the shit i put up with

Let me explain to all the shit I put up with from a pal. See I try to be "cool" at all times, but when you've got a bud that makes you spew Mt. Dew on the keyboard and everywhere regularly it's hard to maintain coolness with Dew streaks on my business casual clothes. I recently sent either an article describing the above bikes or a picture to Buddy about these bikes. Obviously the Surly on the right is built more for a guy my size; or a masochist 'cause surely that dude ways like 100 lbs., and the one on the left is more for a roadie who wants to dick around with the dirtbags occasionally. And if you know where we ride then you know neither of these should see the local trails.

Anyway, this un's about Buddy/Showtime/Boudreaux/funnyboy. Before you read his email reply click the link to see what some sick fuck is going to attempt on the fat boy bike: http://www.wildworks.co.nz/csr/home.php, impressive eh?

So forging ahead; here's the email reply from B/S/B/f:

I think I could get my next frame from Frankoma and it would last longer. :)

Interesting collection of bikes you sent me. One carbon fiber Christmas ornament and one tank. I’ll take the tank ten times over. I’ll pass on the route through “the most remote and inhospitable areas of West Australia” though. Damn. Who chooses to do this shit? When I’m choosing places to ride my bike, or do anything for that matter, I tend to avoid those described as “inhospitable.” I can see this cat describing things to his friend with a giant smile on his face. (Please try your hardest to do these next lines with the best Steve Irwin immitation you can conjur up. ed.) “I rode for days across this giant shithole and it was AWESOME! It was unbearably hot, there were poisonous snakes around every rock, and if anything had happened to me I would have died lonely and uncomfortable. I ended every day gargling diarrhea and jacking off with a hand full of cockleburs while I shoved hot embers in my ass and listened to Toby Keith’s Wanna Talk About Me. Wow!”

I know, I know; you want more of him and less of me; but he's shy, not gayly shy, just blog shy. I'll keep prodding him (not gayly) to join in and at least share this'un with me 'cause I don't care who you are, that shits funny. Rock on B/S/B/f! damn u da man

New rubber

The new rubber is here and I can't wait to mount it tomorrow and hopefully ride it tomorrow evening. I always try to run my tires tubeless; sometimes though it's a difficult proposition. My first two sets of tires went tubeless with very little sweat and a floor pump; and the last two have been more difficult with the Tioga "Tire o' crap" being a downright bitch. In fact I couldn't do it; Dealer helped me out on this and got 'em set up over a few beers and a few hours. (Even the blokes at T-Town couldn't do it with their tricks. Thanks Stacy.) I hope to write again with glowing reviews, most seem to rave about the Kenda Nevegals. (You can click the title once again to see what others have said about this tire.)

If it doesn't work there'll be hell to pay even though I don't know by whom. (Probably my ankles, shins, and kneecaps though.) Man, I hate when shit doesn't work out like it's supposed to.

fun on two wheels (the singletrack and cheeseburger ride)

So, what’s it take to have fun on a bike? I’m learning more everyday just how easy it is. As a minimum though you’ll need two wheels.

Buddy and I did the singletrack and cheeseburger ride Sunday afternoon. What’s a burger&track ride you ask? Well, I didn’t realize this beforehand but evidently it includes lots of burrs, goat heads, and gobs of climbing.

We took off from Boudreaux’s house and headed up the 1st of many climbs of the day, this one on asphalt though. With me grunting and working up a sweat Buddy was just chattin’ away. I either need to lose about 40 lbs. or he needs to gain 40 ‘cause this was a one-way conversation for awhile. After the first hill we had about a ½ mile coast until well; a mofo of a hill. After this grunt we finally got to where the fun began. On the dirt roads around Bristow there are many trails that lead to oil related equipment. These roads either are or can be turned into something fun; and those that aren’t fun I hope will turn into something fun after deer season. (See the previous post; it’ll prove that it’s close to deer season here.) Looking at land as potential riding spots instead of riding spots is kind of surreal. You see what you could do given the time and opportunity and can almost be overwhelming if you think big. (Need backhoes, discs, box blades, large equipment, quit your job, be a trail builder....tons of grant money, cool landowners, lots of beer, etc.; Get the point?) No matter what, I recommend to anyone with a decent bike to hit some backroads, find either cow singletrack, deer singletrack, or even man made double track and go exploring. However, you should watch out for deer trails that head into the woods that have a thick covering of oak trees at the entrance. I found out the hard way that those limbs have a tendency to grow towards the entrance, not away from you. Ever been stopped dead in your progress by about six formidable tree limbs? It kinda sucks!

I often tell people that mountain biking and even road riding made me feel like a kid again. It still does to a degree; but not the same as before after this day. Why? Because this is the shit I did when I was a kid; often times with a fishing pole in hand, but always wandering aimlessly, looking for a place to ride, a place to fish, or somewhere to just go have fun.

Thanks Buddy for inviting me down and hope I get another invite sometime again. This time I may even refrain from dropping the stink bombs on the trail for you to enjoy. Who am I kidding, it’s who I am, it’s part of my being; I’m a man, I am a fartin’ machine and damn proud of it!

deers & queers

I started off thinking I'd take my camera with me on a solo ride and get a few pic's of the terrain at Turkey Mtn. This area was highlighted in Mountain Bike magazines' summer 2004 issue as the best place to ride in Oklahoma. The article also went on to say you should keep your eyes peeled for the occasional glimpses of public sex. (What kind? See this: http://www.rmbb.org/, beware, gay mens mtn. bike club.) What they're alluding to is that gay men, many married, hook up here to do what they do. I've been fortunate and haven't ran into that in the 3 years I've been riding. I have however encountered this:

I would love to be able to say that someone else discovered this jewel, but sadly that blame rests squarely on my shoulders. Imagine your bleary eyed with your heart pounding after you clear this techie little puppy, you look to your left, and think is it? No it couldn't be; I'm just seeing things, oh fuck it is...and it's freakin' HUGE!!!

This little beauty hits you in the eyes right off the bat; it took me a year and a half of riding before I ever cleaned this beaute, after that I owned it....until lately.

After this section I went to Hi-Chi to get a few pic's of the toughest section of it; and of course the pic's don't do it justice, and no I didn't clean this'un today, or ever...but I'll keep trying.

Went on to ride the Millenium trail after that and caught a glimpse of some true nature. It's hard to believe that you come across this right in the middle of the city:

You'll have to excuse the quality of that pic; I was using my daughters camera and it doesn't do a very good job in certain situations; like this one. Still cool though and I told myself that I should always take a camera with me on rides. Here's a couple of pic's of another section of Millenium that serves it up everytime I hit it:

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, did I tell you this tire sucked?

I'll quit bitching about that tire soon, I've got another on order. For it's sake it better be better or it'll end up here for all to see.

Tomorrow's going to be an exploration day of oil lease land around Bristow. We're going to ride the trails that god's little creatures created. Bench cuts made by cattle! Or as Buddy says: "Singletrack and cheeseburgers!"

i'm a tire nut

Don't know why it is but I'm a tire guy. I've had several on my Heckler and the latest just plain suck. (Click the title to see my review and many others on MTBR.) It's pretty much a concensus though that the Tioga Blue Dragons honk donkey dongs.

description of the weekends rides

You'll have to excuse my poor writing and the fact that I assume everyone knows the trail names of where I ride.

Here's a few pic's, the top one is now famous due to being published in DirtRag magazine. (Pic taken by Justin.)














For future references here's the names and a brief description of the gangsters I'm lucky enough to get to ride with:

David aka Whistler: David's a climbing maniac, he sports wood when he sees a trail go up. He's also known to whistle when you're at your lowest point, grunting your ass up a hill, and is a monster on a road bike.

Buddy aka Showtime: All around rider, uphill, over rocks, catching air, bmx, he can and does do it all. He pisses you off 'cause of this unnatural ability to well...do it all.

Justin aka Little E: Why Little E you ask; it's for Little Evel, he's young with no kids and will try anything once. Big cajones wrapped up in a small package. Here's his link: http://www.myspace.com/Brauchie

Stacy aka Dealer: No, not a drug dealer, at least that I know of. He got the name 'cause in the card games we play if you're the first out you have to hang around and deal until someone else goes out, and well, he's been known to go out early.

So you wanna ride report eh? Sure you do so here goes. (All rides at Turkey Mtn.-Tulsa, OK.)

Saturday's ride was good; Hi-Chi was purrfect, a few dabs here and there, but the dirt was very tacky and sweet. Millenium was also in very good shape. Then I went from there to this other little loop I know of on the west side that runs along a creek and actually cleared a few sections I've struggled with for awhile. All in all a good day, except my Sooners getting manhandled like bitches in the pokey.

Sundays ride? Well an amazing thing happened overnight. The rocks at Turkey went from nice to light snot green covered and were as slick as they sound. Had a nice endo recovery on Hi-Chi but overall did fairly well. In fact I actually made it past the rock on a section that goes under a tree, over a rock, and up. From the spider I hooked up with another version of David; this dude was fucking ridiculous when it came to climbing. He rode so aggressively and would try to climb the seriously ridiculous. We rode up a switchback climb and I actually passed him on it. After that we rode the mystery trail toward the upper lot, we (there were 4 of us) stopped to watch him try this gnarly section that I've only seen cleared once before and when he cleared it I told his religious buddy "even Pat Robertson would say that was fucking impressive", I got no response but I thought it was damn funny. Of course, after my humor effort it was my go, and I made it! SWEET! From that point on though, let's see, there were 2 more endo's, 1 jacked up brake lever, 1 sock full of blood, 1 bruised ego, and 1 "David" dude smiling from ear to ear. So, I'd say it was a good day. I didn't get these guys names but had fun fer sure.

cb dirtbag roadtrip 2005

Me and the boys took our first serious road trip this year; we went to Crested Butte, CO. The pic below shows Whistler, Little E, and Dealer on our first night on the trip which was spent in Gunnison, CO. The pic on the right was taken at Hartman Rocks, we didn't get too much of a ride in here but it sure is purty.

Here's Little E and dealer arriving at the trails, and my machine at the trailhead sign.

Another pic, this time it's me in the middle. (That's a bad visual.)

Now on to the good stuff, the trails of CB:


I promise you'll get sick of seeing pic's of my bike posing. Tough shit, get over it, you're just jealous.

OK, about the riding and trip funnies. For a flatlander the pitch is incredible, even when things look relatively flat you just ease off the brakes and bam, it's 25-30 mph. The trail named "Painter Boy" is freakin' unreal. Ungodly high speeds on a sinewy singletrack, ripping past the aspens and nailing a small rock garden at terminal velocity is my kinda bike love. The big question I have though is how long do you have to hang out at altitude until you feel normal? I never could breathe when trying any climbing in the thin air up there. Every effort left me with the feeling that I was going to get an unobstructed view of my lunch. Speaking of lunch viewings, drinking at altitude or having not drank competitively in years led to a serious mistake on day two in CB. You see, they sell these things called pitchers of margarita's for like $15, that's the cheapest deal in town. So myself, Little E, and Dealer all had a pitcher with dinner then headed to a quaint little bar that had shots for like $2 each. So let's see, we had a few beers, a pitcher of marg.'s, and then did some tequila shots! OUCH! I was handling the tequila just fine but somehow a shot of goldschlager (sp?) got on the table, and in the shot frenzy it somehow got in my belly. Goodnight Irene! My party was over at 9:00 p.m., I hadn't done that in years. But it's the lunch thats funny and the viewing was done by Little E; he had ruined the bathroom earlier in the evening if you know what I'm talking about then had a little too much to drink himself. He went to the loo to rid himself of the poisons and was coherent enough to remember that the porcelain should be off limits but in the melee started to heave which made the spew go on the walls, the urinal, the floor, the fucking everything. Unlike me, he puked and rallied while I was being taken to the condo by our DD Whistler. (Thanks David.) The tag line of the trip came from Justin's episode and will stick with us forever: "It's called the puke and spin, c'mon man everyone's doing it!" NICE. Needless to say, the riding the next day was a little tamer; hell it's hard to hold onto the bars when your hands are trembling.

FYI, don't drive back to T-Town from this area via Salina, KS no matter what Google maps, Yahoo maps, or Mapquest say. They'll tell you it's about 13 hours, it took us about 12 to get to Gunny so we thought we'd take the other way home to see some different sights and that was a huge 16 hour mistake. Great trip, shitty drive back. From Colorado Springs to Salina has to be the straightest, flattest road in the world. It'll have you contemplating suicide before that drives over.