Winter Park finale, mini-vacation

So, Chris has my camera, so no pictures until I get it back, but you can see a little bit of what Sarah and I were up to at Gooney Riders.

The Tipperary race is a classic, and for good reason - it's got almost every kind of terrain (from wet roots to perfect hardpack), it's long (almost 26 miles, 4k+ feet of climbing), and it's been going for more than a decade. Plus it draws the big names - Jimmy Mortenson narrowly beat out Lance Armstrong on this course in 1999, and this weekend's race drew JHK, Heather, Georgia Gould, Keri Barnholt, and a lot of other top pros. I've raced it three times (counting this last one) and until Saturday, I'd never made the start on time. I don't know what my problem is, but I seem to never make the starts of the races that start across the valley in Frasier.

In any case, I actually managed to make my start (the announcer was saying "3...2..." as I rolled up to the line) and I immediately launched a glorious solo attack on the initial 3 mile flat fire road section. Needless to say, I quickly spun out/blew up and settled back into the pack. Ended up dead last into the singletrack somehow, but picked it back up and passed a ton of folks on the initial long climb and descent. I fought back and forth with 3 or 4 guys in the middle section of the course, then blew up spectacularly in the last 1/3 of the race and ended up 9th of 36 finishers. My lack of time on the bike since the shoulder injury definitely showed - I was pedaling squares by the end of the race. Jeremy won and set a course record of 1:41 - that's over 15mph on a serious mountain bike course with a lot of climbing. Wow! Notably, he and Heather (who won the women's pro race) both rode 29ers. Cool.

Sarah bonked and finished in the middle of the expert pack somewhere, but held on for the series overall. Tary was 2nd or 3rd and won her beginner series, and Brian K ended up 4th overall in the very competitive expert 30-34 category. Good times. We hung around for the raffle, in which I won a 26" tire (yay!) and a cheesy compass/whistle/thermometer thing. Sweet.

Sunday was a sweet, epic ride, followed by a lot of beer drinking and stupidity. Check out gooneyriders for Eszter's take on the shenanigans, I might write something up when I have some photos to share. Let's just say that the weekend included almost 8 hours of riding and the consumption of a herculean amount of alcohol and ice cream. Best weekend of the summer, IMO.

They totally copied me!

Was I the inspiration for this with my "free IMBA membership with bike" program? Probably not, but big props to Trek for putting THEIR money where their mouths are. "One key aspect of the program will create a US$10 'tax' on all full-suspension bicycles sold by Trek beginning August 1st, with the projected total to estimate US$600,000. That money will then be donated to IMBA (International Mountain Bike Foundation) to support its trail usage and advocacy programs."

I'm not sure why hardtails aren't worthy, but whatever. Full squishers are probably 90% of Trek's mountain bike sales anyway, and $600k is nothing to sneeze at.

Natalie's pink singlespeed

Ok, maybe this isn't that interesting, but I thought it was a nice picture. This is a frame that I originally was building as Sarah's new race bike for this year. But thanks to some big-time stupidity, I managed to set the head tube height on the fixture wrong, and so I hung the front triangle on the wall and started over - doh. As luck would have it, our good friend Natalie in Tucson can ride a bike that's almost exactly the same toptube length and bar height (albeit with a lower saddle) as Sarah. So one thing led to another, I finished the bike up with some Paul dropouts and a few geometry tweaks to make things ride right, and Natalie has a new frame. Best of all, I have one less potential yard ornament taking up space in the garage.

New Mexico trip report

The primary reason for this trip was to visit with my pops (who lives in Jaconita, which is about 15 miles north of Santa Fe), my sister (visiting from New Haven), and my pal McCalla (friend since 5th grade). So to start things off, here's a shot of the fam. Note the mismatched dogs (Abe is 110#, Zoe is about 6#). Don't ask how that happened. Note also my sweet choice of matching shit-brown shorts and shit-brown T6 t-shirt. Lookin' sharp!

On Friday, we rode a complicated ride with McCalla that started with a shuttle to the Aspen Vista trailhead (just below the base of the Santa Fe ski area) and climbed about 2.5k feet up to 12,056 (according to McCalla's GPS). Here's a shot of the high-altitude radio towers and the view (the ride goes up the peak on the left above us). Pretty cool to be high enough to be COLD when it was 95 degrees in town. The combination of trails (Raven's Ridge to Winsor to Chamisa to something else to Dale Ball) included over 6000 feet (honestly, maybe 7000) of descending, dumping us out about 1/2 mile from the Plaza in downtown Santa Fe. Sweet!

Saturday was a return to my old favorite ride - the Quemazon/Pipeline/Guaje Ridge/Cabra loop in Los Alamos. The Pipeline and Guaje Ridge portion is part of the uber-cool (go do it next year!) Pajarito Punishment race course. As we did it, it's a steep/rocky/technical (see the picture of Sarah on Quemazon) 3000 foot climb to a LONG (almost 10 miles, I think) singletrack descent.

The really interesting thing about most of the riding in Los Alamos is that it's been extensively restored after the Cerro Grande fire 5 years ago. Not only are there no trees (you can see the burned remnants), there's a lot less soil, too, since the tree roots (and other plants) helped hold it together. But things are recovering really nicely - the aspens have moved in and are almost 20 feet tall in some places. This shot is from about 3/4 of the way up Quemazon.

The views of town from the trail are pretty neat, now that those pesky trees aren't in the way. The Guaje Ridge and Cabra trails have been lovingly restored by the local mountain bike club and they're in great shape - honestly just as fun as ever (or more so, in the case of Cabra). Definitely worth a trip if you're passing through northern NM.


In any case, lots of fun, though the 7 hour drive wasn't so great (my back is still sore - I'm no good at long drives these days). I miss NM - hopefully I'll be able to move back there someday. Here's a final shot of Cabra trail.

Check out the Waltworks 'Cross Team...

Well, ok, to be fair, it's just Nick. But he's pretty fast, so that's good enough for me. Some of the guys at Mud and Cowbells took some shots of him at 'cross practice yesterday. Check him out, what a stud!

Big long post about NM trip coming soon, with pictures.

No fun pictures today

I'm back on the bike at 90% or so, though I'm still kinda slow on the downhill, due to the shoulder being pretty weak. I'm going to have to do some exercises before I hit the climbing gym this winter to rehab, that's for sure.

Good longish ride with Steve Z this morning - we're both used to riding with larger groups and/or slower riders, so I think we both surprised ourselves with how thrashed we were after 3 hours of hammering. Haven't ridden that hard (other than racing) in quite a while. I thought I was pretty hardcore doing my 3 hour ride, but Sarah actually took the 6:50 bus to Ned (I was on the 8:10) and only got back at 1. That's a solid 5 hours. Damn, girl...

We're off to New Mexico to ride some of my old favorites (Quemazon, Pipeline, Guaje Ridge, Winsor, Dale Ball, Captain Jack's) and some new stuff that McCalla plans to show us (Raven's Ridge?). Should be fun times. We'll be gone from tomorrow (Thursday) through Sunday night, so don't bother trying to call - my phone will probably not work at my dad's place. I probably won't check email either, so don't expect a reply until Monday if you send one.

I promise I'll take some pictures in NM and post 'em.

Downhill bike finally *done*

So I've been through a few iterations, and some various forks (at last count, a WB135, A Lyrik w/eccentric hub, an old Hanebrink, and a modified Y2K Marzocchi Junior T) but I think the setup is now finalized. This sucker takes corners like it's on rails and the combo of the big wheels (with beefy dual-casing Nevegal tires) and 6"/6.5" of travel front and rear make it pretty much capable of running over anything you're dumb enough to hit. I've named this model the El Guapo ("Jefe" was taken...)

I'm really happy with the new fork - Feldman got it off Craigslist in trade for some old crap brakes, and I sent it in to WB for a new left stanchion and some seals and bushings (as well as the fork guards). The fork (which is essentially the same as the current Groove 180 and Groove 200 forks, except for it's 2001 era damping leg) is perfect for 29" wheels, because it's got plenty of clearance under the crown for the wheel (you do have to raise the lowers all the way up, though) and it's got a sweet 120mm axle spacing setup - which lets you use a 120mm hub, or a DISHLESS 110mm one (which is what I'm doing, since I already had a 110 wheel). Very cool, especially for this application, since I want the strongest front wheel I can manage to build. Combined with the 150mm/12mm thru-axle rear, this is probably one of the burliest 29er wheelsets you can get. I could have gone with Kris Holm hubs over the Rhynolites, but I'm only 150 pounds, so I figured the Rhynos would be fine.

I had several concerns when designing this sucker, notably:
-Lateral stiffness. I can honestly say that this frame is the stiffest full suspension frame I've ridden. The combo of the massive front triangle tubes (45mm downtube, 38mm toptube, 32mm seat tube) and the 22mm axle pivot (using a sweet Primo bottom bracket from Dan's Comp) mean that there's practically no lateral flex or play. Honestly, I think it's almost as stiff as a hardtail.
-Reasonable wheelbase and chainstay length. Given that I wanted to run a front derailleur, and I was limited to crappy E-type ones (the "e" is for "excrement") the chainstays had to be a little longer than I could have otherwise made them (they're 440ish mm, or about 17.3"). I will probably end up doing another rear end with <17" chainstays at some point - there's plenty of room to do it, if I throw the lousy front derailleur out the window. The bike manuals and wheelie-drops fantastically (or, as well as I can manual or wheelie-drop anything) so I think I made this goal as well.

-Reasonably light, indestructible. I'm not going to say nothing can break this frame, because nothing survives being run into a tree, or a parked car, or whatever at 20+ mph, but I think I can reasonably expect to still be riding this sucker when I'm 50 years old. The front end is made from a great tubeset called Supertherm, which is essentially True Temper's high-end double butted OX Platinum tubes, made 40% thicker. You would have to be an absolute monster (or do something unbelieveably suicidal) to damage those tubes. The rear end is bulletproof .75"x1.5"x.049" 4130 cromoly, and trust me, it's not going to have any durability problems either. Best of all, the whole thing weighs about 11 pounds with the shock, which is pretty comparable to a conventional/disposable aluminum downhill frame - and I bet this sucker is more durable in the long run. The bike complete, as shown here, is only 37 pounds (admittedly, it's 38 with "real" downhill pedals). Hell, I could build it up with a WB F135, and some nicer parts and a shock with a lockout (or some propedal valving), and it'd be a reasonable 32-33 pound trail bike.

Basically, I love this thing to death. It's probably my proudest framebuilding accomplishment. I think long-travel steel bikes make a lot of sense (durable, repairable, not any heavier than the other stuff out there) now that I've built it and ridden it. Mucho thanks to Feldman for design work, creative ideas, and Craigslist scumbaggery. And a big thank you to Ben at True Temper for providing some very unusual tubes for the project. Eric at WB deserves a round of applause as well for his quick work getting the fork repaired and tuned up.

I think the 29" wheel thing is going to find it's way onto the radar for freeride and downhill in the next few years, if my experience is anything to go by. And I promise this will be my last long, annoying post about this bike. Really.

Oh, a final note. You can buy this bike (well, not this one, but one built for you) - custom geometry, any amount of travel (within reason), blah blah blah. $1700 gets you a frame, or $2k gets you a frame with fancy schmancy shock of your choice. Party on.

Shots of Tony's frame, brief race report

I thought this frame came out looking really nice, though the photos don't look as good as real life. It's a custom front triangle mated to a slightly tweaked Ventana rear end - built for 4" front/4" rear travel, 71.5 head angle, 455mm chainstays, and 13.4" BB height (without sag). I was surprised to see that the frame (without the shock) weighed exactly 2900 grams - that's really not too bad, especially considering that I wasn't particularly aiming to make it light. With a fancy shock, you could easily end up with a <7 pound frame. Cool.

In other news, today wasn't my day at the races - I was planning to just ride hard up the opening 2000 foot climb and then dropping out/pulling over, since my shoulder isn't really up to race speed descending. The field was super fast, with JHK and other luminaries in attendance. And I felt like crap - managed to sneak into the top 10 or so near the top of the climb, but blew up so bad subsequently that I had to walk a couple of sections. Didn't have the legs, c'est la vie.

Fuentes flatted, Brian felt terrible and finished 17th, Sonya bonked, Yuki flatted 3 times (but still finished!). Sarah was the only one who had a decent race - she finished first in her expert group, and 12th overall out of all experts and pros (and she even beat a couple of the pros!) So at least we salvaged one decent ride.

Boulder Short Track Finals

Boulder Short Track is over for 2007 - I was sad to see the series end (especially since I wasn't able to race with my bum shoulder) but the finals were great fun to watch, and the Waltworks/Fuentesdesign team threw down big time. Fuentes (shown on his Waltworks 29er w/custom Actiontec suspension fork) duked it out with Sager and Mike West for the entire race before finally ending up 2nd (and 6th overall). Nice work Fuentes!

In the women's A race, Sarah had a terrible start (back around 12th) but passed a bunch of girls to move up to 6th by the finish - her best race of the year at the short track. She also ended up 4th overall for the series and took home a cool $50!

Team Tuffgirls Sonya Looney was right ahead of Sarah in the final race (5th) and in the overall (3rd). Nice work Sonya!




Nick broke his chain, but still finished strong and took 8th overall.






Even resident pro roadie Rolf showed up to represent the Fuentesdesign colors. He had a solid finish and beat plenty of guys, in his only mountain bike ride of the year so far!

Putting my money where my mouth is

So I've been talking a lot of smack online lately about how nobody is really committed enough to keeping trails open to bikes - figured it's time to do something positive about it, leveraging my position as a framebuilder.

Here's the deal:
-From now on, every Waltworks frame or complete bike includes (at no extra charge) a basic IMBA membership. From what I've read, once you get someone to take the first step and join this kind of organization, they're quite likely to renew their membership down the road - getting over that first hurdle is the hardest part. Honestly, pretty much anyone who's buying one of my bikes should already be a member, but I know that's not the case.
-If you're already an IMBA member, I'll give you a Waltworks t-shirt and some other goodies at no charge.
-I'll advocate for other framebuilders and manufacturers to do the same.

Thoughts on motorcycles

From a recent posting on MTBR about trail access:

I'm sort of torn over this issue. I used to ride (and race) dirtbikes, both at the track and in enduros/trail events, and while it was wicked fun, I can understand how seeing and hearing motos on the trail would drive other trail users totally nuts.

IMO, motorcycles and motorcyclists have put themselves in this position (being almost universally hated by other trail users and banned from most trails). Here's why:

-Instead of aiming to make motos quieter, lighter, and lower impact, while keeping performance levels relatively constant, AMA racing rules (concerning minimum bike weight) dating from the 1970s prevented any manufacturers from attempting to build really lightweight , quiet, trail-worthy bikes. Given that bikes had to be heavy to meet AMA rules, the only way to improve performance and get a competitive edge was to add power and suspension, which is exactly what the moto companies did. The result is that today pretty much every bike out there is heavier, more powerful, and louder (and smellier) than it needs to be. If you look at a modern trials motorcycle, you can see the potential that exists with modern materials and technology - trials bikes don't lack power or capability (well, ok, except that they're only geared to go 20 mph), but they're amazingly quiet and lightweight, and hence don't tear up a trail anything like a 300 pound XR650R. They're very close to being downhill bikes with a motor.

-The moto industry ignored trail access until it became a problem, and marketed their products primarily to young, speed-crazed men. Go flip through a moto mag at the supermarket sometime (even an enduro/trail riding oriented one like Dirtrider - which is where I stole the pic) and you'll see a lot of 20-something guys with tatoos ripping up berms and doing jumps, along with dyno tests for 80+ hp motors. Look at pipe reviews and you'll see nothing much about how quiet they are - just whether they comply with the (ridiculously loud) regs or not. Trail riding etiquette is taught and respected by the best of the moto folks, but there are too many hillbillies who got their hands on a clapped out RM out there who don't yield and ride out of control, and the moto folks don't do a great job (IMO) of self-policing. Give the idiots a bike that's way too heavy (and hence hard to stop, and hard to keep going without digging a rut in the trail) and way too powerful, not to mention loud, and you have a recipe for disaster. Go walk (or ride) around the Bookcliffs north of Grand Junction if you want to see the results.

Where am I going with this? I see the mountain bike industry headed the same way, for similar reasons. "Trail" bikes have 6+ inches of travel these days, and any idiot with a credit card can buy one to go bomb down Apex out of control. In the days of rigid bikes, that would never have happened. Does that mean we need to get rid of suspension? No, but it does mean we need to recognize that the capabilities of the bikes often exceed those of the rider and do a better job of beating the rules of the trail into people's brains. New bikes should be sold with an IMBA membership as part of the purchase price - in the long run, this is a benefit for the customer, the bike shop, and the manufacturer. Bike magazines should spend more time writing up great rides, trails, and experiences and less on the latest carbon fiber widget - because without an appreciation for the tenuousness of our access to those trails, they'll be gone in a generation, and so will the business of making carbon mountain bike widgets.

I think the bottom line is that the average rider either A) doesn't realize or B) doesn't care that trail access is threatened. We should work to make people aware of the problem and invested enough to care about it, or we'll be on the outside looking in (awesome bikes, no trails to ride them on), just like the moto folks.

Monarch Crest trail off limits to bikes?

Click here for the article from the Rocky Mountain News.

Sounds crazy to me - they admit in the article that the majority of users are mountain bikers, they don't report any user conflict (we're talking about a trail that's above treeline a significant amount of the time, and which requires thousands of feet of climbing, after all - it's not ever going to get that crowded), and they complain that it might not be safe to take a horse pack train though?!? I mean, wouldn't the bikes just yield to the horses as normal? Why should someone who wants to drag 30 horses in a line through the trail take priority over bikers? I don't get it.

In any case, f*cking bombard these idiots with public comments, eh? The address is at the bottom of the article (but note that the mailto link isn't right), or if you're too lazy to read that far, send comments to:
cdnst@fs.fed.us

Laugh if you will...

So I'll probably lose the respect of most of you by admitting this, but what the heck. Sarah and I are on a bad-movie spree of late (ie, deliberately watching movies that we know are bad - Cool as Ice, Guyver, House 2, etc). So the other night we watched Aeon Flux (and yes, that's an actual still from the movie). No, not the so-cool-it-makes-your-eyes-bleed animated version that was on MTV (and which, it's worth pointing out, I never saw). We watched the universally-loathed live-action movie version. And I liked it quite a bit, as did Sarah. We were pretty disconcerted by this turn of events, so I hit the internet to find out why people hated it so much. Here are the reasons I found:
1. It's not as cool as the cartoon/plot is totally different. I can't respond to this, because I never saw an entire episode of the cartoon, but I do sympathize, at least in theory.
2. Aeon doesn't wear a virtually nonexistent swimsuit type outfit. Once again, I can understand, but if they'd put a live actress in the outfits that the cartoon wore, the movie would be NC-17 in a hurry.
3. The acting sucks. Well, honestly, this isn't freaking King Lear. It's basically a story about super-powered cloned people trying to murder each other with exotic weapons. So, really, mostly the acting needs to consist of looking lethal and/or hot, and managing to mouth your lines while keeping a straight face. And hey, it has the guy who played Kaiser Susse in The Usual Suspects, wearing what appears to be a giant, inverted cloth bucket.
4. The sets look they came from an ad in Dwell (ok, I made up this one, but it's true). I actually thought the primary colors/Ikea look added to the atmosphere of the movie nicely, but it was pretty over the top.

Where am I going with all this? I'm not really sure, given that I doubt any of the bike geeks reading this are going to rush out and rent Aeon Flux, and if you did, you'd probably hate it, just like everyone else on the planet.

Bike-related post tomorrow, I promise.

Race report, random drivel

Obviously, I didn't race this weekend (just started riding on the road a little bit though, which I'm pretty pleased with). Some of the crew went up for the Winter Park point to point race, though, and did pretty well:
-Sarah (pictured) felt "like crap" and ended up mid-pack (8th out of 21) in expert (and 13th overall among all women). She vows revenge in 2 weeks, though.
-Taryn won her beginner women's race, again. Time to upgrade, sandbagger...
-Brian was 6th in expert 30-34, although he also reported not having much in the way of legs. Brian's fighting it out for a podium spot for the overall, it looks like, and I think he's going to rage in the next (much longer, much more climbing) race.


I just built a bike for a guy with a portion of an old disc rotor as the chainstay/seatstay brace. Kinda neat, I think!

Used Waltworks forks on Ebay

I've seen a couple of used Waltworks frames and forks pop up on Ebay in the last 6 months or so, and I wanted to let everyone know that I strongly discourage buying them unless you are very conscientious about doing your research about whether the frame/fork is appropriate for you. The forks are what bother me the most, because the consequences of having one fail are much worse than most frame failures.

Unless your riding style, size, and intended application (not to mention frame geometry) closely match those of the seller, you should steer clear. A custom fork built for someone else may be TOTALLY inappropriate for you, and the consequences of a fork failure can be pretty ugly.

Just as an example, I once built a custom fork for a 130 pound racer who wanted it nice and light - full on tricked out fork, with a custom machined crown, ultra lightweight blades, etc, etc. Then a year later, someone I've never heard of (let alone built a fork for) calls me and says he broke one of my forks. Turns out the 130 pound XC guy sold the fork to some 220 pound dude, "in good faith". While I'm sure that the fork was fine when it was sold, it was also totally inappropriate for the 220# guy, yet that thought never crossed the the buyer or seller's mind, apparently. Luckily nobody was hurt, but someone easily could have been.

Here's the bottom line, guys - I build CUSTOM forks and frames. That means they are designed for ONE rider. They also *might* work for lots of other folks, but as soon as something ends up on Ebay, I have no control over who is going to buy the frame/fork I built, or how/where they're going to ride it. That's not cool. I can't offer a warranty on a product when I have no idea how it'll be used, or by who. Honestly, you're much better off buying a production product instead - it'll be cheaper, strong enough for any size of rider, and fit (presumably) about as well as a custom bike that wasn't designed for you. And it'll come with a warranty for you, the original owner. If you want a custom bike, save your pennies and get one that's actually built for you. There are really no shortcuts here - if you don't want to spend the time or money, just get a production frame or fork and get out there and ride it.

Sorry for the ranting. I'll do a race post with some pictures tomorrow, hopefully.

Hilarious story, tangentially related to framebuilding

For those who don't know, Ted Wojcik is a famous framebuilder on the East Coast.

Click here for the story

New trails in Clear Creek county?

Just thought I'd publish these links from the DP and MTBR:
Denver Post Clear Creek Mountain Bike article
MTBR thread
I'm pretty stoked about this - sounds like some awesome riding at high altitude, almost in my backyard. And the county actually WANTS to see people riding the trails, which is unbelieveably refreshing.

In other news, my doctor visit revealed that I indeed have an AC separation. But it's relatively mild and doc thinks I'll make a full recovery in a couple of weeks. Hurray!
In the meantime, it's pretty funny trying to do work with 1.5 arms.

27.5" wheel bikes?

Check it out here:
Frameforum 650b/27.5" mountain bike thread

My opinion is that this wheelsize makes a lot of sense - it'll allow a lot of smaller riders to fit onto a bigger-wheeled frame without some of the sacrifices (long chainstays, weird angles, etc) that they run into on 29ers. More options is always a good thing!

So what do you guys think? Any opinions on this? Anyone want to jump in line to get the first-ever Waltworks Tweener?

Second, what's the best name for these beasts?
-650b'ers (that's the rim size designation)
-27fivers
-Tweeners
-Something else

Ideas?

Shoulder news: My shoulder still hurts. A lot. I will go see Dr. Eric on Monday.

Friday the 13th!

Ok, I'm not superstitious, but here's my day so far:
-Make plans to go DH riding with Feldman at Keystone. So far so good.
-Arrive at Keystone only to discover that my shock pump is broken. We try Feldman's pump and manage to pull the valve entirely out of my Roco air shock. Great. Thankfully, a shop in the village (more on them later) has a pump and lets us use it. Whew.
-First run, Feldman flats, and I break my old ESP9.0 derailleur into tiny plastic pieces. I limp down the remainder of the run and head to the shop again.
-The cheapest SRAM derailleur available at the shop is a $60 X.7. This is the same derailler that I sell for $30 or something to frame customers, but it's a retail shop in the mountains, so whatever. They gotta mark stuff up to make a buck. Whatever.
-My feelings toward the shop take a nosedive when I realize that my derailleur cable is horribly frayed from the abuse of finishing the run, and that I need a new one. Now, I can buy a derailleur cable for 50 cents, or 30 cents if I buy them in bulk. And I *just bought* a $60 derailleur. So I go in and ask for a cable, and the guy says "that'll be $5". $5 for a derailleur cable. Fantastic.
-Feeling better, Feldman and I do a few great runs with no mechanicals. The new trails are wicked - especially the new jump trail, "Money". I manage to cleanly jump all the jumps over the course of 2 or 3 runs, though not every jump each time. Super, super fun 15 foot tables with nice steep takeoffs. Wicked.
-On my final run of the day, we head down "Wild Thing", the one and only decent trail to get to the bottom of the mountain. This is the fourth time I've ridden it. It's relatively easy, I think to myself. Then I plant my front wheel sideways on a rock, burp the air out of the tire, and fly over the bars. I land SUPER hard on my left shoulder. Did I mention that I didn't bother to bring my full upper body armor (with shoulder cups) because it's going to just be a mellow day? Yeah. I can't lift my left arm above my shoulder, so I've either bruised it really really badly (I'm crossing my fingers hoping for this option) or separated it (doh!). If it's the latter, I'll be off the bike for a couple of months. We'll see.
-I break my minipump fixing the flat, and also break the valve on my tubeless rimstrip. Then I crash again due to the bum shoulder on the way to the bottom. Fantastic.

So not a great Friday for me. As a final insult, someone took the Snickers bar I'd stashed under the car (so that it wouldn't melt) as an after-ride treat. Doh!

I'll know more about the shoulder in a day or two. I don't think it'll slow me down too much for working, at least.

Muni-tacular

Just thought I'd snap a picture of this before DHL comes to schlep it to Wade in NM. Yes, it does glow in the dark...I kinda wanted to steal it for myself, honestly - I need a new unicycle pretty badly.