Two Wheel Blogs

I met up with a huge group for the local Tuesday Night MTB thrash fest and was not let down. Apparently a bunch of the local riders have changed their focus to include some serious training.

The guys were riding fast, and not stopping except to make sure no one was left behind/hurt at each trail head. Once the last rider emerged, the chase was on again.

For once, I was feeling very good last night. I was really enjoying riding hard like this. I started pushing myself well into the red and ended up paying for it.

I took advantage of a nice day, and left work early for a MTB ride. The trails were a bit wet, but most surprising was all the fallen lumber on the trails.

I guess one of the many many rain storms that has rolled through here the past few weeks had enough force to uproot or break off a lot of trees. I must have seen 5 trees larger diameter than my wheels laying down that were not down only a few weeks ago. Most of them were near the trail, but this one was blocking the trail.

Trail report? Downright muddy in spots, but 95% of the trail was great riding, but rough from all the rain. Yes, the rain seems to have roughened the trail, by washing away soil and leaving more roots and stones exposed. Also, the trail is pitted in many spots from serious overland flow scours.

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I knocked the dust off my MTB today and took it out for the first MTB ride I can recall in a long time. The excessive rain this year (and ice storms last year) has had me riding road quite a bit, and I have not even thought of riding the trails until today. I was surprised at how good the trails were (only a few mud holes that always are present this time of year).

It was a great ride, made slightly better learning a few lessons in the process.

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It's been all to long since I've had a full weekend of great riding. It was nice to finally get one, I've been jonesing, feining, straight craving some good trail riding. I got that on Saturday.

I promised I'd give you another look at my new off-road machine. Here it is.

You may have noticed the new image in the header on this site. That's one I took the day I got this bike home. I'd been looking for a decent enough day to get a for-real outdoor shot I could upload. Bikes just look better outdoors. The riding's better too, but that's another story.

I'm still up in the air for what to call it. The frame was cut and assembled by Rob Pennel of Badger Bicycles fame. Is "fame" a good choice of words? Yeah, I guess so. Unfortunately, Rob / Badger didn't finish the job, so I'm having trouble, philosophically awarding the name Badger to the final product.

I'll have to think this one over a while.

Oh, and also here's a larger view of the photo in the header.

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I don't know whether you remember my original post about my attempts to get in touch with the guys at Badger Cycles, Rob Pennel or Josh Patterson. If not, some of the background for this story can be found here, in the original story: I'm trying to get in touch with Rob Pennel of Badger Cycles.

Today I wanted to offer up to you a conclusion to that story. I'll also give up some of the details of what took place in the 5 month time span between then and now.

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