think your bad?

Remember Dave? aka Whistler? Remember how I said he was tough and a hell of a strong rider? Come to find out he's a tad bit tougher than I'd originally thought, check this email out:

I guess I need to learn to listen better. The doctor had told me to watch my shoulder after my bike accident. I thought since it had been a couple of years I could start working towards building the muscle back. So I decided I would go back to doing pull ups. During my third set last night I heard a pop. When I got down my arm is about 1/2" lower than it was. I now have an unsightly bump. A lot worse than I already had. I guess I ripped my muscle. So my pull up days must be over. It does not hurt, but it feels awkward. And is tender as hell.
But I am still up for mountain biking Saturday.

David

E-fucking-gads! He's not just an animal, he's a crazy animal!

git-r-done

While I struggle with whether or not Larry the Cable Guy's funny; I do know his mantra fits this scenario.

When: Friday Jan. 12th, 2007, 4:00 p.m.

Weather: 20°, sleet, freezing rain

Roads: Treacherous

This guy's gittin' er done:

Nice crack in the windshield eh? Got that from the last snow storm we had.

Bad picture? I don't think so, that's how fucking nasty it was Friday.

This ain't no picture of no DUI addict who has to ride his bike; no this guy chose this. He's got all the gear and I guess the right mindset. Me? Hell no. I sometimes get off on the pain cycling induces but I would never attempt this.

asswiper

The kickass wife got me this for Christmas:

This guy rules the entire show; well him and Romaniuk. He's 38 and RIPS! His name is Randy Spangler, forever known to me now as Randy "Fucking" Spangler. He's the type of guy you wanna ride with, cool as a cuke and happy to be on two wheels. And to make things even better he's sponsored by Santa Cruz. Guys like this make me wanna buy more SC products just so they can keep supporting him.

This guy, Nathan Greenwood, just about ruins the entire 2 disc set. This asswipe needs a manpon. Why he even saddles up is a guess. He whines for two discs. After Darren Berrecloth leaves he say he's not "impressed"! What? DB kills it and works his ass off repeatedly and eats shit regularly for his efforts. Sadly he's sponsored by Santa Cruz; hopefully that'll all change when his contract is up 'cause he makes me not wanna spend money with SC.

Evidently I'm not alone:

Read HERE

And HERE.

I guess watching this season just proves the fact that good rides are made better with good buddies, and much shittier with dickheads.

And Nate pal, you're a fucking dickhead.

more morford

Morford writes some great articles and this is one of his better ones. (click the title to check it out)

I don't like cottage cheese but I don't care if others do. ...as long as they don't make me eat it.

who cares?
Buddy

bike path

I say path because trail is maybe a bit strong of a word. The word trail to most riders means something well established, possibly even improved. While I've been putting in a lot of work to make a rideable loop around our property I have really done little more than look for the path of least resistance and remove just enough limbs and ground clutter to make it passable. Sometimes that path was already established by cows and at others it was worn deep into the ground by motorcycles and ATV's. Here are some random pics:

Obviously this is a cow trail. I just linked up to it.



Nice little swoopy section of old moto trails. The pic doesn't show how cool the berms are but they are there.



Again, the pic doesn't really do the elevation change justice. I made that bridge about 1 year ago but I'm just now getting back around to connecting it. Considering the speed you hit it with it could be wider but what's the fun in that? ... And now that I've made that dumbass comment it's only a matter of time before I post on here about eating shit on it.


Just a cool berm with some nice buffed singletrack.


Ah, another crash site that I built about 1 year ago. This old tree actually fell across an area that is continually wet. If the trail were to stay on the ground here it would take some serious armoring. In this case, Ma Nature built a bridge.

As you can tell I was running out of light for the pics. Maybe I'll take some more later.

Go ride,
Buddy

great big gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts

Thats what the trails were like tonight! Green, slimy balls of accident waiting to happen and happen it did. Went for another ride with the brother and hit boner and ridge again. Boner put it on him first and me second. As long as the trail was going down the hill things were good, once it went up it was a bruising struggle and Stuart had his first decent wreck. When I stopped to look back I saw his bike facing backwards and him entertwined. IT WAS COOL! Of course a minute after his I injected my Captain Catapult tactics in so he could get a laugh. IT WAS UNCOOL! It is how I do though.

To make the ride cooler I got my first night ride in. Here's a camera pic.

All I can say about riding with lights is that it that shit should be illegal.

10 Days in Paradise

Not quite but the original goal was to ride 10 times in 10 days (December 22nd thru January 2nd; and no I didn’t quite make that goal. I did however have tons of fun on two wheels many times....like this:

• Ride 1: December 23rd, 2006: Rode the Heckler with the church group I’d mentioned before. Quite a bit of fun had with these guys; 2 new and 2 of us who’d been riding for awhile. The funny aside is that the day before this ride I was told that the other veteran rider had really put it on me when we’d rode before. I mentioned that I was actually at the back of the pack helping a newbie; trust me I’ll always admit an ass whoopin’. Anyway after being told he’d put it on me I chased him all over Turkey for 2 hours and then ripped it going down lip buster. When I met up with the vet later in the parking lot he said that he was impressed that I’d gone so fast down the trail. (Here comes my blunder.) I reply, and remember this is a church group ride, “Hah, you should see this mother fucker I ride with (Buddy); I couldn’t keep up with him going down this hill when he was on his rigid!” The old church vets eyes were aglitter with prayer for a moment and I of course apologized. Sorry Bob.


• Ride 2: December 24th, 2006: Rode the Bianchi for 35cold fucking miles. Neoprene booties were ordered upon my return.


• Ride 3: December 26th, 2006: 10 mile grocery store/neighborhood trail ride on the rigid Giant
  
• Ride 4: December 27th, 2006: Here’s where the fun begins! My first ride with Ralphie boy in almost a year and he did great. I wish I could ride a trail like he runs one. He takes the tough lines over all the big rocks and bunny/dog hops all puddles. He’s even got trail etiquette; he shit twice and both times was off to the side of the trail. Man the Heckler's doing me right; I love this bike.

• Ride 5, December 28th, 2006: Time for a little SS action on the Fetish with the Bro on his first off-road ride on his new bike! He was a little timid which is to be expected but I think he did great. I’m always wondering after someone’s inaugural ride if they enjoyed it. Bro says when done for me to call him when I’m ready to go again and I tell him to call me ‘cause I’m almost always ready; he replies back: “How ‘bout tomorrow!” Now that’s stoked.
  
• Ride 6, December 29th, 2006: More SS action w/Bro again. This time he gets him some of the Boner trail and back up ridge thru the rock garden. This guy has got some gusto. The little techie climb on boner got him fired up and he gave it a few tries, his first session! I tried to capture his first attempt at a jump (about 2 ft. drop) on my cellie but like usual it was a little slow. Good go at it anyway!



• Ride 7, December 29th, 2006: Rode w/Emma for almost two hours. (My longest time on the rigid yet.) We hit the trail in light and got back to the car past dark and she loved it. I’m amazed at the instinct to get out of the saddle when necessary. Last year when she rode she was only good for about 45 minutes so I was super stoked that she wanted to ride for a lot longer this year. Hopefully we’ll have tons more rides together this year.

Rides 8, 9, & 10 never occurred. After the ride with Emma the rains came and muddied everything up. And besides the wife had me out furniture shopping which by the way is much more expensive than cycling.

Sadly I didn't get to do my annual solo Greenleaf trip, but if all goes well I've got an epic solo trip coming in February. (I may take Ralphie though.)

jerky anyone

My grandad owns 80 acres about 6 miles from our house. Ever since I was little he’s told me that eventually it will be mine and to do as I wish with it. Originally he ran cattle on it and there are also a number of oil wells littered throughout. Over the years we have laid out a number of different styles of motorcycle tracks all over the place and I’m currently cutting a trail loop for bicycles. It’s really turning into some nice flowing singletrack and I hope to have the first full loop complete in a few months. (pictures to come)

Unfortunately my grandfather allows a distant relative of mine to keep his cattle over there. The dude doesn’t take the best care of these cows and every few months one dies and lays there until nature disposes of it. Now I grew up with cattle around and I realize that this happens occasionally. However, his rate o’ death is a bit excessive I think. One time I called the local humane society folks about it. They put me in touch with their representative in my area. Turned out that this representative knew the person I was reporting quite well. In fact, they were friends. (So much for the anonymous tip) Needless to say, he continues to lose a few cows a year and all I can do is cross my fingers that the poor bastards don’t lay down to die on my trail.

I spent a lot of time out there over the holidays and I got a LOT of trail established. I also found yet another dead cow. But this one was different. It had some bitchin’ horns and I wanted the skull. The first thing I thought of was simply keeping an eye on it and, in a few months, getting the bare skull once all of the hide and brains rotted away. However, you can’t do that. Coyotes and whatnot will dispose of the carcass but they also might tear up the part that I want. This left me with only one option.

That's right. ... I whooped out my trusty axe and relieved the ol’ boy of his head.


Should make a nice art project once clean. A little random info here in case anyone doesn't know, cow heads full of blood and rotten brains be heavier than one might realize and the smell would knock a maggot off a gut wagon. If you ever take this on, be ready.

Moo,
Buddy