Dinky Egg Loop

It's been too long since we've seen Bill and his bum on a bike.
The "Egg Loop" is about a 15 mile loop out south and west with a bit of dirt road. Since we've not been riding much we decided to do a short ride.  Bill said it was "Dinky." Good word.

The ride pops out down there at Latah on 195. This is the new freeway overpass crossing. This kind of mega infrastructure bums me out. My opinion is that we should not be encouraging the outward/sprawling growth of the city.

Officially, it's not open. But sprawl and all -- this is a handy bit of bikey infrastructure. 

I didn't photo the protected path on the north-bound side of the freeway. But it's way better than mixing it up on the shoulder with 70 MPH traffic. The path eventually spits you out into a cul de sac that terminates Inland Empire Way.
If only that guy with the private bridge would allow bike traffic to cross...

First White Road climb o' the year

It was everything we expected it to be: cold, lame, depressing, wet, icy, difficult. And fun in that weird way.

Did stuff

I wish that I had a tag/label for "bill's ass" on this blog. His ass is definitely over -represented here. Some day when I'm bored, late at night and I want to feel productive by doing something mindless and really not productive, I'll go through and find all the pics of Bill's booty, and label those posts. Won't that be great.

I pump-tracked at Pat's this week. That was the first official session for me this year. Which is sad, because that track is holding up and it's still fun.

Bill's bum in these pictures was located on Chatcolet Road, which is a nice dirt alternative to the busy paved roads between Rockford and Worely.

Worely, being in Idaho, has cheap booze. For example: Red State bourbon for $13. For $13, it's not awful. A good option after you bring out the nice stuff and just want to sip into the night. Ice is recommended.

Bill's and my ride to lake CDA via Worely was about 50 miles. After a lot of not riding much over the last month or so, it didn't feel awful, but it wasn't effortless and rad.

Transition is still taking up most of my brain-power, so once a week blogging may be the new norm. We'll see. In any case, expect the review-to-post ratio to increase, as I figure out how to maintain my bourgeois lifestyle on my meager graduate-student TA wage. For those following closely, I decided not to do the vending thing with the software world. I'm a student and a teacher. Only -- I'm going all in here. And I'm jazzed about it.

Here's something that caught me by surprise: Inland NW CX series starts next weekend! And not only that, but it's the Expo event at 7-mile airstrip. Elephant Bikes will be representing: Glen's bringing a bunch of bikes and I'm going to do the omelets again. We need to find some beer too. Anyway. Yep: that's next Sunday the 23rd. More at www.emdesports.com.

Perfect summer mornings

These are the mornings you will be dreaming about in February. Get out there!

Palouse dirt

Friday ride with Messrs Aleto and Bloom on the fine back dirt roads of the Palouse. We travelled on many new-to-me roads.

Here's the route:


Here are some pics:

Road find day

This picture isn't from today. It's from this day. On this route.

First road find today: 10 mm wrench. Tony called it a speed wrench or a quick wrench or something like that. It's got the closed, ratcheted thingy on one side.

Then Bill found a little piece of glass.

Jon scores a 13mm ratchet socket wrench on 4 Mounds climb. He also found some sun glasses (not pictured). He's shaving a bit of his famous beard next week. To see it, come to Jone's Radiator next Weds at 8 pm.

Unfortunately this giant bottle of Fire Ball Whiskey was empty. But it's a nice bottle. Glass and all.

Barrel wagon thing from Ft George Wright. Wright was a ruthless dude. His job was to come into this area in the mid-19th century and teach a lesson to the natives, who had the audacity to fight back and push Steptoe's army out of the Palouse. That kind of aggression does not stand. What's sort of interesting is that Wright was ruthless as hell -- there are multiple accounts of him hanging Native Americans on a whim to prove a point. He once asked asked a gathering of Native Americans who in the crowd had fought at a specific battle. About 30 men raised their hands. He picked 4 at random and hung them in front of all. Apparently his ruthlessness was not ruthless enough. He was chastised by his superiors for being soft on the Indians. In any case, they named a fort after him. The fort needed water hauled, so apparently this wagon hauled this tank around at Fort Wright. And here we are, riding by on our bikes on a Friday afternoon. Finding stuff.

Here's a little more crazy for ya. This is really hard to see. And Maddie's been mucking with the camera, so I didn't realize it was set to "take the tiniest picture resolution possible" mode. But that's a miniature rail road track, with trestle there. So most cyclists know about the mini-railroad guy out on Smyth, but this one is a narrower gauge track. And it's on Pine Bluff or Carlson Road.

Our track is here.

Finally. Check out untappd.com. It's a beer drinking site. Sign up and be my friend. It's fun to watch what beers friends are drinking. I got nothing in this -- I just want more virtual beer drinking friends. Then you're really not drinking alone! Everyone wins. 

Temple Road

Bill, Eric, Jon
Elephant, rSogn, LHT, Legolas

The road is in amazing shape. Best ever.

Cyclocross at 7-mile

Opener was today. Even though I didn't race, I had a pretty good time.

Bill arrives for his first race.

Steph. Rocking the run-up.

Mark and Scott. Well-matched.

Glen portaging beers and brats.

Maddie

Camp Run-up

Brian. That color is "Kawasaki Green"

Jon's first race.

1994 RB-T. (Phil's)

John Stone.
3rd in Cat 4.

Dig Tom's smile. This is nearing the end of his second race.

Jon. Jordy looking on.

Bill wrecked in a magnificent ball of dust and glory on a fast corner. Then sprinted to beat this guy at the finish line.

Hank (his camera took all these pics)

Louie. (Pic by Hank.)

The approach

MC spring recon

Bill and rode half the Midnight Century route today. It was the hard, first half. Lots of climbing.

With the exception of a small chunk of summer road off of Bruna, the roads are in way better shape now than they are in the summer. The dirt roads are packed and not too dusty and very little deep gravel.

My view whenever I'm climbing with Bill.

But the paved descents have a lot of gravel on them. So there's the trade off.

Bill's new Elephant. Build-up finished while we were on our ride today.

My new-to-me mountain bike.
 It still needs some brake tweaking before it's ready to roll.
Hopefully I'll get that squared away this weekend.
More to come.