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Everyday we put ourselves at risk of injury or death. We've learned to live this way throughout our evolution that's why we are still here on this planet. Most of us have learned to make calculated decisions to ensure our survival. This goes for many things we do day to day. For some just going to work is an injury or death risk but we learn how to deal with these risks and eventually share this information with others around us. I've been in more than a dozen car accidents almost half of them totaled cars. I still ride in cars and drive cars but I have a certain amount of control when driving a car and I try to be as careful as possible not just for me but for the other drivers as well. As mountain bikers we understand the risk of injury or death and take steps to reduce the possibility of those things happening. As far as COVID is concerned we should be doing the same. Herd immunity IS THE ONLY WAY we can get through this and at some point we will have that. The issue is in the way it happens. Ideally any vaccine that helps is probably the safest way to get there. I'd prefer getting immunity from a vaccine as opposed to getting it from some selfish fuck that doesn't care about themselves or anyone around them. I personally don't think wearing a mask and keeping your distance as well as avoiding crowded poorly ventilated buildings is asking too much to try and ensure our survival. Just because our leaders are making poor decisions doesn't mean we should too.

Obviously not Jewish.

9 months after buying a new frame my super-slow bike build is actually looking like a bicycle. Still need to shorten hoses and cables, which I’ll probably manage to procrastinate over for another couple of weeks.

Note to self: Don't get in a car with Chief. 😉 And what a smart thing to bring up, the risks taken as mountain bikers. All of this is a risk/reward decision.

I ride a Kona Unit as an urban bike even though most use it on the trails. Fully rigid it fits the bill. Also a Redline Monocog would be a great starting point. Surly as well. If I were you I'd look for those and build up from there. As they are 29ers the added bonus (if you have a 29er) is parts compatibility which is nice. You can upgrade your MTB bike and move the other parts down to your commuter. This is how my commuter ended up with Shimano XT brakes.

And a new interesting vector added to this. If you had a credit card enrolled with Garmin Pay, then you potentially have a problem. I would recommend checking on your card if you have it. The only upside is that I don't think many people have Garmin Pay because few vendors accept it. Probably more critical for runners because they would be more likely to run with only the watch and possibly use Garmin Pay.

"Anyone Know Chris_in_atx?" Sure I know him, that son of a bitch owes me money!! I'm kidding. I don't know him. But people suck sometimes. I think that 90% of people are good. The problem is the other 10% keep reaffirming that "people suck sometimes"

Looking nice!

RIP PG

I got to ride this today and it made me a appreciate it on BCRT more than my 2.4" MTBs. Now I kinda want to find something similar and build it up. Either way, this was an interesting/new bike to me, has one of those biopace ovals on it, which I found to be pretty unnoticeable compared to my AB oval on my MTB.

This is not what we should be doing to each other, sorry this happened to you.

I visited Garner State Park a few weeks ago. the swimming is good and I doubt the river is low enough to be an issue right now. there's a private RV park called Nana's on the other side of the river.

You’re a good man AB loaning tools and it sucks that someone screwed you. Austin is big but the MTB community isn’t that big. Odds are with all the riding you do, you’ll run into him and hopefully this was all just a misunderstanding. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yes, and yes. You need a bike that was designed to fit you with a drop bar, or at least a bike that will allow you to reduce the reach a bit with a shorter, taller stem, as the forward bend and hood add quite a bit to the bike's overall reach. I've never successfully converted a flat bar bike to drops, although I've tried. It can be done but it's tricky.

I agree with AB and Mac. SS is alot of fun and I rarely need or miss gears. I took my HT and lost the gears after 1 ride and went 32x19. I've since move to 32x16. It is great on the trails. Got bored and added the drops and switched to mechanical brakes. Bike is so much more fun to ride. So simple to maintain and experiment with. The drops I chose are wider than most and I get less fatigue on longer rides. I still have the flat bar and stem intact with the brakes attached so I can easily swap back if I ever want. Fun project and I am super pleased to get away from the norm to change things up. Ride it alot at BC but it's at home all over something like SN Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

Yeah, when you can replace them for $20 it gets a little harder to justify the effort...but then again I'm kinda cheap.

Same I pull the pads and put them as far away from me as possible any time and grease or oil is being used on the bike. Stopped using brakleen on my discs and switched to WD40 electric contact cleaner and that helped with a lot of the brake noise issues I was running into. Use that stuff to clean everything that I service on the bike. I also used to have squealing issues after washing the bikes. No soap or cleaner of any kind. The next time I took it out the brakes would squeal like mad. Discovered when after washing a quick ride around the block, pedaling with the brakes applied until they were good and warm, the squealing stopped. At this point, shimano metallic pads can be had for under $20 so I'd rather just replace than go through all the trouble.

I’ve always run metallic pads. I’ve even brought some back to life after minor contamination with brake cleaner and steel wool followed by heating them up. If I had to do it again I’d use a torch as well. I’m usually very ocd when it comes to protecting my disks and pads from contamination. It always makes me cringe when I see people touch the brake surface on service and build videos. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Got out on the trail around 6:30pm last night when it appeared that we would elude any heavy rains. It was remarkably cool with nice breezes, albeit humid. Was the perfect opportunity to attack Double Down, which I've been avoiding during the summer heat. Rode relentlessly for a couple of hours with a single water bottle and no ill effects from heat. Also only ran into one other rider. Not sure if we'll avoid heavy rains again today but if so I'll probably be getting some more tonight.

Full metallic. Once there is any and I mean any contamination on the pads, throw them away.

God damn that never gets old🤣

Back on topic.

I love her Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

This we totally agree on. My ass ache is with all the dumbfucks going out "just because".

No, I wouldn't take the family out for a pleasure cruise. Not worth the risk vs the reward. But I would drive to the store to get food to feed them. (And I would wear a mask! lol)

I do like some of his thought process on covid, particularly since he is referencing osterholm. However, if there were 1k drunks on the road in your zipcode would you take your family out for a drive? Weld in a cage, and put on a helmet? Agree its a bit of russian roulette. I've been rocking a full N95 when I need to go into a business for work and GTFO as soon as I can. Under 5 minutes usually. I have friends who work/manage breweries and they have been laid off, then hired back, only to be laid off again. I've been employed in an industry for three decades that has been ravaged each and every recession and left with nothing but to rebuild again. I understand. This is the first time the liquor business has been hit like this from both sides. Usually, people drink to celebrate, or they drown their sorrows so because of this, the business has weathered the economic storms a little better. I suppose it's their turn this time, just like it was housing/construction in 08. It's not good either way. In the end it falls at the feet of our well paid leadership to get creative and keep commerce moving as much as it can while reducing the spread. They have failed at both.

Did you read the Mike Rowe thing? The point of it is that you know there is risk involved with both activities. But, you do all you can to lesson the risk, and continue to engage in the activities. You don't pointlessly drive around on a whim. You don't go out during a pandemic on a whim. But you DO drive when you have to and you DO live life as normally as possible during a pandemic. Right now I am having problems with the shutting down of the breweries. We went to one a few weeks ago. It couldn't have been set up in a safer way. We haven't been to a restaurant since this has started because we are nervous about it. But we felt very safe sitting at a picnic table by ourselves 30 feet from anyone else drinking a beer.

Passed this ditch that has heavily modified by skaters and I could no resist.

I struggle with the auto accident analogy........ Say there were 72k accidents per day involving a ford fusion and a resulting 1100 deaths. That brings the total ford fusion involved accidents in the US to over 4 million since feb and 143k deaths. Do you think we'd get those ford fusions off the street? We all need to stop crying, and stay home. Its a year. Twelve fucking months. Prior to this, everyone bitched that they didn't have enough time to themselves for projects or to connect with family. Now we have it and that's not good enough. We are all lucky enough to be gainfully employed and have the luxury of keeping a roof over our heads and food on our tables. A lot more than we can say for the other half of america who are quite fucked at this very moment. I haven't been inside a grocery store since march 13th and i love it. I never liked having to shop to begin with, and probably wont go back once this is over. While I agree we already have, or will be exposed to the virus at some point, I'd rather limit the level of exposure until there are better procedures to deal with it. Just like the way we were sticking people on ventilators in the beginning and then realized that's not the best option. This virus' learning curve is a long burn and I'm willing to wait it out as I don't want any complications from having contracted the disease and lived. Also, not to mention any surprise medical bills that insurance companies are doing their very best to get out of paying. During this pandemic I've learned there is a big difference between want and need. Please stay out of crowds/public setting unless you absolutely need to be there. We need to keep the people who work in hospitals (i.e. our friends and family) as safe as possible by not being overrun with the rona. just my crap 2c

Your entire post is good except for this. I try as hard as I am able to avoid maskless people. But sometimes they sneak up on me and enter my "sphere." THEY aren't concerned about the social distancing concept. Again, wearing a mask in those indoor, close quarter instances, is not a hard thing to do. Even if you feel it doesn't help the cause, why agitate your fellow human by not doing it? Mike Rowe is cool. I can't remember what it was but I read something else of his one time pontificating on a semi-political subject. Very logical thinker he is. I too have used the traffic death to pandemic analogy before.

Some wisdom and common sense from Mike Rowe. Worth the read. Mike. In a recent post, you said you’ve been to Tennessee and Georgia, giving speeches and filming for your new show. Before that, you were on the road shooting for Dirty Jobs. Is it really so important to film a television show in the midst of pandemic? Is it responsible of you to encourage this kind of behavior when infection rates are spiking? Don’t you watch the news? More and more cases every day – aren’t you concerned? Darlene Gabon Hi Darlene Of course, I’m concerned. I’m just not petrified. On March 15th, the day after my part of the country was locked down, I posted a link to an interview with Dr. Michael Osterholm. I’m posting it again, because I believe you and everyone else in the country would benefit from listening carefully to what he has to say. https://bit.ly/2WLOM6o Dr. Osterholm is the Director of Infectious Disease Research and Policy. This is the same epidemiologist who ten years ago, predicted a coronavirus would come from China and turn our country upside down. In his book “Deadliest Enemies,” he anticipated the utterly irresponsible way in which the media would report on the situation, the completely opportunistic and shamelessly political way our leaders would likely react, and the unprecedented chaos and confusion that would arise from all the mixed messages from the medical community. His resume is unexampled, https://bit.ly/3jvzQTW, and his analysis of the situation is the most logical and persuasive of any I’d heard so far. He’s also the only expert I know of who hasn’t walked back his numbers, reconsidered his position, or moved the goalposts with regard to what we must do, what we can do, and what he expects to happen next. I say all of this because Dr. Osterholm publicly predicted - in early MArch - that we could conservatively see over 100 million COVID cases in this country, with a very strong possibility of 480,000 fatalities – even if we successfully “flattened the curve.” It took me a few weeks to accept this scenario, because 480,000 fatalities is a frightening number, and lot of other experts were saying lots of conflicting things. But eventually, I came to the conclusion that Dr. Osterholm was probably correct, and quickly navigated the four stages of grief that usually precede acceptance – denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. By late April, I had come to accept Dr. Osterholm’s predictions as a matter of fact. Since then, I’ve had three full months to come to terms with the fact that, a) I am probably going to get COVID-19 at some point, b), I am almost certainly going to survive it, and c), I might very well give it to someone else. I hope that doesn’t sound blasé, or glib, or fatalistic, or selfish. Four-hundred eighty thousand deaths is an obvious tragedy, and I’m deeply sympathetic to all who have been impacted thus far. I’m also very concerned for my parents, and everyone else in a high risk category. But when Dr. Osterholm says that COVID can be slowed but not stopped, I believe him. When he says a vaccine will not necessarily hasten herd immunity, I believe him. And when he says that people have confused “flattening the curve” with "eliminating the virus," I believe him. Thus, for the last three months, I’ve been operating from the assumption that this is a year-round virus that’s eventually going to infect 100 million people and kill roughly 1/2 of one percent of those infected, conservatively. I’ve accepted those numbers. Unfortunately, millions of others have not. Many people have no sense of where this is headed, and I understand why. They've been betrayed by a hysterical media that insists on covering each new reported case as if it were the first case. Every headline today drips with dread, as the next doomed hotspot approaches the next "grim milestone." And so, for a lot of people, everyday is Groundhogs Day. They're paralyzed by the rising numbers because the numbers have no context. They don't know where it will end. But Dr. Osterholm says he does, and I'm persuaded that he's correct. He might be wrong, and frankly, I hope he is, but either way, he's presented us with a set of projections based on a logical analysis, and accepting those projections has allowed me to move past denial, anger, bargaining, and depression, and get on with my life with a better understanding of what the risks really are. Fact is, we the people can accept almost anything if we’re given the facts, and enough time to get evaluate the risk and make our own decisions. Last year in this country, there were six million traffic accidents and 36,000 fatalities. Tragic, for sure. But imagine for a moment if no one had ever died from a car accident. Imagine if this year, America endured six million traffic accidents and 36,000 fatalities...for the first time ever. Now, imagine if these accidents and fatalities - over 16,000 and 90 per day respectively - imagine if they were reported upon like every new incidence of COVID. What would that do to our willingness to drive? For a while, I suspect it would keep us all off the roads, right? I mean, six million accidents out of the blue is a lot to process, and 36,000 deaths is scary – especially if you don’t know how high that number could get. It would take us a while to access the risk, before we blindly hopped into our cars again. Eventually though - after getting some context and perspective - we'd be able to evaluate the relative danger of operating a motor vehicle. Then, we could decide for ourselves when to drive, where to drive, and how much to drive. And so we do. Again, don’t misunderstand. I’m not ignoring COVID, or downplaying COVID, or pretending the risks at hand aren’t real. Nor am I comparing COVID cases to car accidents - I'm simply comparing the fear of each to the other, and the fear that always accompanies uncertainty. I don’t want to get this disease or give it to someone else, any more than I want to be in a car car wreck that injures someone else. But I've accepted certain things about the pandemic, and now, I've gotten used to the risk as I understand it. I take precautions. I get tested as often as I can, and if I can't physically distance, I wear a mask – especially around higher risk people. Likewise, I wear a seatbelt, obey the speed limits, and check my mirrors before changing lanes. Yes - I’m aware that we’d all be a lot safer if we kept our cars in the garage. I’m also aware we’d be a lot safer if we all kept ourselves in the house. But that’s not why cars, or people, exist. Anyway Darlene, that’s a long way of saying that I have accepted Dr. Osterholm’s numbers, and now, after three months of acceptance, I’ve made a decision on how I wish to live my life. Sooner or later, you will too. We all will. Mike

tremendous numbers. numbers like you've never seen before........... #winning

Ongoing fig harvest. We’re going to use a few for Sexy Fig and Lemon Fizz cocktails. Boom chicka chicka wow wow. #beverlywayne

OK I promise this will be my last weight loss / prediabetic update. Got my A1c rechecked today and I'm thrilled to say that I dropped my Jan measure of 6.1 (prediabetic) down to a 5.3 (within normal range). While that was my primary goal, I've also went from ~201 lbs in Jan to now having logged 6 weeks of weigh-ins at under 175 lbs. I know there have been debates on this forum over the best way to lose weight, but I am now a firm believer that the most important aspect of diet is what you eat much more so than the volume or frequency of what you eat. While you can argue that it's a simple matter of burning more calories than you consume, I'm convinced that magic happens inside your body when you eat the right foods and especially when you eat them in the right combinations. I honestly don't believe that I'm eating any less than I had been - just eating the right stuff now - and still drinking 10-12 heavy beers per week. On the down side, most of my size 34 MTB shorts don't have belt loops and the flimsy velcro adjusters don't work worth crap. So I'm finding myself constantly tugging on my shorts out on the trail to get them back up over my ass. Makes those tech sections out of the saddle a bit challenging.

Campbell's newest video regarding data tracking in US and WHO response to covid 19 outbreak. Osterholm's newest with some good discussion for those with children and loved ones returning to school.

Gin and tonic

Covid appropriate

Just found out about a husband and wife we know who got the virus... They live in Miami Beach, FL, and were out of commission for about six weeks but recovered. Although somewhat back in society, they are still unsure of how to conduct themselves... And unsure of what the longterm effect will be.