Holidaze!

This was what it looked like at the house in WV. Not much to be done in this wet-ass snow.....

so I headed south to the NC. Hung out in Raleigh for a week or so with my sister's family and just rode here and there a bit. Crazy wet so not much singletrack, but it was still good.



And yeah, Maddie is the jam! Hit up a few playgrounds and she rocked it on the slides. Agility baby!

Just riding along with the black and white!



Headed to snowshoe mtn for the new year with some good folks. Full moon, some snow and probably lots of ice. Should be a great place to ride bikes or at least try to ride. I'm out.

wow!

Last Minutes with ODEN from phos pictures on Vimeo.

Pets, so much more than just a little critter!

No worries

has been my theme for about a month. We actually had a day without rain and it was 60 degrees. So sweet! The only plan I had was to pedal for most of the day. The day started out with some thick fog so hung around long enough to watch the fog lift away. Riding by 10:30 with a tentative loop. Started out with some roads up and out of town to some nice gravel. Climbed up to High Knob only to descend some true sketchiness. Steep and packed dirt with a nice layer of moisty goodness on top only to run into 50 yard sections of 3 inch thick loose gravel. Just hold on and try to stay upright. Would be a way better climb due to a HUGE sketch factor. Stopped by a house my buddy Dann-o is building and help set a few large windows then away I went.
Hit up a road I haven't been on in years and missed a major turn. 12 miles later I had to ask the state road workers where I was. Ended up being in the wrong county and had to backtrack. Whatever, made it home 5 1/2 hours after starting and a solid 70 miles was thrown down. Will try for a few more biggies the latter part of the week and weekend. I'm out. peace.

The Gorge

road ride was pretty flippin' sweet. Met up at New River Bikes in Fayetteville, WV. The weather was less than stellar but the riding partners were of rock star status. Diesel, Andy, J-bird and myself. Andy hooked Jason up with his old Bianchi 1x9 cross bike.
Started with a little road section down into the gorge and yeah the bridge is BIG.
Hit the first trail section and it was moist. Trails and old railroad grades and some pavement was the way of the day. Rode down to the New River along an old railroad grade
that had some pretty sweet views. The weather was perfect until we stopped for lunch. That's when the rain started at the not quite half way point. The camera got put away at this time. We ended up bailing on a big climb as there was no way we could pull it off and still get back to the shop by dark. There was only one light and it was going to be a dark night.






We decided to do an out and back on another old road, then headed up a rail trail to Ace. Then from Ace we went up to a main-ish road for a few miles to the trailhead of some super fast and flowy trails. These trails dropped us right into downtown. How sweet is that? Ended up with around 60 miles and pedaled for several hours. Nice and moisty, another day in the saddle in WV.

Hit up a meeting for two stacked loop systems in the gorge along with an eventual plan to do a park through trail. One of these stacked loops will join in with the existing trails in downtown. Creating 25-ish miles right out the door of the shop. A lot of good things in the cycling world are going on in Fayetteville. If you're going through Fayetteville stop by New River Bikes and Touring and hit up Andy. He'll give you a heads up on what to ride and may even take you out for a sweet ass lunch time loop. Peace.

So Moisty

yet oh so good! J-bird, the craziest and toughest person I know along with being one of my favorite people, was in the WV from MT. So something good was in order. Had a run or two already thrown down, his forte, so it was time for a bike ride, my forte. Less than a mile into the ride was the initial foot soaker. It's normally not bad but 30 degrees and moisty within the first few minutes definitely sets the tone for the day.

This dude hadn't been on a bike in over 3 years and hadn't done one of my road rides, but rocked it anyway.


There were only about 12 creek crossings, but there was LOTS of mud. Just a day of shooting the shit and pedaling some bikes with great company.

A casual day enjoying the leftover snow. Stopped by another buddies house and had a foot warming session in front of the wood stove. Warmth never felt so good. It made the last 10 miles rather enjoyable and quite cozy.
The Merckx loves the dirt road goodness, no matter how shitty the road is.

The v-dub has been getting thrashed. Very little traffic, wet and sloppy roads along with a fun little rally-ish car is killer. Commuting by car hasn't been this much fun in a while. Headed to the gorge for an all day sketch session on tuesday. I'm out!

Just being

Here's some sweet dog stoke. Maddie's ready, are you? Just been doing solo night rides on the Merckx around central WV. In case you were curious, big gravel road descents brakeless are............. sketchy. But I don't like to back away from 'em and there are lots of 'em around here. Thinking the punk bike enduro in the 'burg is in the werks for this weekend, should be sweet.