Almost Famous

Well, I will never be famous but being on the back of a catalog is close enough for me. This picture was taken back in April during the 12 Hours of Dawn till Dusk in Gallup. This same photo was in issue # 17 of Mountain flyer. Photo taken by Brian Leddy.

Vegas Century Ride Pics

A little late but pics are always good no matter how old. Anyways, these are pics TR had taken and I just now have gotten around to post them from the Las Vegas Century ride.


Here is the 6.30am start. Always be at the front of a road ride. Stay safe and away from the crashes which usually happen in the pack and with 1500 riders anything is bound to happen in the Fred convention going on in the back. LOL!!

Heading back to Boulder City after riding the new bypass bridge at Hoover Dam. Lake Mead in the background.

The finish.

TR and I at the finish.

Mountain Flyer Zuni 100 Write-up

Here is the link to Mountain Flyer's Zuni 100 post race write up by Brian Leddy.

http://www.mountainflyermagazine.com/view.php/zuni-mountain-100.html

note: I was quoted as stating that this is harder than the Crested Butte 100 but that was stated by Danny powers whom had just recently raced the CB100. I have yet to race the CB100 and compare the two. Just saying.

Phil's World

The weekend involved both days at Phil's World. Saturday was a trail building day to finish a new singletrack loop off of the Trust Loop called Hippie House. I hauled my chainsaw around cutting trees for nearly 4 hours. Approximately 25 people showed up to volunteer for this project. Amazing how fast a trail can be cut with a big effort. Trails 2000 was the supporting group. Went back down on Sunday to ride as well. The parking lot was packed to the gills. Seems like the Durangotangs are really enjoying this trail system. Everyone I spoke with was from the Durango area. Good times.

Zuni 100 Post Race Report

Another awesome Zuni 100 finish for me. 9 hours and 9 minutes and 1st place overall. I shaved 33 minutes off of last years time. Four of us started the 100 miler at 7.10am on Saturday morning. 2 single speeders and 2 geared. Me and Billy on the singles and Cameron and Danny on the geared machines. I wasn't sure how my legs were going to do as I had a lot of miles on them from the previous weekends adventure out to Vegas. As expected Cameron took off pretty fast as we hit the singletrack. I wasn't about to chase that rabbit and Danny and I rode a few miles together until he stopped to shed some layers. I kept on going at a steady tempo and at about mile 35 or so Cameron comes up behind me. He had taken a wrong turn again just like last year. Deja vu. He seemed frustrated and motored on. I came into the pits and Cameron said he was calling it a day. He already wasn't feeling well he said from his Moab 24 hour race the previous weekend and decided a longer effort wouldn't do him any good. I was fine with that as now I had the chance for an overall 1st place finish. I refueled and was heading back out for the 2nd loop as Danny came in off of his first lap. He looked relaxed and fresh still. I said hello to him and motored out thinking to myself he would catch me with his geared full suspension set up. As I wound my way through the 2nd lap I kept thinking he would catch me but I kept steadily giving it more gas to try to distance myself from him. It was a nice 2nd lap as I rode by myself enjoying the quietness of the forest. Just me, my bike and the singletrack. I also saw Billy coming in about 15 minutes behind me and knew he would be coming back out to chase as well. As it turned out I had a big gap at the end as Danny had a mechanical; lost a caliper bolt on the rear and had to ride some techy downhill without a rear brake. Kudos to him for not bailing and having the determination to finish. He came in at 10 hours 25 minutes and Billy pushed through to finish just under 12 hours looking pretty worked over. Not pretty. LOL!! Good effort by all. The 50 milers were scattered all about on my way out for my 2nd lap. Apparently not a mass start. Sign in and go.

I need to mention a few other items I have been slacking on and that is mentioning our sponsors in my write-ups. Three big ones I like to mention are Hammer Nutrition, Ergon Grips/Packs and White Brothers. For the past few years I have been using the Hammer Nutrition products; Endurolytes, Heed and Perpetuem. My Ergon grips combined with my On One Mary bars are ideal ergonomics for the long distance riding. Comfortable all day and night. My front suspension on the Ti Airborne 29er (my racing bike) is a WB Magic 80 mm fork. A superior product in my opinion over any other front fork. My Vassago has a WB carbon rigid fork.


I'm looking forward to the next Zuni race already.

Zuni 100

Zuni 100 this weekend.

Las Vegas Part II

More photos of the Vegas trip. Nearly 200 miles covered in 4 days. 2 days of road and 2 days of mountain biking.


My new friend. Blue Diamond wild donkeys. Not that wild apparently. They were grazing on a homeowners lawn. Better grazing than out in the desert.





I don't see a damn thing. This picture is out of order. This was taken on the Red Rock Scenic loop on our road ride on Monday morning.









Atop Wounded Knee in the Blue Diamond area. (named after I split my knee open up here in 2001 which required 10 stitches to close).

The burn area looking toward Wilson Tank Overlook out in Cottonwood Valley.

Visiting Kujo; Laura's Keeshhound she had when I first met her. Laura and I laid him to rest up here at the overlook above Red Valley after he succumbed to a liver tumor on June 25th 1998. RIP my little buddy. We miss you dearly.

The mobile man cave out at the Red Rock Overlook.

Desert big horn sheep grazing along the highway out in Boulder City.

After leaving Las Vegas we decided the legs weren't tired enough (yeah right) so we stopped in Sedona for a quick 3 hour ride. Broken Arrow, Submarine Rock, Chicken Point, Llama Trail, Templeton Trail, Cathedral out and back and Mystic back to the Broken Arrow trail head.

On Submarine rock.

TR getting it done on the 29er single.

Getting after it in the Chicken Point area. A bit sketchy on the full rigid.

My new house. LOL!!

Viva Las Vegas!

What a weekend! Drove out to Vegas for the Viva Bike Vegas Century with TR. Laura didn't want any part of a long drive as we will be going back out to Vegas for Thanksgiving. A 115 mile ride around Las Vegas including the new bypass at Hoover Dam. The new bypass is huge. It isn't officially open but for the century ride they let the bikers be the first to ride on it. For the 115 mile ride there was 1500 riders and you had the option to be timed with a chip. 500+ riders were chipped and TR and I were number 49 and 50. I knew it would be a race to the bridge which was at mile 40 and I was in the 2nd pack to reach the bridge. The front pack was blazing fast with Mike Hileman (5th overall) and some other local roadies putting the hammer down on the climb up to Sunrise Mountain. After reaching the bridge we pulled it back and enjoyed the remainder of the ride around the Las Vegas Valley which included looping up to Blue Diamond and riding the Red Rock area and finishing back to downtown Las Vegas. Total time was 6:44. The weekend included rides at Blue Diamond/Cottonwood Valley, Red Rock Scenic Loop and stopping in Sedona for a quick loop on Tuesday.

Here are some pics of the bridge. I will post more pics later of the total trip.

More of the Same

I have been riding quite a bit and the legs have been feeling it but with the weather so nice it is hard to not get out and enjoy the fall weather. Also, less people out on the trails it seems like, not that I see that many around here anyways. I saw 4 hikers and 3 bikers on this ride. On Sunday I humped up the highway to the Eastfork TH and made a loop over to Section Point on the CT and rode down Circle Trail and right into El Rico. 29 miles and 4100 feet of climbing in 3.5 hours. Another good day on the bike for sure. Rain was threatening a couple hours into the ride but it held off until the late afternoon here in Rico but looked like Durango was getting some rain when I was up on the CT riding toward Section Point. Take it while we can. The snow will be here soon.




This is the section of the East Fork that dumps onto double track for a bit before getting back on the singletrack. Look carefully and Lizard Head is in the background. The forest service has closed the meadows section of the upper Eastfork Trail and diverts 1/4 mile up to the double track before connecting to the CT at Celebration Lake.


At Section Point getting ready to drop into the Circle Trail. If you haven't ridden the Circle Trail it can be confusing to locate at the top where it intersects with the CT. A bit of free riding is called for before hitting the lunar bowl section of trail and than its pretty fast super tight alpine single track.

This view is looking toward Barlow Creek Road.

The view from Section Point. Lizard Head far off in the distance.

Bear Creek

There has been one ride that I had yet to do in my immediate area around Rico..........Hillside up to Grindstone to Bear Creek. So on Saturday I got out and did it. Shawn wanted to explore a few alternate routes to GPS for his biking maps he makes for the local area. We went up Hillside which is a very nice casual grade and climbed 10+ miles and took a right turn onto another fire road and found a hint of a trail that Shawn wanted to check out which led to a short hike through the trees to see where the lower grindstone loop connected potentially to this road we had just been on. We than took a left turn on the lower Grindstone Loop Trail and started climbing up and of course no bike ride isn't complete without a gnarly hike-a-bike thrown in. At this point there was a nice view looking down into Grindstone Lake/Rough Canyon. We than continued on to Grindstone Trail and down to the Bear Creek trail and out to the trailhead. Bear Creek is definitely a bit techy in places and the potential to fall and hurt yourself is great. Total loop was 34 miles and 4170 feet of climbing. A nice day on the bike.


Bear Creek.

Shawn descending Grindstone.

Rough Canyon.

Alta Lakes

Did an after work ride with TR up to Alta Lakes on Thursday. what a perfect night for a ride. The fall weather has been perfect or late. It was fun to rip through the golden trails littered with the fallen aspen leaves.



Alta Lakes....10,700 feet elevation.

TR enjoying the ride. What is up with that ugly helmet???? He must have found it in the free box.

Hello!!

No blog post is complete without a photo or two of me. LOL!!!! Our new Voler BWR knickers are great for this time of year.

Sweet single track in the Alta area.