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.

It had to happen.

It rained.

That's not so bad though, it was just a little of it, I'll bet the trails never even felt it.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow's KK ride, even if it ends up being another solo one. Then we've got workdays at SWK on Saturday & KK On Sunday. I'm looking forward to clearing out the south river trail so it can be used again.

I like riding on dirt

I rode KK with NapervilleKerry and OoklatheMok this evening and it was fun. I was able to prove to Kerry that he isn't the slowest guy out there after all. I live to give people joy, that's what I do.

Trail riding proves to me that all that limestone I ride isn't enough though. I'm still out of "trail-shape." I'll go see the doctor, but I know what he'll recommend, take two trail rides and call him in the morning. Who needs that mess? I'll just ride and save the co-pay. :D

Hopefully the rain will either hold off or just be light enough to not drench the trail. I hope to get back out soon.

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.

Ready to roll

Big props to Dennis at the shop, he turned that sucker around quickly. Now I'm ready for tomorrow's ride. I'll snap some pics of the new ride in the AM.

Surgery

The D460 is at the shop getting the new fork installed. I'm having them put the brakes on too since I'm kinda lazy right now. I should be set for Saturday according to the wrench over there. I'm looking forward to checking out a new trail with Tim. That ought to be pretty good. I've heard about this place for a while, but haven't ridden there yet. It's about time.

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.

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 was a good week

Group Rides: We had the Knoch Knolls beginner ride this week and I did a short FRT ride after work with a coworker this week as well, luckily he didn't die on me. It was nice to spread some bike riding joy around this week.

Big Wheels: I rode a 29er 1x9 at the Knoch Knolls ride and I pretty much liked it. You really don't need to change gears much there, but there were a few times that I was glad to be able to drop it into a little cog in back and haul it down the widetrack. I admit, I love popping into the big ring at Springbrook and getting some speed whenever I ride the Kona out there. The IRO is still my favorite bike right now though, I don't really NEED gears when I'm riding out here anyway.

Solo Rides: Springbrook and more Springbrook, it ain't dirt but it's right outside my door. I'd also like to ride at FDR Dubuque before the weekend is out if that's possible. If not, we'll still have the alpine slides.

Lunch rides and Beverly Lake

One of the nice things about working with folks who are conscious of their health is that everyone there likes to be active. That means things like lunch time bike rides are appealing to some of us. I had the pleasure of participating in a couple of them last year, but we've had a long drought of them ever since. That ended today when I led a couple of folks on a nearly four mile loop around the neighborhood near the office. It was fun to be out riding the Monocog on my lunch hour. I'm looking forward to many more lunchtime and after-work rides this year.

After work I was able to join a bunch of friends up at Beverly Lake for an exploratory ride of the trails out there. This forest preserve looks like it'll be an awesome win for CAMBr Northwest once we can begin some trailwork out there. The place has a lot of singletrack that hasn't been maintained for a long time, but with a bit of work the trail system out there could have more mileage that Palos and it'd have mile after mile of the sweet twisty singletrack that we all love so well.