5.26.2009
AJBW Tee Sighting
After hiking 14 miles of rugged wilderness, Ethan came across this as he crested the top of Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park...
5.18.2009
Winner Takes All!
And that's exactly what AJBW's Nate Zukas did at this weekend's Sumter MTB Metric Century. With a time of 4 hours and 30 minutes Nate took the win in his class and overall! I saw Nate that night with the coveted winner's pint glass and proceeded to fill it up with some cold Boddington's. Ahhh, the taste of victory. Congrats Nate!
Here's a link to some more info on the race
http://sorbacsra.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=Ridepost&thread=1177&page=1
Here's a link to some more info on the racehttp://sorbacsra.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=Ridepost&thread=1177&page=1
5.12.2009
Fallen Tree Free
A lot of trees had fallen on the Canal trail due to the high winds and severe storms. Some of the trees were rideable (kinda), some not so much. To increase the overall flow of the trail Ross, Jimmy, and I decided to do some work. Equipped with a Stihl Chainsaw, work gloves, and lopers we made our way into the woods. There was a total of 5 trees across the trail and within 1.5 hours we were able to get the entire trail clear. No more cyclocrossing on the MTB trail! 
Another reward of our work party was the prehistoric looking turtle we walked up on in the middle of the trail. This guy was pretty big, had a crazy tail, and a gangsta attitude. Instead of hiding in his shell like most, big man decided to come at us mouth open and ready to snap.
Another reward of our work party was the prehistoric looking turtle we walked up on in the middle of the trail. This guy was pretty big, had a crazy tail, and a gangsta attitude. Instead of hiding in his shell like most, big man decided to come at us mouth open and ready to snap.
5.11.2009
Weekly Wednesday Wildness
If you've been coming out for the Wednesday Night MTB ride you probably understand the title of this post. It seems that since I resurrected the MTB ride, every week has proven to be an adventure. But at the same time each ride has taught us something new. Here's a quick re-cap to get you up to speed on our lessons learned.
Week 1 - A dude (you know who you are Navid) shows up to ride with a bike and a helmet. No water, no repair kit, no nothing. Normally I would have picked up on the lack of equipment, but I was running late and in a hurry to get the ride started. So what happens? About halfway through the ride I'm feeding him water from my camel bak (fyi it gets hot in the woods) to avoid dehydration and a few minutes later he gets a flat. Lesson learned, carry extra water, an extra spare tube or patch kit, and a pump (in case you run out of CO2).
Week 2 - We come up to the big tree crossing about mid way through our first lap and a different dude gets a flat. To make light of the situation, Dustin and I build a small lip out of rotten wood (not a good idea) to make a tree ride. That kept us entertained as it took "dude who will remain anonymous" way too long to fix a flat. We finally jumped in there, got it done, and he's ready to roll. At least that's what we thought...now the friggin front tire is flat! Good thing we learned to bring some patches and a pump last week. Got Adam (oops) fixed up and we had time for one more quick loop. We're now three quarters of the way done and I hear, "Hey guys you ain't gonna believe this..." Yep, dude gets a third flat!!! We make like a Nascar pit crew and knocked it out all while trying not to get eaten alive by skeeters. Lesson learned, teamwork and bug spray is a necessity.
Dustin traversing the tree with the aid of some rotten wood that is moving beneath his wheel. You can see flat number one at the bottom left of the pic. Pic by Scott's iPhone.
Week 2 - We come up to the big tree crossing about mid way through our first lap and a different dude gets a flat. To make light of the situation, Dustin and I build a small lip out of rotten wood (not a good idea) to make a tree ride. That kept us entertained as it took "dude who will remain anonymous" way too long to fix a flat. We finally jumped in there, got it done, and he's ready to roll. At least that's what we thought...now the friggin front tire is flat! Good thing we learned to bring some patches and a pump last week. Got Adam (oops) fixed up and we had time for one more quick loop. We're now three quarters of the way done and I hear, "Hey guys you ain't gonna believe this..." Yep, dude gets a third flat!!! We make like a Nascar pit crew and knocked it out all while trying not to get eaten alive by skeeters. Lesson learned, teamwork and bug spray is a necessity.
Dustin traversing the tree with the aid of some rotten wood that is moving beneath his wheel. You can see flat number one at the bottom left of the pic. Pic by Scott's iPhone.Week 3 - As we hosed ourselves down with some bug spray before the ride, we started joking around about what could happen this week. The ride was going fine, no flats, trails in good shape...what's going on here? Have we been spared? Mechanically yes, but as we waited to re-group a couple times it was a total blood bath as the mosquitoes started to dig in to any exposed skin. How could this be possible? We practically bathed ourselves in bug spray. Lesson learned, different bug spray.
Week 4 - We had a big group this week, so I'm immediately thinking we now have a greater chance of mechanical disaster or physical injuries. We're getting through the ride with no issues and everyone's having fun. We all go to finish up the trail in disbelief, we make our way out of the woods, and BAM! Here's our weekly lesson. Seems that a train has come to a complete standstill blocking our access point to the towpath. We can't go left as the engine has stopped halfway across the bridge. We look right and all we see is train. Thankfully we've learned the art of teamwork from prior weeks, so we made the game-day/potentially deadly decision to hop the train. A couple people get on the other side and we start an assembly line feeding bikes through in a most expedient manner. Everything's moving nicely with only a few more bikes to go and we here a big rumble followed by Kim yelling, "It's moving!!!!" We freak out thinking the train is about to start moving, and now we're slinging bikes like scrap metal and people are jumping through the train in a total state of panic. Come to find out it's just some dude with a boomin system in his truck. Everyone's laughing as we get across the train with no injuries, just the world's blackest grease on our hands. Lesson learned, the art of train hopping.
So what will we learn next time? There's only one way to find out...show up for the ride.
Week 4 - We had a big group this week, so I'm immediately thinking we now have a greater chance of mechanical disaster or physical injuries. We're getting through the ride with no issues and everyone's having fun. We all go to finish up the trail in disbelief, we make our way out of the woods, and BAM! Here's our weekly lesson. Seems that a train has come to a complete standstill blocking our access point to the towpath. We can't go left as the engine has stopped halfway across the bridge. We look right and all we see is train. Thankfully we've learned the art of teamwork from prior weeks, so we made the game-day/potentially deadly decision to hop the train. A couple people get on the other side and we start an assembly line feeding bikes through in a most expedient manner. Everything's moving nicely with only a few more bikes to go and we here a big rumble followed by Kim yelling, "It's moving!!!!" We freak out thinking the train is about to start moving, and now we're slinging bikes like scrap metal and people are jumping through the train in a total state of panic. Come to find out it's just some dude with a boomin system in his truck. Everyone's laughing as we get across the train with no injuries, just the world's blackest grease on our hands. Lesson learned, the art of train hopping.
So what will we learn next time? There's only one way to find out...show up for the ride.
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