = "No way in hell you can ride this, but watch me flip over backwards trying."
-"We only ride these trails like once a year" = "If you deviate from my line, you will probably die"

As usual, I took no pictures. Sorry. Was the ride worth the 10 hour drive? Probably not, but it was a pleasant diversion in an otherwise not terribly pleasant day.

6 comments:

Reid said...

Hmm, I saw that Michael Jackson's death was ruled a homicide yesterday. Coincidence? I think not.

Lance said...

look on the bright side, you should have gotten all of the fail out of the bikes for a while and you can look forward to trouble-free riding for the rest of the year :)

Nowork said...

Walt....

Wear pants and you won't end up in court!

Seriously!!!

And I mean the British description of "pants" !

steve garro said...

awesome day!!!!!! i got a rust ring dremmeled out of my eye a few days ago if that makes you feel any better.....Steve Garro, Coconino Cycles.

Anonymous said...

Hilarious!

Ed said...

We were at the Southern Sun this evening when I asked why you weren't there, EZ told me to check in on your tasteless blog. So I did.

Funny.

Ed