Bullet dodged.

Friendly Paul, El Capitan Sporty Pirate, and maybe Mrs. El Capitan Sporty Pirate were gonna come down and ride bikes. We were going to have a tentative adventure from which one of us would most certainly not emerge alive, but then Soulcraft duties called and Mr. and Mrs. El Capitan Sporty had to stay home to stoke the fires of stoke.
Undeterred, Friendly Paul hath agreed to come solo, donning thy cloak of two wheeled bravery.
However during a phone call, my better half said, "oh, you guys are riding tomorrow?"
"Yeah, why? Did I forget something else was happening?" I said.
"Yeah, *****'s baby shower is happening.."
"How could I have forgotten about that?" I thought to myself. "I FREAKING LOVE BABY SHOWERS."
But moments ago the girl called and said ***** just went into labor.

Sweet.

To celebrate, here is a photo of an artfully illustrated wang, guaranteeing me an all access pass into every party in Heaven, forever.

Relationships.

'What does this image have to do with bicycles?' you might be asking yourself.
The answer to that would be nothing, save for the fact that I just rode one.
Do you like apples?
Then how do you like them apples?

Oh, snap.

Tahoe in the summer

Last weekend Yuri and I rode a section of the Tahoe Rim Trail starting at the lake, winding up to the meadow at the top of 431, and across the TRT until we hit the Flume. This ribbon of rollercoaster-like decomposed granite with dinosaur egg sized rocks was one of the most beautiful and swoopy trails I've been on in a while. The ride ends at Ponderosa where you can either get your cowboy on, or dive into the lake. Check it out.

Ride Bikes and Listen to Slayer

Saturday - MW in Buffalo Creek, CO


Sunday - Slayer in Denver More Mayhem Festival Photos

i like colorado

i sure like riding in colorado. i don't get to very often so every ride is a fantastic experience. here's mitch kline and i at buffalo creek last weekend. thanks to showen for the pic.

Living in the city sometimes you have to get creative on where you ride. Most of our trails are in public parks, and you generally go round and round. Plenty of old tracks surround Dallas/Ft. Worth, and many of them have gone fallow. It's not all that bad once you get into the rythm and settle in... besides you have it all to yourself.

Remnants of a time when things were more muddy.

"I'll be home when I'm home" keeps playing loops in my head as though my brain's reel to reel is in some way broken.
Passing by what very well could have been my own tracks from a more soggy time, I reflect on 'hero dirt' and how the shape-shifting sandy soil could at any moment throw me off course, challenging me to scramble and maintain my uprightedness.
I love the summer but am always longing for the Spring.

A funny thing happened on my way to the kegger.

I got alot of good shots while exploring the low lands of the Sierras last weekend, but wouldn't you know as soon as I arrived back into civilization, I'd get the opportunity to snap a photo of Director Sporty's white trash doppleganger bravely rescuing his buddy's porn collection.

AZ Trail and fun moto singletrack

Over the weekend I headed out north of the peaks with some friends to ride some cool moto trail, as well as the newest section of the Arizona Trail. The AZ trail, at some point in the future, will stretch from the Utah border to Mexico, hitting all sorts of cool places in between, and it's strictly human-powered only. Saw the San Francisco Peaks from just about every angle
The aptly named Buena Vista hill was a killer to get up...those moto guys sure like to go straight uphill! No sissy switchbacks for them.
Old burn zone, very few trees but plenty of flowers in the Hochdoerfer Hills

Finally hit AZ Trail about 28 miles into the ride, and it's awesome. Huge aspen groves, ferns, shade, great views, and best of all a very tired-leg friendly grade. 7 sweet miles later wound up back at the cars, having seen a herd of elk, about a million mule deer, tons of wildflowers, and only one other person the whole day.

Potter's Pasture

Potter's Pasture - Brady, NE - July 11, 2009
Photo by Kyle Vincent

Flying somewhere with your bike?

United Airlines broke this guy's guitar and wouldn't pay for it, so he wrote this song and posted the video on You Tube and so far has gotten 2.7 million views. Awesome. Amazing that an industry so close to collapsing can still tell you to go screw yourself. I hope everyone mentioned in this debacle gets fired. Wait, beaten, then fired. Here's the background on his plight.

The long and short of it.

I built these two 29rs within a week of each other. The longest top tube on a 29r I ever did and the smallest standover. Thanks to Curtis for the curved top tube.

More please!

3 pitchers

a ride with 3 pitchers for the crew at the turn around point is a good ride.

White Industries is awesome

I just need to take a moment to say: White Industries rules.
I was having some trouble with my ENO Eccentric hub slipping under heavy pedaling, and they made me these sweet knurled axle ends to help it grip better: and man, it's awesome.
So thanks, nice people at White. I can now pedal along happily without fear of my knee and my stem intersecting at a high rate of speed.

Hurl is a depressed teenager.

shiite happens and life goes on

So,alot to relate and catch up on.
My last entry suggested 8hrs of Boggs was about to take place.Do you even remember it?It was a good day.G.A.S.#4 was next(see knee blood)(head blood was Alldayeverything'08).Whilst following to closly the man in red and checking my feet(yup,still there)on nice leathery stripe inside a gravely corner of Kruse Ranch Rd.,traffic happend.The man in red veered hard to the outside,I overlapped and slapped down but good.(see knee&bars)Thanks to Dr.Bartels for the nice needle work.I have no memory of any more racing 'till Skyline.Another good day!Downiville is no place for a32on29".I miss everyone.Contact me,concreteathlete@gmail.com if you got underground racing.Read" Cheap"!

'S' stands for 'homemade double straps'.

Destruction Derby

Last week the crew hit up the Petaluma Destruction Derby for a little chickentown entertainment and because I want to destroy something so I had to take notes. It turns out that my calling may just be ramming into other cars at high speeds. My buddy Eric down at Lee's Auto Body said he could probably help me make a kick-ass car, but he said I would probably get killed: next. My husband says I don't know what I'm doing: next. My brother says those guys are pros who pound a half bottle of jack before they drive: next. My girlfriends say that they will pit for me and we would destroy: love them! So, Sean, if you were ever thinking of sponsoring someone for the derby, I'm your girl. I mean those cars are hand crafted, custom fit, high end steel...sound familiar?

Post Partum Pogonip. Nice Rack She Says...Even the Broken Ones

Nice rack fully loaded

A week ago friends from Arizona were in town - Alynda and Jimmy aka Team Lingwood. Hooray. They came in town to visit, to race the Hellyer track, and to ride some mountains. And eat lots of Mexican food. I think we all ate our weight in tortilla chips and salsa.

The food of champions - tortilla chips and salsa

We decided to hit the Santa Cruz Mountains for some mountain biking - this being my Soulcraft Option 3's first session here. Yeah. And there were single speeds in the house, too like a Plowboy.

View from a beautifully designed cockpit - I stole cockpit from Sean

Out of the gate, I was excited. Excited to the point I could barely contain myself. I was literally bugging out and drooling like the dude from Christmas story when he recieves the leg lamp, "Fra-gee-lee". Haha. But, I really was super excited, perhaps even drooling at thought of riding my mountain bike in good company. Woo-hoo. I couldn't wait. Super stoked.

I had the jitters up on the first climb, eyeing the rocks, the roots, and the terrain. Then, it wore down a bit, and the sweet single track starting sweeping. It was fantastic and I literally could have rode for hours on end. The boys pedaled away on the SSs, and the gals rode it. Too well...

Alynda & I

Sweet Singletrack Santa Cruz Style

About an hour into the three hour ride, I decided to test out my new found skills. Alynda and I had been riding together for a bit, and we rolled up to a log. Log being a big enough log to make us stop and contemplate it. I decided to go for broke since I was into the ride. Before I knew what happened, I ended up hitting the log in such an angle, that it spun the bike perpendicular taking me with it. On the way down, I heard the "crack". My ribs. That can't be good. Lying, and then sitting there still clipped in, I looked up at Alynda, and asked to sit here for a moment. Catch the breath, and scan the body. Well, I got up and did a few twists, bends, rotations, etc. Nothing. Really, what about that "crack"?

Group Shot 1

Group Shot 2 - Jimmy, Aaron, Alynda, & me

We pushed on for another two hours. Nothing. No pain, nada. And I was still taking a spill here and there. Hugging the trees, kickstanding the foot and such. We all still wanted to ride, but made the group decision to call it quits and head into Santa Cruz for post-ride taqueria (we had pre-ride taqueria, too). We rode down trying to find our way down via Pogonip. Finally we reached the bottom, and made our way to the car to change. While changing out of my kit, I took off my sports bra and all hell broke loose. The rib(s) that were broken had been held in place by the bra! Shit. I kept telling myself they are bruised because it doesn't feel like the last time I broke them. Wrong.

The next morning I awoke, and knew better. Rib(s) are indeed broken, but worth it. Worth it that I can't wait to ride again worth it. Even though I have had to go through my yoga teacher training program that started last Wednesday, and goes until this Tuesday (tomorrow) for 10 hours a day, and then onto the middle of August on the weekends, and that I have been waiting to take for almost six years, worth it. And worth it to see Ani DiFranco (picture below) in concert this past Wednesday at the Mountain Winery worth it. Still hoping to make a Howarth Park Dirt Crit worth it.

Ani DiFranco

The good German, part two.

When you're seventeen feet tall, the overhanging fauna can sometimes include an extra adventure with the existing one.



Post ride, I documented the German's first ever Budwesier.





It was like 'baby's first steps', but better.

Also, both of the rocket scientists attempted at length to explain the bottom bracket configuration depicted below, and still, after the most elementary of descriptions I still don't quite understand what the hell is going on. However what I do get is that this little beast is just about one of the coolest things I've seen since the introduction of the White Industries Eno Hub.
That of course is with the exception of the break up of Poison.

The Good German

This is my friend Tobias. He's German. He and I worked together at Salsa for about 2 weeks back in 1994. He decided he would rather become an engineer than toil away making bikes. For 15 years he's worked at various big companies designing and making all sorts of complicated and cool stuff. Here he is with his new Holy Roller. At 6'7", he makes a 29r look like a kid's bike.


But he still has a boner for bike stuff, and he came up with a really cool way to turn your geared bike into a singlespeed. It's called the Excentriker, and it's an eccentric BB that fits in a standard bottom bracket shell. The part on the right threads into the frame, and the cup on the left allows the BB spindle to move eccentrically to tighten the chain. It obviously doesn't have as much "throw" as a larger EBB, but with a half-link you can cover any gear combo. It's fucking rad.

The drive side cup below...

Non drive side here...

It works with 24mm spindle cranks only.