Fooled me with her style and ease

or

Head like a hole black as your soul

I struggled with this post’s title. And with words in general, numbstruck after the now-annual Birthday Biathalon.

Will you be my valentine” has not been said for the last 10 years. Sisters  having the same birthday used to be precious, then cute, then economical, until scope-creep and mounting pressure for  each year to be bigger than the last leaves us  excess and gluttony and money-raining reparations. And the cradle will rock. I gave G my present, and thought it was plenty good – a private shooting lesson with a professional soccer player.

All  I want for my birthday is them to come snowboarding with me.

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I was intrigued by a new trail at Hawes, that summits the mountain to the south of Radio Tower road and the water-scarred deathtrap that has become Tower Trail. The descent was sure to be like the best parts of Tower Loop.  And the climb…m’eh; I HAB the McDowells every other ride, pushing my bike is like putting on my helmet, nothing in the relatively smooth crushed granite of Hawes could possibly threaten me. I started at Usery Pass road, to meet Byron and Alex afterwards for an easy loop around Pass Mountain. Such a stylish payback for 45 min drive to get there, and it wouldn’t make me choose between two of my all-time favorite rides and riding buddies that used to be out my door.

big views at the top of Gidro Pass

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Salt River to the north

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home! and if you look past Red Mountain you can see Tom’s Thumb. I got it made so bad.

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The White Tanks, 50 miles through the sprawl

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The trail still feels  primitive. The descent on Goat trail was sketchy, the traverse and climb some walking. I luuuuuuuurved the drop back into Las Sendas – long, tight and explicit.

There are other ways to do the Hawes-PassMtn loop, but I no longer live on it so they offer no conveniences. I really liked having my car in the center of the figure 8. Except for  a long, long climb from the river to the top of Pass Mtn, where Byron and Alex abused me with their fresh legs.

Byron on Pass Mountain
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Between us we have 50 years experience on Pass Mtn, it never gets easier.

miss a beat, lose the rhythm
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Dia and I, checking out the Phx Open from Tequila Tree. Camelback in the center, Somo the red dot to the left, 35 miles south. It was that kind of night.

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you’ve got me captured I’m under your spell
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The next day G was a wreck with sickness. She shivered during warmups for her soccer game and sat out as her team’s only sub. Coach played her 1 short shift, the insurance goal bounced  off her foot as she wobbled and moaned in front of the goal, then she went to bed for the next 3 days.

Alana and I joined the Dynamix Devo crew at Brown’s Ranch.

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I fooled her, told her 3 miles max, then eased it into 6.5. I’ve figured Alana out – get her in a good mood, let her think you pay attention to her non-stop chatter. Why can’t this be love?

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Won’tcha turn your head my way?
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Two live wires.  Just watch these ladies go.

and then my friend Carmen traded me this for a 6-pack of Sex Panther! That night we started jump training, taught them to pump and drop off curbs at an office park 90 seconds from our garage. They were vastly improved after 20 reps.

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We went for a night ride, with 7 kids, from the parking lot of one of the busiest bars in the city during Friday Happy Hour. It could only be topped for parental negligence if it occurred during the Phx Open Weekend in a lightning storm. One of our friends is a school teacher, that should count for something! Dia and I made it exactly 50 feet through the chaos before I ran over her foot and we called it a night – thankfully no toes were broken and she was running again in 2 days. I got drunk at OHSO. At least everyone had fun! Thanks Scott for the vid.

dance the night away
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Sunday we went to Robin’s house to socialize some new ACDR puppies.

Meet the Van Heelins, Edie and Alex!
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Edie, rocking a solo
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Alex. he’s a drummer
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pretty woman
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running with the devil
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poundcake
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G and I did a sunset ride up Gateway and down Paradise Wash, but first we hit  one of my spots for suburban hooliganism.

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Jump!
(you knew that was coming)

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That big glow is not G’s face, its the moon. This must be just like  living in Paradise.
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Cornering

2 years in a row Wolf Creek for Xmas, making 8 December trips for me. El Nino took their ytd from 150 inches to 210 around our trip.  The best gifts share time, right? So here’s 9 hrs in the truck, into a snowstorm. Merry Xmas!

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My other paltry Xmas gifts were new swim goggles and a large camping tarp, but who’s dad (and mom) drive them 500 miles through squalls for fresh pow? They have been great kids all semester, G just qualified for comprehensive gifted classes, and Alana hasn’t gotten a math problem wrong yet this year. Every day they get smarter, learn more how to learn.

some voracious Hour of Code
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I was doing pretty good too, trading my Man of Leisure to become the new QA Architect for Nextiva. The office is conveniently located for a ThNR down to Boulders on Broadway.

i so miss commuting to Tempe
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Day 1: its a great day at Wolf Creek when its too grey for any photos.

Day 2: we were stacked up in the morning  waiting for Wolf Creek Pass  to finish avy control.

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so fresh Beckie and I stuck together all day, me taking edges and alt lines til we met at the bottom

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I convinced Beckie to follow me down a blue run on the Alberta face.

She stressed and blamed the whole float through the trees, but stayed in the tracks and carried her speed. We kept in sight of the lift and easy bailout. The next run we pushed further into the powder-drenched glades. She whined, worried but didn’t panic. She said she hated it, but I think she had fun, even if she won’t admit it.

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G’s instructor said she’d maxed out on what lessons could teach her, until she joined the ski team. We rocked blue runs together as the crowds gradually surrendered to sundown and flurries.

Alana believed herself equally awesome,  even as she avoided parallel turns because she wants to go fast. She and Beckie took the last lift way up the hill and finished so late and so cold and so dark the ski patrol mounted up to go look for them. Alana couldn’t have been happier.

It was bleak, snowing, and the road was closed the next morning. Another murky 7 degree day on the hill followed by 10 hrs home in the dusky accumulation seemed dumb. Heading home early still wrapped in our outerwear seemed smart, until we slipped into a backache-migraine-inducing total whiteout in the pass to Durango, with the engine light blinking, on Xmas — that seemed really really dumb, and only seemed less dumb when we finally got home and could pick up Dia.

xmas day +1
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These moves are getting routine.

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Alana finding her capabilities on Quartz trail, however, is not. Every time i thought she would dismount she did not.

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vaya con Dias
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smarter about some things
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New Years Day+1
Brown’s Ranch
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last dance for the 2-bike?
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I barely pedaled or braked 3 miles down Hawknest, it felt like snowboarding.*heart* that trail, new favorite trail.

G wrapping up 15 miles
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That night Alana and I rolled Dingo trail with Dia, and talked about lana-sized rides. A great conversation, we agreed to try the Sport Loop at MMP while G and Beckie went off on their own.

The next day she did another run down Quartz. She was tired and bonking, sluggy, but so much cleaner than last time, outriding failing strength. She demanded to session a few of the hardest sections. Crashed dropping the big hill from the Library into Westworld, and fighting back tears acknowledged my reminder to not start on a downslope or take off her gloves. Breaking through the cognitive ceiling…how else do you explain not having to explain ‘soft on the brakes‘, ‘flow through the turn‘, ‘carry speed in the rocks‘? So recently, so long, a 5 mile ride with Alana seemed so unfathomable. Physical limitations dissipate in the incursion of confidence and skill.  

The next week we joined our Dynamix Devo teammates at MMP.

happy bday BB and Liam!
bdays!

this is a serious muthafuffin cake, handmade by Jen Clark
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about to invade  the Sport Loop!
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Alana’s  best trail ride evah! There were a few challenges, like being dropped by everyone and their mothers, a long slow uphill, and 20 failed starts on a downhill that got in her head.  The flowyness opened her mind, in the background 4 Peaks snowyness.

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herdy dog

The very next day G climbed lower Gateway and almost cleaned Paradise Wash. I told her it would be lumpy. She shrugged and banged through it, maybe better than my first time over 10 years ago. They are turning a corner.

At Wolf Creek, G asked me what I meant by ‘days‘. Why did she have 12 days, why did Alana have 7? 13 and 8 after Beckie daytripped them all to Sunrise. I was 3 at 23yo, before buying my first skis for a trip to Silver Mountain, Idaho with Beckie, that blew out the back of my mind.

El Nino-drenched soccer fields had G off the pitch for 3 weeks, but she had 9 days on the bike. Alana had 5. I could  ride this curve a long time.

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Stacked dipshittery, and how to not be a SAR stat

A few years ago I read Death In The Canyon. The overarching takeaway was that, other than the jumpers, it was nearly always a confluence of bad luck, bad circumstances, and bad choices that got people killed.

2 hours and only 12 miles into a 46 miles ride, too much HABing and 50% of my gps gone, i knew exactly how stupid i’d been already.

  • didn’t study the map
  • didn’t put a pic on my phone
  • didn’t have a hardcopy
  • didn’t turn backlight timer on my gps from ‘Always On‘ to ‘15 sec.‘ This was particularly galling. As a frivolous unemployed man-of-leisure, i had my bag packed, gps loaded WITH THE TRACK SHADED, and bike tuned by Wednesday eve. *facepalm*

My cleverness at deconstruction on-the-fly and root-cause-analysis was not at all comforting.  Risk aversion and respect for it should have turned me right back around and had me home in another 2 hrs completing the 29 mile short course. However, a SAHD with a hall pass rides as long and as far as he can. Getting lost would be saddle time the family couldn’t possibly hold against me, and James said the backside of the course was supercool. I still had 6 hours of daylight to go 32 miles, was making almost 6mph despite the completely unnecessary HAB, the backside was supercool, and I had a backup battery pack. Like a chessmaster I thought I had outplanned my dipshittery!

The back half of the loop was amazing! A gradual ~8 mile dirt road climb where high-elevation forests sleekly replaced miles of grassy hills. I saw a deer and told him to run away, .25 miles later i saw hunters and sent them in the wrong direction. Desert trees don’t Fall like trees in the Mid-Atlantic. The few reds and oranges that charged out of the deep corners in hillsides full of small-leafed greens shouted out about recent rain. The washes were ankle-high refreshers, splashing me just enough to embrace the season while not actually making me cold. The descent off the back loop was supercool as promised, with periodic trail placards detailing the history of Kentucky Camp  every time I had to HAB.

Back at Kentucky Camp the GPS gave me a not-unexpected low-battery warning. Aaaand I found I did not have the right cable to plug into my battery. SHIT! I assumed, rather than confirmed, my usb cable was in the bag. Backup battery was now useless. This was particularly galling; i wash my bag and gloves and helmet regularly, as if the gods of dirtbaggery were angry at my cleanliness.

dont panic.

The risk seemed unreal, I was so stoked off the descent and feeling great with the scenery. don’t panic.

I knew I was the last rider out, it would get cold fast and I only had a small headlight and base layer.  dont panic.

Ask for help? Sorry sir\ma’am but can i borrow your usb cable for a few? Head east for SR83  and an eventual road finish in the dark? don’t panic.

I had 3 hours of daylight and 15 miles to go, with some recollection of the ride out and maybe 20 min of gps battery to guide me. You’re a SAHD looking for a reason not to die. Bang it!

The banging was 3 hours of laborious creeping, stopping to fire the GPS and confirm what the tracks on the ground and directions of shadows suggested? I am slow, and weak, and soft. If I wasn’t i could be following someone, could have been following someone for the hours i went the wrong way on the inner loop. Every turn mattered, so I made every turn count.  Peek at the gps and hope it would give me this peek and 2-3 more. My riding was ugly, beat, with no rhythm, or confidence to charge a climb. but I got back just at sunset.

Whew!  and added this to my kit.

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But still I have to say you play with matches you get burned…have you ever given a foot massage?…Antoine shoulda fucking better known better.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdkksDaSXPU

 

G’s First MTB Race

They called it the AZ State Championships. I dunno, it was just her and her friend Emma, for at least a guaranteed 2nd place. My goal was for her to race and have fun, knowing that most people screw up some things their first race(s) such that results really can’t be the goal.  2 x 4 mile loops, she’s never ridden beyond a mile without me. She said she washed out twice, and dropped a bottle, but still followed the course, managed her own water, paced herself, and…and…rode 8 miles without me!

Thanks Deanna Young and Rob Clark for the photos, and congrats to all our Dynamix Devo teammates Emma, Liam, Barrett and Syd.

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Dingo

Some meddling kids and their dog worked all summer on a connecting segment that ties together Westworld TH and Gateway in the Lower McDs. Its built onto an unmaintained-yet-marked system trail and some social trails that had fallen into disrepair. We’ve been using it for a dog-walk route for years; and now its flat(ish), beginner(minus the rocks) trail my kids can grow on.

It wiggles and squirms, dodging the nearest creosote or boulder. It dashes through stupid, stoopid lines trying to go up going up, pouncing on 5 yards of hardpack and a short shot onto high ground before recycling the tinyEffort and shooting down again into rocky washes. We followed Dia with a chalk line.

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G has ridden it uphill a few times, not without whining through the ugliest parts. I’m doing my best. Its DirtbagDad’s rock to push uphill, or maybe my bright shiny object to stay sane. But I’ve got company.

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oh hey, so, as you know, i’m a herdy dog. Would you mind keeping that mcleod away from me as I stay glued to you? Is this bothering you, cause I’m sensing some frustration? that’s an awesome handsaw – cut cut cut! Let’s build something together!

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When we don’t ride Dingo, or the golf course, we ride to Tequila Tree. Dia digs it now, loving the long mild climb and the rushing downhill, so many runs removed from her PTSD first-ride-back in March. She has it paced, goes off the front to slow me down, cheers for me to fail since the few dabs lead to water breaks. We sit at the tree and hear rattlesnakes gushing out like a puncture in a tire; after a minute dreading a flat we realize the bike is unhearable 100yds away, and as the sheering sound slows to a tick-tick-tick it raises new concerns. We defilade a little downhill, keep drinking.  The towers at Somo are cloudy but the silhouettes of Camelback all the way to the White Tanks are clear. The Sprawl corners at the junction of Paradise & Levee trails, where the ambient grey glow from the city just…*pow*…stops. Sometimes we wedge against the edge of a storm for an entire ride.

pic courtesy of Kathleen Kingma
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I needed a new weapon in the war for trail supremacy.

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A nasty grabby palo verde got its comeuppance, lines were cleaned, and G rode Dingo a little better the next time.

We’ve been riding trail 2x/week,  sometimes  with a great  team of kids and adults. Lots of good folks heading out for a Friday night Phoenix Mountain Preserve ride.

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G was overcome with upgradeits, and I can’t blame her when some of those kids were riding $4,000 Pivots.  We bought her a pair of PI X-Alps and set her up her up on clipless pedals. I installed the cleats but she set the tension, took the flat pedals off and put the new spds on, and made it a few times around the block practicing clipping in and out while wearing every piece of protective gear she owns.

The next night we got some saddle time at Reach 11. G with new spds, ‘lana with a new jersey that magnificently allowed her to carry her own water while looking fabulous. Both helped her have some more autonomy and ride a little stronger, I can definitely appreciate that. bout 6 miles in the dark, from the Scottsdale Rd entrance in Reach 11 to the lake near Tatum. G ate shit standing still near the end of the ride, after much complaining about wearing pads and how easy clipless were, and me subsequently guaranteeing her she would eat shit at least once for no good reason and to quit whining about her pads. hehehehe, safe crashes and proof of my omniscience always put a smile on my face.

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G agreed to ride her first race in early October, so we pre-rode the course at McDowell Mountain Preserve with the kids’ team. Alana had so much fun she did some singletrack on her own.2015_0823_MMP_01

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TinyShredder and 11 miles of dirt-roadieing across Reach 11. Its like a ThNR!  We came on a pack of javelinas, a flock of geese, an owl, and a rattlesnake stretched across the trail. G got the hook for night riding now.

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DirtBag DadCamp: Amongst the Hill People

 

Andy Grammer – Honey I’m Good

James: would you maybe want to dogsit while we are on our honeymoon?
Me: *ears perk up*
James: Cause I know you are between jobs and whatnot…*dingdong*… Oh my, you got here fast.

2 weeks in Flag to start a Phx summer! 3 chollaballs, 3 dogs, and a cat: James and Staci had no idea what they unleashed!

Its my garage now, i even peed behind the old palette.
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The instant they left for the airport  on Friday we took Dia for a couple laps around Buffalo Park. G picked it up, slung it around and dropped it without skipping a pedal stroke. Alana whined, complained, and had a meltdown on the  1-&-only short climb. This became her flagstafrican baseline.

Saturday was 7 miles, 75 min, shuttle down the AZT-Dogfood-Schultz. I locked Alana’s bike halfway down the ride where the AZT meets Dogfood. We 2-biked there from Weathorford trail at mid-mountain, and then she did the rest. Slowly, timidly, badly, building on last night’s frustrations, walking too much. I thought at times we should just leave her bike by the trail and never let her try anything but dance classes again.

G was skeered over this trial, after Alana tormented her with how traumatized she still felt from me riding her over it 2 years ago. I swallowed my frustrations for her seemingly innate genius at remembering every excuse to hold herself back. Fortunately a spotter was all G needed to try it, then she jumped off the front for the rest of the descent.  This was her flagstafrican baseline.

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G did so well we decided to do Schultz o&b right from the house the next morning. The climb had a lot of rests, encouragements, hummingbird and woodpecker viewing breaks, and chances for Dia to wade in the creek. We had no deadline, lots of apples, and silently agreed to dig in for her longest sustained climb. Telling Mom became her motivation. She nailed the DH, resting to take advice between each pitch, and patiently let me take my shots at the boulder drop halfway down. Best.Riding.Partner.Evah!

That evening we did 10 miles into town and back on the FUTS for dinner. tinyShredder rolled it easy, and mostly so did ‘lana! Her longest ride yet!

We stopped at The Ditch to play.  G hitting her first-ever lip
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and stacking it up! At least soft dirt doesn’t hurt.
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Alana crossing Rio De Flag
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No one told us Hops on Birch was, like, a bar. They had 1 bottle of rootbeer, 1 juice box, and some stale pretzels for the kids, but the beer selection was awesome.
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Alana’s mood on the bike changes course like a gnat, on the ride home  her flagstafricanism was trending up.
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Monday we went to the Adventure Course at Ft. Tuthill. They got 3 laps on the kids course, and had it mastered by the end. To where I didn’t want to take them back for fear their overconfidence would get them hurt. I can’t wait til I finally  get a chance to hit the adult course.

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The new Ft Tuthill Bike Park    is, literally, next to the adventure course. Making Ft. Tuthill the happiest place on earth! Except G wrecked, badly, on her 4th run. The track was fast, narrower than we’re used to, and the trees messed with our heads. She carried too much speed into a jump and overcompensated in the ensuing turn, ripping a 5 inch raspberry down her buttcheek.

She walked off the course, gritted, let me wash it, while a couple boys gawked at the girl-who-totally-ate-shit-but-didn’t-cry out of the corners of their eyes. She even did 2-3 more slow runs, for pride. But our day was done, except for trips to CVS and Safeway for many variations of gauze, tape, and ice cream. Fortunately, I brought my tub of aquaphor with us, on a hunch.

Every time I know one of my kids is going to scar, i wish i could take it onto my unwanted skin instead. I’d look like a WarBoy from Fury Road. Removing all that pain and scabbing from them would make it worth so much more to me. But some lessons can’t be learned any other way. G knew she went too fast too soon, fucked it up deep down where you balance your bike and your skill and your confidence, and daily applications of goo are hopefully the intellectual repetition of the lessons learned from pain. Slow down, don’t overcook the turn. Her flagstafricanism was trending up.

Tuesday we slept late, had a nice breakfast with more ice cream, and I overjoyed  hiking with  them on one of my very favorite bike loops up Little Gnarly and down Jedi.

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We saw one-and-only other person  on Jedi, a rider who dropped in silently behind us coming through an Aspen meadow, just before the  logramp-to-boulder trial above the switchbacks. He cleaned it while the girls cheered.

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I’ve never gotten this one, but will be so much more psyched to walk it heretofore  
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That night Dia and Grahammay got a trip to the dogpark, and the girls more ice cream and hamburger for their owwies.

Wednesday G was feeling better and we found some self-adhesive softwrap, so did the AZT from 418 to Bismark Lake. Alana and I had a deal, she would ride her bike for a mile before 2-biking, and get more ice cream. I lied about the GPS enough to get her to do 1.5.

climb little girl, climb!
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unlocking for the 1.5mile  descent
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After a burrito power-up we went 3rd time into the Lava Tube. I had 8, er, 7 functioning lights, a pint of water, a 1-hit, an orange, and 2 ravenous Monsters. I feel bad, a little, for the people they overtook and dropped. I love being around the stoke they have for this hike, even if i hit my head and roll an ankle each time trying to keep up!

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Thursday I hooked up to ride with my bud Rockman. His awesome daughters kept the girls occupied for a few hours.

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We climbed Schultz Creek, Climb 3, then Hobbit Forest to drop into Wasabi. Solid climb and best run ever down one of my white whales. I was visualizing it all night before, and it worked! My flagstafricanism was trending up. Thanks Joe for the ego pics!

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Roadwork is being done on  Elden Lookout Rd, and a couple drivers stopped to watch us roll out of Upper Wasabi. Double punch on the mancard!
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Thorpe Park has a disc golf course. Using soccer balls was a fabulous idea that wound up sucking, badly, in a mountain town. So it became a kicky dogwalk in the woods.
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Friday was a taper(nee, hungover) day. We drove up Friedlein Prairie road to hike Overlook, and then up to the Wilderness Boundary. Haven’t been here in a few years, such an engaging trail that is always changing due to treefall. I’ve never gone slow enough or looked up from the rocks and logs to really soak it in, and its a gorgeous airy forest with meadows at 8,000+ feet. Going to have to hit it this fall to see the aspen and avoid the crowds. Can’t wait to show it to Beckie.

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this is a tasty apple.
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Heard you  got another apple?!
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camouflage
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ironic that Alana snapped this photo. I was showing G the series of moves through this section, explaining how to break them down, and how I crashed and dented my frame on my 2nd-ever ride on  the Heckler  8yrs ago. This seemed really hard back then, now its just another rock garden.
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Saturday the planets aligned! Beckie came up, and the AES Aspen Asphyxiation  had been rescheduled to this weekend. Sometimes I am glad for her arrival, sometimes not. We got this 3-sum going on, and sometimes mom storms on in and fucks it all up. I had 8.25 hrs, 7kvf and 52 miles to vanish and get everyone’s head right, they got their own 3-sum going on without me being around to screw it up. I tweaked the race route to let me hit just about everything on Mt Elden I hadn’t already gotten this week. I left from the house, climbed Rocky Ridge to Lower Brookbank and desceneded Jedi just as the really fast guys were coming up, aggressively jumping  all the drops after walking them earlier in the week. The monster storm the night before made Sunset unbelievably tacky, and the stoke from that screaming descent carried me almost up to Snowbowl Road. Almost. Ray  made the route awesome by adding in Twisted Sister, and awful by adding in GT trail. Pushing my bike up this stupid, primitive scratch in the volcano I yelled out ‘Fuck you Ray you fucking douchebag‘. The ensuing 3 mile climb up Snowbowl Rd was so deadlegged that, after comparing times, I actually rode it slower than Beckie ran it in a race 2 years ago. There was 3-4 more hours riding, but most of it flowed far better, and after dipping into my PainCave finally I was done.  It wouldn’t be an AES race if I didn’t kinda hate it.

Sunday I was feeling good but lazy, and meat-sweating from a fantastic dinner at Satchmo’s. Our recovery day started with a 4×4 crawl through the Cinders.

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Then re-walking some of the fun, tight techy stuff from the end of yesterday’s ride, along Fat Man’s Loop on the far east of Elden.

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Then the day went suddenly, utterly and deeply to shit. The huge downpour on Friday night flooded my truck’s cylinders, turning into a $500 repair on Monday.

Dia lost a tooth wrestling Graham.

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and our attempt to salvage the day and ride into town for dinner quickly resulted in Beckie gauging her ankle on a chain ring, and 5 stitches at the ER.

The massive upside of all this calamity is Beckie stayed in town another night for what was our very best day of the trip. At  Coco Bike park, everything started  slowing down, for all of us.

The first time on the Blue line i spotted G, reminded her that you can’t can’t can’t bail out once you are in the ramp, trust that you will get through it. And after she got the feel, we kept reminding each other to trust it and  go bigger!

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both wheels in the air!
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go Alaaaaaaannnaaaaaa!
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girls are getting the attack position
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whereas G has perfected a scowl, Alana believes strongly in smiling for the photo. I approve of this adaptation!
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i wasn’t quite cleaning the blue line, but i was getting closer each run. G and I both were getting used to the lips on the jumps. Next time!
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never know what you will get with the AlanaCam
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Griffith’s Spring afterward to release  the heundz!
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DiaBlahBlah
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Our  final attempt on the FUTS into town went much better. I used this opportunity to promote upgrading the HeiHei to a 1x drivetrain, and forever prevent this from happening again. Alana crushed it on the way in, and gutted it out on the way home. Never figured her for a  2-ride day, until today. Her flagstafricanism is definitely trending up.

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Gnarness could break out at any second!

I changed the title of my blog. Like my tattoo, a worthy idea finally came to me.

Riding the girls home from school, G climbed her first staircase. Followed immediately by  her first pinchflat. I had no tools and no choices, left the girls with a diet Dr. Pepper while i sprinted home with the dog to get the truck. 20 minutes later they were still alive!

Next week Alana and I rode home from school again, Dia waltzed into a cholla. She took me up on my offer for help by rubbing the balls off on me. I left my old baggies where I stood, but easily reached for my pliers, and downgraded the crisis in record-time. I don’t ride out without tools anymore. I now have these in several packs. Gnarness can break out any second.

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We are riding to school, to practice, to the library; riding into meals, into rollerblading and playdates; riding dog walks. Its  not scheduled, its my — and their — lifestyle. If they didn’t take to it as well as I want to believe they do, we wouldn’t all be having this much fun?

I got the idea to refurbish the social trails that loop around the dark corners of our neighborhood, to give us some beginner singletrack right out our door. keepin it realz in the 480, yo.  Several walks of the loop with loppers strung the route together and cleaned the sight lines. I brought the girls out for a trimming session, and another to walk it at night with the offleash dog. I hooked them, into the idea of the backyard loop that they would build.  If I am lucky it may take all summer.

G and I rode the course on a Sunday afternoon, seeing what we’d done and what more was needed. We and Dia, slow, sipping from the orange crashes of sunset against the west face of the McDs. Connecting, dog so close to over her fear of singletrack. Coming into her own. Both of them.

As we rode I pointed out how bands of hardtop vs. gravel vs. embedded rock will make the same distance so much easier, if she looked at the trail a tire wide. Where should we cut it? She pushed through overgrown prickers, while the dingo kept rubbing my legs for reassurance. G has learned to cheer for her group, and to understate praise, flatly telling me ‘nice‘ after I clean 3 jumps along the foundations of a newhome start. I say little more when she claws her way up .5 mile of babyheads, she knows she did well. And Dia is perfect.

I needed weapons.

60a

60as

F70HRs

F70HR

The first sunset after unpacking them i rolled the tools out to the trail in the jogging stroller, and scratched at the top rocks on the levy. The pick-axe could carve and pull up embedded rocks, but the mcleod burned a line through everything. In 2 hrs I scrawled through almost a half mile.  I smoked Platinum Girl Scout Cookies and listened to the Dropkick Murphys. If I was snowboarding now, life would be perfect.

We all went out the next Sunday. Beckie has, i think, never done a trailwork day. And  once she was pointed on track, she could not be stopped, malevolently swinging that axe, enamored building her own trail.

The kids got a thrill out of riding in what they’d just cut. If we were unsure if something was still too hard, we’d send in The Alanameter. If she crashed, we got back to work.

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Upgrade the Fatbike!

This project became as dear to me as building G’s bike. Though it did not start out that way.

I’ve had the PhattyCatty for 3 years. Got it used after 1 season as a rental, at 50% off list when NOBODY had fatbikes, especially smalls. I’ve ridden it over 100 hours, and hated it a lot. Its heavy and sluggish, the cranks drag every turn, the wheels have never been true and the brakes are sloshy. While all around me the fatbike craze was going off! Byron nabbing a sub-30lb carbon, XO hardtail for $1800 shined the bright light of neglect and self-loathing on me.

It took a few weeks of solid research into the  runaway evolution  of fatbikes on mtbr.com and the FB group Fat Bike Trades til i concluded the 2012 Mukluk 3  is a piece of shit, 38lbs with pedals, worth ~$800. I should have flipped it 1.5 yrs ago. But what to do? Today’s $800 bikes are equally shitty but with cutout wheels that amount to all of 2 lbs less. The price shoots up with better components and suspension. Fatbikes now range from steel rigid to carbon full suspension, 65 to 100mm rims, $700 to $5000. What did I want, what did I want to do with it, how much did I want to pay, what chance did i have of finding a small, and would it still cost $200-500 more to get it just right.

I liked the simplicity of the PhatCat, i liked it rigid and efficient, 4 inches of float and resistance on sand that was plenty enough to blow out my quads every workout. I finally decided I wanted exactly what I had – just lighter, nicer to touch, and less a piece-of-shit. I would lurve carbon, but didn’t have $2k falling from the money tree for a frame. For $500 I could drop 5lbs, go 1x, reduce maintenance, and turn its tactility back into something pleasurable, a bike I wanted to hold.  In 1  month guaranteed, vs. waiting for sales and hopefuls and rebuilds in my size. That was a hard plan to turn down

PhatCat lost 12oz per tire, and 8 oz per tube, for $140. For $25 I put on a chinese overstock carbon handlebar and gel grips, and dropped another half pound. 2 more lbs lost in the drivetrain for another $325.

4 years ago the only affordable cranks for fatbikes were heavy-ass DH cranks
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no longer; so many variants from RaceFace, i got the Turbines
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New crank’s corrected the Catty’s issues with chainline. 1×9 became a real option, cheap and simple, and the charts told me just about good enough with a  26T NW Wolftooth ring to give me the same gearteeth for less weight and more simplicity.

My Custom Gear Chart
24 34
36 17.3 24.6
32 19.5 27.6
28 22.3 31.6
24 26.0 36.8
21 29.7 42.1
18 34.7 49.1
16 39.0 55.2
14 44.6 63.1

 

My Custom Gear Chart
26
34 19.9
30 22.5
26 26.0
23 29.4
20 33.8
17 39.8
15 45.1
13 52.0
11 61.5

A lot of studying and guesswork til I finally got a ratchet on it and puked up all that 2x nonsense.

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A ghetto bashguard from an old ring i had hanging from the front door (really!).

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totally nuts

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I have one more possible change that makes sense before flipping it all for $1300 – for $50 in tools and a day of effort, I could drop another 5oz per wheel. TBD.

Dirtbag DadCamp: Prologue

My last job rocketed past frustrating into pointless and stupid. 4 supervisors in less than a year, none interested in anything but the hamster wheel of broken releases vs. automating deeper quality. The last one asked\told me to do what was clearly not on my resume, and I explained as delicately as possible I had no interest in learning old technology to support a flawed strategy. *sigh* It was his department and his vision, which i respect, so he should respect my checking out and making myself his very expensive paperweight. When I got the severance package, my officemate cursed me for outplaying him into 6 weeks of blood money. Is there a morale problem here?

For a month I showed up about an hour a day, on my bike, around trips to the gym, and a million projects around the house. I lost 5 lbs in April, plateaued in early May as I built back my chest and core, then dropped 5 more pounds almost overnight.  I cooked, exercised, saw the kids off in the morning and met the bus in the afternoon. Beckie and Dia ran everyday and ate fabulous food every night, jumping headlong into stay-at-home-dad with me.

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My first cobbler was delish. I made mashed potatoes, crock-pot porkchops, alfredo with basil pesto from our plant, eggplant parmesan (twice), lentils with coconut milk, omelets and salsas. Alana is eating vegetables, scooping avocado from its skin, and putting dishes in the sink. Genevieve is responsibly using a great big knife.

The actual ‘unemployment’ left me just 3 weeks for my bucket-list of child-free adventures, in May, in the desert. And I couldn’t have been more stoked. I was rewarded with the most temperate, overcast May I can remember. Some say La Nina. I guess. I would have ridden in 110.

Hawes, after rain, hero-dirt
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home-Camelback-home. 30 miles on the CX bike, a mid-week hike I haven’t done in over 10 years
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National with Seron. Weather was overcast, almost chilly, so we went to Telegraph Pass and back and got sprinkled at 1pm, with just enough time to hit  Los Taquitos.

A few pixels of Seron nailing  the Waterfall, first time for him in over 2 years. I hope that is a good trade for all the new ego-pics he gave me.

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I  rode Pass Mountain for the first time in 2 or 3 years. I rode it 50x the 10 years we were in Mesa, and didn’t recognize anything on the front side – its been flattened and smoothed and dozed 4 ft wide. The pitches at the mountain’s feet we called The Canyons are now easy rollers. Places I’d wrecked that haunted me for years til finally I could ride that trail over and over without blood flashbacked if\when i thought i was passing them. Melancholy, mixed with an invigorating fast pace. Climbing the north face i wondered if that giant boulder that no one has ever gotten had been taken out. It wasn’t, and I was almost disappointed, since I gave up trying it 10 years ago. Might as well have kicked Pass Mountain while it was down.

The awesome north climb is still hard and the back side is still great fun.  If Pass Mountain was a woman, she would have a great butt and legs, and a nice tight chest, that forever reminds me of my wife losing her boobs after breast-feeding. My relationship with Pass Mtn has always been a dysfunctional mess of inadequacy, rejection and lust.

I met 2 equestrians at the summit, who were scoping out the descent, concerned about me coming up behind them. I asked them to please wait 2 min while i got on my kneepads so I could jump in front, with no good place for half a mile for us to stack up.

Them: “You must not be afraid of heights“.
Me: “Oh I am, but I contain it.”

That is how you multi-use a trail! They were talking to their horses telling them to be cool when I took off. What awesome ballsy ladies, the kinda horse people i like. Saw them coming down the Slab when i was at the bottom of the rubble field.

Later that week I hit Gold Canyon with John, TrailDoc and some other friends. Thanks for the pics!

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End of School PT Party

the start of 2 months of Daddy Daycare while celebrating the end of school at Rage Cycles. Alana was charging the dropin on her 20″ but i was too busy spotting her to take pics, so proud of my girls. Rage is a hard track, and i still squirm a little every time riding in the big berm. Dia peed a little, I wont say where, it helps pack in the dirt. Dinner at Two Brothers Brewing Co

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