Take a Kid Mountain Biking day 2011

Today was the 8th annual Take a Kid Mountain Biking day. IMBA proposed it a few years back & folks have taken advantage of the opportunity to introduce their kids to the sport. Eli had been riding singletrack at Knoch Knolls a couple of times and I thought it was time to bring him out to Palos for the first time.

Everything went great. We had about 13 kids show up with their parents, uncles, or aunts. The kids rode Roadkill & Cemetary Hill. We came back to the Maple Lake lot and had a picnic lunch. Many thanks to everyone who brought out great food to share. Also, I want to thank all the folks who came out and made it a fun time. I could tell that all the kids had a blast. What's important to me is that several of the kids are anxious to get back on singletrack. That's awesome. Thanks to Nancy Fallon for taking pictures of the event & sharing them so quickly.

CX on singletrack, oh yeah!

I saw this video posted over on Facebook. I love it, especially since I ride my Iro Rob Roy over at Knoch Knolls a lot and have even taken it out to Palos a few times as well. I also like the quality of the video that the rider/videographer gets out of his camera. I think I need to add this camera to my want list.

Local trails ala cx from Andy Wardman on Vimeo.

It's cold...

Man, I haven't posted in forever. There have been a lot of rides since I last posted. The Poker ride, Kettle, a lot of KK and Springbrook, The klunker ride, etc. Good times.

I almost made it out tonight for a quick run at KK but got tied up at home. I might get to ride if it stays dry tomorrow. I'll probably have to bring out the lights too since it gets dark so early.

I've been on the 1x9 pretty much since a week after the Poker ride. I'm getting ready to hang the Monocog and JTS up from the ceiling, but I think the Rob Roy and the D460 will stay down and readily accessible.

Choices, it's all about choices.

Another good weekend

I got a pleasant surprise Friday afternoon. Mark gave me a call and wanted to know if I was up for a couple of laps around Springbrook. I gladly obliged. I jetted home from work and rode over to the MUP on the Rob Roy. We enjoyed a nice conversation and some fun riding. I brought my lights but didn't need them until I hit some asphalt. Nice.

Saturday started with a drive up Rt. 59 into Barrington so I could hit Beverly Lake with the rest of Team Slack. We rode a mix of grass trails, singletrack, a little asphalt, and more grass. The ride was actually the hardest 10 miles I've done all year, but it was good to ride with almost all of the original DG crew at one time again. We finished the day with talks of grand dreams for DG, BBQ, a swag giveaway, and we watched RR and GHGH catching air off of a ramp. Good times. I finally ended up putting on my 18t freewheel after the Beverly Lake ride.

Sunday was good too. Cgreg, YC, and I hit Palos. My front rotor was rubbing on the caliper and I wasn't sure what was going on. I ended up riding one of the noisiest bikes in the forest preserve that day. We started up Bullwhip/ML East up to the road where we rode Cemetery Hill, Post Hole, Stonehenge and the Yellow trail back to the Out & Back. It's strange to see that giant log pile gone. Anyway, we rolled on and Chris bailed in order to get home in time. YC and I rode on to Gravity Cavity and stopped at the bridge. We decided to head back up and go grab a bite to eat. On the way back we chatted it up with Steve, Ryan, and a few others in the Staging area. It was a short drive to this little hot dog stand that I hadn't been to before. We ended up seeing Steve there again just as we were about to head our separate ways.

I worked on my bike a little after I was done. It turns out that there was nothing wrong with the bike other than a slow leak and a front wheel that was improperly placed in the fork dropouts. User error. :( It was still a good mtn biking weekend overall.