Memorial Day weekend at the river

Since my dad is buried on the family property at the river, every visit is sort of a memorial.
So there's that. 

The river fleet:
Maddie's trike.
The fat 2 speeder.
A left-over BMX from the pump track.
Rory's Legolas.

We burnt some slash piles.
Then roasted weenies and marshmallows on the  leftover heat.
Maddie looks on.

Sunday morning ride.
The last time I rode this little section I was with Pat Rick and Jon.

This machine means business. If logging is your game and if efficiency at any cost is your goal, the first step is to build a road. But before that, you need to bulldoze it. But before that, you need to clear a path. This monster clears a path.

All rides end at Barstow Store.

Firewood run.

Midnight Century: Minor route change notification

Maron finish, aught nine.

The Midnight Century route is being tweaked a tad this year.

Instead of finishing at The Elk, the ride will finish at Central Food. The ride will still start from The Elk.

The MC website, online map, and cue sheet have been updated. (GPX file is not updated).

Old timers who remember the Maron finish will understand this change. Everyone else will come to understand the greatness of this change.

Mr. DB say's he'll have a clipboard for recording finish times in time for Tom. And of course breakfast service opens at 7. He's hinted that there may be coffee before then, but no promises.

River road

Ferry County roadies!

Bar swap and some High Driving

High art

The Xmass bike has one more season in it.
But only with the saddle jacked up and some reach added.

Glen's work.
Indexed 7 speed: Suntour shifts Dura Ace derailleur.

Guidonnet levers.
De fantaisie.

She digs it.

Rare event: new-to-me trail on HD. This is off the lower section. (Go down Corvair trail, roll out through section  into climb by golf course, at T, go left descent to power lines, then go left again at divide -- don't climb, keep descending -- drop down on fire access road and immediate right to old double-track that transitions to single track).

It ends up popping you back up to powerlines. This is a good route if you don't want to end up all the way down by the No Trespassing section that pops you out on the Avista access road. A great route actually.

With a lovely view. But that's per spec on most of the west-facing trails.

This is the new trail that's been built between the middle and top trails. Roughly, it's here. If you've been paying attention, you would've noticed the flag markers along the side of the hill about a year ago. A few weeks ago the trail was roughed in and there's been a lot of work since then. Good work. Man it's solid.

Monster switchback. This nearly meets ADA requirements. Mostly flat and gobs of room to negotiate the turn. This could serve as a perfect training switchback for new riders.

Backside of the same switch back. Excellent work by the Friends of the Bluff crew.

Interestingly, the top of trail is nearly invisible. That rock there at the right/center is  next to the  trail access -- which is not visible from the top trail. This trail is the easiest climb of all of the routes that traverse the middle-to-top trails.

Pre-sesh

If this isn't PT weather, then I don't know what is.

Wed. Night Mnt bike races start tonight. Kids race free this week. I'll be at school.

HD tippy-top trail

 I don't advocate riding the HD trails on weekends and certainly not on sunny weekends and certainly not the top trail.

Maddie and I rolled up to the grocery store to get some stuff this morning and decided to have a snack on one of the benches overlooking the bluff. From our bench we could see the top trail and as expected it was full of walkers, so we dared not attempt the easy loop.

But the tippy-top trail, which is just a little section of rarely used trail that skirts High Drive, was a perfect solution.

It's time we got out to Riverside State Park again. I'm super stacked up with school work right now so my weekends are mostly full... in my non-school life we'd so be at the river this weekend... but maybe we can swing a 1/2 day out at RSP next week.

In the moments that my brain isn't full of school-related stuff, it's utterly consumed with summer thoughts of fishing, riding, bike-camping, Kettle Crest trail riding, Boulder Creek pass-hunting, Peninsula exploring, sibling-hanging, friend chilling, and river floating.

Alt FLT: the parallel universe

It's been a month or so since I rolled over this section.
The surface is surprisingly dry and soft given the time of year. 

A turkey event happened here.
This is pretty much the same spot where the coyote event happened last fall.
Noted.
I want to avoid a cyclist event.

More pittin' out and tandem cockpit setup v4

The turn into this hill is a hard transition. A bit off-camber with loose gravel. She's really finessing the brakes there.

This is the turn into the descent. Check out the concentration. Rad. It's bad enough I'm  all  weird and excited about her riding, but how neat am I for sitting there with a camera and snapping shots while she does this? Pretty neat. That's what. But I can't help myself. It so satisfying.

So... she told me that she has a right to take shots of me while I spin around the pit.
Fair enough.

This is right after I landed a sweet jump.  She totally missed it. I probably got like 10 feet of air.

I'm actually riding backwards here after manualing my front wheel. She missed that too.

I took the Albatross bars off the tandem. They were too wide, too tall,  and too wrap-aroundy.

I've loved the Space Bars on my MB-2, SH-80,  River bike, mini, fishing bike, RB1, and probably others... So I figure they were worth a try on the tandem. This the fourth set of bars I've tried. It came with regular flat bars. Then I put drops on it. Then the albi's. My shoulders always hurt. I didn't have a normal stem that was long enough -- IME, you gotta push these bars out and put them just below the saddle. For laughs I put the Softride on there. 

I'm pleasantly surprised by how nice this Softride feels for this application. Granted, I've only taken a spin around the neighborhood, but the bit of cush combined with my Space Bar love might just have finally been the sweet spot combination. I'm going to Space Bar the stoker too.