Eventful MTB Day

The day started at 7:30 am with a ride up in AF Canyon. I met Steve on at the turn out, and we drove up to the parking spot on the road by the Salamander Flats trail. I couldn't believe how many people were there so early in the morning. Normally when I go it's between 9 and 10 and there are not near as many people. We started out on Salamander to Pine Hollow, along the way Steve showed me the big downed tree off the trail. I have never seen it, but it has always been there.

This tree is huge. For anyone that knows how tallsteve is you get an idea of how big the tree is.

From Pine Hollow we went on Ridge 157 and then diverged from the loop/route we normally take. Steve gave me a great tour of trails that I have wanted to explore, but have been unsure about doing on my own. The first new trail was Mud Spring Flat. What a fun uphill!!! There was some technical challenge of logs, trees and a few rocks. At the meadow of Mud Spring we ran into some other riders (Justin & Aaron) and they joined us as we headed east onto a little trail to a look out that shows all of AF Canyon and has the most spectacular view.

Pictures do not do justice to the view.

Steve, Justin & Aaron checking out the view and all the trails below. Me standing on different rocks with two great views in the back ground.

Steve and a great view of Canyon.From there it was back to Mud Springs and taking on the downhill. What a fun downhill. It was very technical and there were two spots I needed to walk, but had no shame about walking them. This trail would be perfect for those with a downhill bike. I guess that's why we saw so many riders on downhill bikes when we were riding up.

Part way down Mud springs we came to a 3 way intersection. From here we turned up Tibble Fork. Parts of this was difficult to ride and I was not able to clear everything, but what I couldn't clear was minimal and most of the uphill was not too bad. There were a few riders going down we had to watch out for as riders do not usually go up this particular trail. On this particular trail I say the downhill has the right of way. While going up this trail Steve ran into one of his neighbors riding with a friend. His neighbor was riding a fully ridged bike on this downhill. I couldn't imagine how that must have been with all of the log drops.

The top of Tibble put us into the 4 corners area. Here I went a little bit west on the Ridge 157 trail and once again saw a beautiful view all the way down to Tibble Fork parking. I have noticed from Thursday to Saturday there were a lot more red trees, it looks like fall is coming fast.

Back to 4 corners we dropped down Deer Creek South Fork and finished off the route we normally take. It was a beautiful day for a ride, and today I made a lot of stops to enjoy the beauty all around. I don't think I could ever get tired of riding in AF Canyon.

After my AF Canyon ride I met my family at Lambert Park for a family ride. Shandy got to ride my fs bike for the first time. For the family ride we kept it simple going down Middle and up High Bench. Royce and Shandy rode together at the front, Mandy and I rode at the back with me in the very back helping Mandy learn some mtb skills.

Mandy ready to go down Middle.

Royce coming through the trees on Spring.Shandy ready to head down the trail.

Shandy and Mandy did great going down hill. Shandy had a little bit of a struggle adjusting to a new bike, but as she got going she got better. Mandy noticed as she rode she would bounce around in her seat as she went over the rocks. I showed her how to stand as she went downhill, and she did great balancing, standing and sitting back just enough so her balance was perfect on the bike.

At the bottom of Middle we went on High Bench and this is where the family got a little too split up. Mandy and I were together, and enjoying the trail when we came around a corner and found Shandy sitting on the the trail. Somehow Shandy had fallen off her bike and ended up with a large gash in her arm. Shandy was not in a good way. There was a little pool of blood on the ground and she was not feeling well. Which showed by the way she was talking as I tried to assess the situation and see how she was doing. She stated she was faint and going in to shock and needed to stand up. Humorous now, but at the time I was a little worried. I made sure she did not stand up, gently moved her off the trail, and then put Mandy in charge of looking out for her sister.

Shandy's wound and the pools of blood she left in the dirt. Please note these were taken after I got back to the trail with the car.I left Mandy to help Shandy, and took off up the trail to catch Royce. I don't know how far up he was on the trail, but it was a little bit, but not too far. I let him know what had happened to Shandy, so he could get back and help her (he is a nurse), and I left the trail and headed up the firehouse road to get the car and first aid kit. I was able to get to the car quickly and drive down the road where Royce had gotten Shandy and her bike to the road (which was only 14 feet away) and had her resting.

Royce took the first aid kit and took care of Shandy while I racked his and Shandy's bike. We both almost finished at the same time. From here he and Shandy went to the hospital and Mandy I continued on the trail back up to get my car. We lucked out having 2 cars today for our ride. I would have hated to take Mandy to the hospital and have her wait in the waiting room for a couple of hours, that is not fun for anyone.

Mandy and I enjoyed the rest of the ride. I was very impressed with how she did on the trail. Her only problem on the trail was clearing the 3 sisters rock formation. This turned out to be fun for her since she had to stop and while she was stopped she found a leaf that looked like a heart. Mandy also got to take some pictures and ham around for a few minutes. We finished our ride with Mandy continuing on the trail all the way to the Bowery.

Mandy's heart leaf. The 3 sisters rock formation as viewed from the eye of Mandy.

Mandy getting a shot of mom on her bike.
And of course the self-portrait--what a ham.After our ride we headed down to the hospital to see how Shandy was doing. Just as we got there Royce called and let me know Shandy was about done. So we continued on home with a small detour at Panda Express. Mandy thought it would be good for Shandy to have something to eat out rather than something at home, and she hated to see me cook after such a long day. She is so thoughtful ;-)

Shandy ended up having 10/11 stitches and needs to follow up with the doc on Monday. Since it was so deep we need to keep an eye on it to make sure she doesn't get an infection and of course she is taking antibiotics to help with the prevention of an infection.

All in all not too bad of a day, fun and eventful.

Wild Turkeys

Tonight was probably the last weekday URMB Club group ride, daylight is fading fast, and it is hard to get in a mountain ride after work hours. Tonight's ride there was Steve, Gary, Kerry, Jolene & Kris. My husband had ridden Lambert early in the day and said the trails were in good condition, so I was pretty sure the trails in AF would be as good. It turns out there were a few more mud spots than expected. The first half of the trail was not too bad, an occasional mud spot here and there, but for the most part the trail was pretty solid with nothing to prevent a fun ride.

On the very last small down hill section before you reach the 4 corners area Jolene and I saw a beautiful red tree. The red of the leaves were the color of fire and it stood alone amongst the green foliage. It was a majestic sight to see and a definite sign that fall is on it's way. We asked the guys if they had seen it, but they missed it as they were bombing down the hill, so if you ride this route keep your eyes peeled for the tree, it is a beauty.

About this time there was a very light drizzle, but that did not stop us. We continued on going down one of the best downhills ever. Tonight with the recent rain there were some slick spots, that had me slowing down, but it doesn't matter how slow I was going it was still fun.

The cascade springs section was the slickest and muddiest part of the ride, and of course the worst section was on the uphill. That's okay, thanks to the mud we went slower and were able to see a bunch of wild turkeys. I was enthralled by the sight as I have never seen wild turkeys before and how lucky to see as many as I did. ( I lost count after 7 because they were moving around) Jolene and I stayed back and she took some pictures, I tried but my camera is having its typical issues--blurry pictures.

The group had continued on while we took pictures, so we met them near a dirt road crossing on the way to the Summit. By this time our tires were pretty loaded with mud, and Jolene's were the worst. She has the small blocks on her tire, so she had no traction what so ever. From here she and I rode the road to the Summit to get the mud off. She is an amazing rider, because I don't think I could have handled my bike near as well as she did without any traction.

The rest of the trail back was pretty good. I had an almost wipe out when my rear tire skidded out beneath me and headed to go off the trail into a log. I don't know how I recovered, but I did. I think the bike had something to do with it.

Too bad no more weekdays rides. These group rides are great and fun. Hopefully there will be an occasional weekend one sometime..hint, hint.

Jolene towards the end of the ride, still smiling with her signature look.

Riding near the end of the trail with Gary following behind me--he's camera shy.

Just Because...

No it's not my anniversary, or my birthday or any special holiday. No there was only reason my husband bought me a new bike....just because he loves me! :-) You guessed it he bought me the Superfly.

I took it out for it's first ride today up in AF Canyon. It rode like a dream and more. It rode so great I've decided it needs to be named. Anybody have a good idea for a name???

It's My Husbands Fault

I am obsessed. I am obsessed with a bike and it's my husbands fault. About 3 weeks ago my husband and I decided to go see a movie. Since the movie theater is near the bike shop I decided to ride my road bike to the bike shop to get some work done on it and I would meet him there. Well, on the way there were 3 detours so a ride that should have been about 20-25 minutes took 40 minutes. While my husband waited he started to ask the owner about what would be the best bike for me to race. Since we know the owner pretty well, and she knows us, she knew exactly what to show him. Can you guess what bike she showed him? If you guessed the Gary Fisher Superfly you are right. Cool bike, but one problem there is no demo model to try out on the trails. So I wrote off giving this bike a try. Until a couple of weeks ago when I got an offer to ride this bike. How could I pass up such an offer. I couldn't, so today I rode this bike.

My plan was to take this bike to Lambert Park and ride a few select trails that would show how the bike handles. This plan worked for a bit. I started out on Lamberts Luge. I figured this is a good rock garden and would show how a 29er hardtail works on the rocks. It was hard. I was bouncing everywhere and felt like I was struggling to keep the bike on the trail. But of course this is a hardtail what do you expect. At the end of Lamberts Luge I headed up High Bench. The bike handled the turns nicely. There is little rock step up that you go over that I didn't make. However this is probably due to the hiker standing right by them and me being nervous riding right by her. After High Bench I took off down River. What a delight. I had heard that 29ers are a little sluggish on the power ups. Well I am here to tell you this 29er is far from sluggish on powers ups. In fact in spots that my fs usually stalls out the Superfly cruised right over and kept up the speed. Another misnomer I had heard was 29ers do not climb too well. Wrong it climbed great. It wasn't slow and I could keep my climbing speed up without any problems. After River I rode up Poppy, down Ziggy, up High Bench clearing the rocks I struggled with before, up Spring and then down, down Rodeo down. At this point I was going to end, but I was getting the hang of this bike and I couldn't stop, I had to continue riding. I went down Lamberts Luge again. This time I was able to handle the rock garden fine and was not bouncing around like I had before. I went on to Ziggy and then dropped on to Zag to see how the bike worked on switchbacks and turns. It was a dream and I was able to keep my speed up after some turns that usually I have a problem with powering back up. From Zag I went up Middle, up Rodeo up and then finally one last drop down Rodeo down. How could I not.

My thoughts on the bike. It rides great. Quick on the power ups, climbs like a dream, turns without any problems. Only drawback. It's a hardtail. However, when I figured out how to pedal over the rocks and stand a bit more being on a hardtail wasn't a problem.

So as you can see my husband has created a problem and it's all his fault. The problem is I can't stop thinking about this bike, and if he hadn't said anything I would have never thought about this bike....at least not this year.

URMB Ride

Do you ever have a ride where everything just seems to gel? Tonight was one of those nights. It didn't start off that way, in fact I thought the ride was going to be more of a struggle. As we started the ride Steve and Kerry took the lead with Gary and me following. My legs were feeling peatered. And all I could think was wow we just started climbing and this is nothing. I was not entirely sure I would make the hill. You know what I am talking about, the hill the one that is on every trail. The one deemed as Puke Hill!

We got to Puke Hill where Kerry and Steve were waiting at the bottom. This hill is also a mental hill if I stop it stops my momentum and what mental power I have to say I can clear this hill. Instead of stopping I let Kerry and Steve know I was going and would see them at the top. However when I got to the top I decided not to stop. I had this great idea I would continue on to the next intersection, maybe stop there and hurry and take a picture of everyone else riding. Silly me I should know better. Steve is an awesome rider and was on my tail not far from the top of the hill. When we reached the intersection Kerry and Gary were not far behind. So much for the picture taking while riding idea.

At this point we continued climbing and I stayed in the lead up to the point where you go downhill for a small bit. When we get to the downhill I let everyone go by and I followed. This turned out to be a very good thing for me. I followed Kerry down and we came to this turn that I always have to brake hard on and end up going fairly slow around the turn. As Kerry was riding I watched how he took the turn and followed doing the same thing. This is when things started to gel. I saw the lines Kerry was taking and how he took the turns and somewhere upstairs a light bulb went on and I started to get it. I was able to go down the hill smoother and with less brake. I actually felt the flow of the trail. From this point on all of the down hill went better than any ride I have done in the past. I could feel it on every downhill and saw lines I had never seen before. I was less afraid of the turns and I did not need to use my brakes as much as I usually do. By the end of the ride I was elated. This is a ride for the books.

Although this is about me geling on the down hill tonight. I do have to note something. On the Summit we hooked up with some other riders Fernando and Jeff, and had fun riding back with them. But we also ran in to 3 guys doing a shuttle down to Pine Hollow. They were ready to go downhill and have some fun. What I don't get is why they needed their seats so low on the uphill climb. I understand why they want them low on the downhill, but at the Summit there is a climb almost immediately. After the climb it goes down (for the most part), I would think it would be less painful to raise the seat for a small climb and then drop the seat before the great downhill. I could be wrong, but climbing with your knees hitting your chest does not seem like the most ideal circumstances.

Gary, Kerry & Steve at four cornrs.

Lambert Park Duex

Went back to Lambert Park this morning with Jolene and rode a few of the trails today. We parked at he Bowery and started our ride off going downhill. First trail we hit was a small part of Spring which then merged into Lamberts Luge. I like Lamberts Luge it is a fun rock garden. However today I didn't realize until later in the ride that my pro pedal was locked out and I was going without any suspension. This explains all of the bouncing around on the trail. We skipped the bottom half of Lamberts Luget and went on down Ruin. Ruin has a lot of jumps on the trail. However I only took 3 and of the 3 only one did I take really good air. I think I need to ride this trail more so I can familarize myself with the jumps and be able to take more of them. At the bottom of Ruin we did a quick jont onto Middle and over to Poppy. We climbed Poppy and then connected up to Ziggy and continued to climb until we started back down where we shifted onto Zag. I forgot how many turns and switchbacks were on Zag--a lot. After Zag it was up High Bench. On High Bench I think one of the branches are lower. Normally the tall guys have to duck under this branch, but I had to duck while riding. Either I got taller or the branch is a little it lower.From High Bench we took Spring to the top and then came down Upper Rodeo Down all the way down Rodeo Down. Rodeo Down was so much fun we had to do it twice. Conditions on the trail were perfect and it was a fun great ride. Oh and did I mention no one else was out on the trails. How can someone pass up such great riding conditions?

Softball Smackdown

Tonight was coed softball and we laid the smackdown on the team we played. Before I tell about the game let me give a little back ground info. I play on an A Division Coed Softball Team. There are 3 divisions where I play. There is A Division - this is the most competitive and skilled players. There is B Division - a little less competitive, and a mixed of skilled players. And finally there is C Division - this is the recreational league and has a variety of players. So with that information you should know I play on one of the best teams in A Division, we usually take 1st or 2nd during season and tournament. For fall season (which started about a month ago) there was a sanfu. Only 2 teams signed up for the A Division league--us and another team. So the city opened it up to the recreational division to fill the remaining slots. What this means for us is that all of the teams we beat fairly easily. To make it not so bad we trade from our regular positions and make a few errors, so the other teams can score and not get beat too bad. Now for what happened tonight.
Our game tonight was at 6 o'clock. This is never an ideal time, because sometimes players are late or even worse do not show up. When you play coed this can not be good if the missing player is a girl, because you always have to have an even number of girls and guys on the field. You can have more girls, but never more guys. Well we have one member of our team that is sometimes a flake and does not show up, or gives very last minute that she is not going to make it to the game. This happened today. I got a text (not too last minute, only 2 hours before the game) letting me know she was going to be late, and I should get a sub. Real interpretation--she is not going to show up and I better find someone quick or we will only be playing with 8 players. I texted one of our subs and found someone. Whew, what a relief. Well only temporarily. Our sub had been assisting in dental surgery and ended up being late. We had to start the game with only 8 players on the field! Since we were playing a team that we knew we could beat we were not too worried and went out and played. During the first inning one of the players from the other team came up and questioned the blue about the number of male players we had on the infield (he complained). There is no way to regulate and make even numbers of female and male players on the field when you are short positions. The blue let him know this, but he made the unfortunate mistake of complaining. This miffed some of our team members (who remembered this team from the past and also remembered they complained before). So with a miffed team there was not going to be any letting up, no changing of positions and we were going to get on our sticks and win by the run rule (this is the worse way to lose). Also, our other player showed up by the 2nd inning, so we had a full team. We played our game and did not let up until the 4th inning. By then we had completely stomped the other team. We hit the 5th inning and the run rule came into play however they let the other team have one more time up to bat (time was over in 2 minutes and they had lost). Final score 20 to 5. Moral of the story do not complain when the other team is down 2 players and you have a full team.

Thank You Rain!

Went with Royce today and rode Lambert Park. What a blast! I don't think I have ever been so glad for the rain. The dust was gone and the single track was in great shape. I only saw one rider while we were out there. Royce saw some deer, but I missed them. Time to get out and enjoy some other trails while the dust has settled.

What do you get....

When it's raining outside and you have a 2 foot zucchini? 7 loaves of zucchini bread.

• 2 regular loaves


• 1 chocolate chip zucchini


• 1 blueberry zucchini


• 1 banana zucchini


• 1 lemon zucchini


• 1 regular with vallina flavoring

A 10?!?

A bit of comedy during the Olympics.