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A few things

That's Bill and Tony. They've been meeting me out at school on Fridays and escorting me home. None of us are huge fans of the Cheney-Spokane ride scenarios. There's just so much better, lower-traffic, more interesting dirt options on the Palouse on the east side of 195. So, after plodding along and around the FLT every day for a week, I really appreciate seeing these two guys on Friday.

They ride really fast so there's that. But they also are down for making the ride interesting and longer and dirty-er. All in all, it's a great way to end the school week.

Now this guy, Mr. Pat Sprute, needs an intervention. It just so happened he was a bachelor this weekend, so there was nothing but play time. Actually, knowing Pat, there was probably a ton of house-related projects that he also wedged into his weekend. But the stuff I know he did: raced cross and worked for many hours on his pump track on Saturday. When I stopped by and took this picture at 4pm on Saturday he was just marking out the plan for a 180 berm to fill up the back of his yard. (Either Tobin or Jake had the idea of banking dirt up on the fence back there for a super berm...). Anyway, the report is that Pat pretty much got all the dirt in place and packed down Saturday night.

I should also note that Pat was sort of wheezy in that "I raced a 'cross race a few hours ago and it still friggin' hurts" kind of way when I took this picture. It's also well-known that building pumptracks is probably one of the most physically demanding yard-related activities a guy can do.

If I had that Saturday, my Sunday would consist of sleeping, lounging, and beering exclusively.

But not Pat. On Sunday, Glen brought his creepy new van ("she puts the dog in the basket...") around bright and early and we were off to Riverside State Park for 1.5 hours of trail riding.

Photo by Pat. Glen is vomiting.

Creepy or not, that van rocks. I had an epiphany as we drove out to RSP. While Pat sort of stared off into the distance with a glassy gaze and funny grin, it hit me: this van may only be able to do a long trip for a few years. These vans tend to degrade into really awful piles of shit quickly.

What if we figured out a  mountain bike tour? Glen says he has the hardware to carry all bikes and most stuff on the roof. The van is 15-passenger. What if there existed a handful of other guys that would be interested in say... a week on the road visiting Bend, Humbolt, St. Helens, Redding, and Ashland? Mountain biking bliss. Think early summer.

Anyway, by the time we were done with our trail ride (which, I think, with this van, we need to figure out a Sunday morning routine here...), buddy Pat was torched. Smiling the whole time. And it was 10:30 in the morning. I'd bet good money he went home and still did more on the rest of Sunday than I did all weekend.

Rackless

The sections of deep sand and rutted trail I've been riding home on require a fair amount of bike handling shenanigans. Specifically, I'm really hopping that front wheel around a lot.

So the front rack went away for now.

I'm preferring the load on my back for this kind of riding.

Reviving the Resurrecto

This old chestnut recently came back to me. I hacked it into its current state of 650b-itude a few years ago. Then Dylan used it for a couple years. And now it's back.

I really like having a bike whose sole existence is optimized for my abuse. That's what this bike is for and it's great at that role.

I put the Pacenti Pari Motos on there just for kicks. I plan on using this bike for this weeks' commute, assuming it doesn't rain.

Luckily for me, buddy Justin showed up. I fed him coffee. Maddie fed him popcorn. And for that, I didn't have to deal with setting up the brakes. Yay.

For Sven and Vlad

In an attempt to provide something... *anything* for this blog, I took some pictures on the way home yesterday. My schedule forces me onto this forlorn trail almost daily.

Coyote?