Let's just skip to Summer shall we?

This crappy wet weather even make the multicrap, ummm... crappy. Dirt. I need to ride on it.

Been riding

I can't say that my local MUP is all that exciting, but it's here and it gives me a chance to ride when I can't make it out to other trails. Couple that with the wet Spring that we're having and I get to ride it a lot.

Our little road trip on Friday was pretty awesome. A few of us got to ride some precious dirt while it rained back home. We'll ride SWK this evening, by all accounts most of it dry is enough to ride. It'll be hard work, but it'll be nice to hit more dirt instead of limestone. Then we go camping up in MI this weekend. I'll ride some trails out there and maybe hit Palos on Monday.

Dirt, precious dirt, I've missed you.

Getting back to normal.

Man... What a couple of weeks it's been. I got back from AZ last night at midnight and got a couple of hours sleep before we all loaded up the car and drove town to Purdue so Savi could take a final for her current class. I was so tired on the way down, but made up for it with a power nap while she was taking her test. My mom-in-law was keeping the lil guy company as he played with his new Spongebob PSP game. [Note to self: get him some nicer headphones.]

We made it down there and back in record time so that both Savi and I could catch a power nap before she had to go to work, my nap was a little longer since she was long gone by the time I woke up. Savi's mom had taken a nice walk to enjoy this great weather and Eli was out playing with some neighbor kids so I grabbed the Iro & headed out to hit the MUP with Jason. I rolled out for a nice and easy 20 miles. It doesn't make up for missing out on the Desert Classic, but it'll have to do. No more rain on the immediate horizon might even mean I can hit some trails this weekend.

Hopeful.

Here she is

Here are a couple of pictures of the new bike. I snapped them at Springbrook this afternoon.

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.

Just another ride

It's getting dark much earlier nowadays. I'll need to start riding with lights all the time pretty soon.

Here are a couple of pics from my ride this evening:

It's a biking weekend!

I did the lightweight 20 miler With the Iro on Friday night, got to hang out and get dirt all over my brand new PBP tshirt on Saturday, then did another 20 on the JTS today. I'm all smiles. Thanks go out to Baudler for loaning me a ride since I left my bike at home on Saturday.

Well, mostly smiles, I've got a couple of bruises too.

I topped it off by watching Star Wars cartoons with the lil' guy tonight. I've got to get him off the training wheels and out to do the pump track.

Alaska looks pretty awesome

Awesome (def: inspiring awe) is the exact word to describe the images I saw in a MTBR thread this morning. A couple of guys took nearly three weeks to travel around the wilderness of Alaska via bikes and rafts. I'll probably never do anything like that trip. I'm really glad that the original poster in that thread decided to share his adventure with strangers on the internet.

I got home and played with the kid for a bit, then headed out to do a few loops out on the limestone again. I hear that Knoch Knolls is drying out pretty well. I'll probably get a chance to go out there sometime over the weekend. In fact, hitting dirt all weekend long seems like a fine idea.

It ain't raining, but it sure ain't dry yet

The rain came, and it kept coming, and coming some more. Everything is soaking wet and flooded around here. I see no hope of riding on dirt until the end of the week at best. A lot of the Fox River Trail is under water too. I'll be riding a lot of limestone this week.

So what's a guy to do? Grab the gearie and go ride some limestone of course! I did a couple of laps at Springbrook and marveled at how nice it is to not have limestone dust all over your water bottles. The rain is good for something after all. There are a lot of rough spots where run-off from the rain took a lot of rocks with it. There's also a good sized "puddle" at the low spot where trail users who connect at Modaff come under Naperville/Plainfield Rd to the big loop at the forest preserve.

Something cool happened on Saturday. I had a chance to attend a community workshop that was put on by the Naperville Park District. They are working on a master plan for the bikeway and walking trails in Naperville. I was pleased to see that they're working with other municipalities and governmental agencies in order to connect trails in Naperville out to other trails in the region. This bodes well for my hope of finding a safe cycling route out west toward the office. I also liked that they recognize dirt trails as a legitimate type of trail in their future plans. I hope that they'll build more mtn bike friendly trails in Naperville in the future.

There will be one more meeting at The Barn in Naperville tonight at 6:30. Click here for more info. Go out and let the park district know what you are looking for in a trail. Mention that you want more natural surface trails too. :D