Ridenfool

I saw him at Liberty Lunch many, many years ago and was amazed by the performance. Another local pair of brothers that consistently amaze with their guitar work, Del Castillo. Some may remember hearing them in one of the Kill Bill movies. Here they are performing with Robert Rodriguez.

It was more than just one tree. Two or three had been pushed over into the trail with their roots pulled from the ground. Maybe another twenty or so branches had been cut off nearby trees and piled into it as well. It was pretty well knitted together to make it challenging to remove. But, I've been outsmarting Cedar and other trail flora for a long time. It looked like it was probably Plan B, after their first non-attempt to block the fresh concrete, because clearly it was those damn mountain bikers steering off a trail that goes back into the woods away from the sidewalk. Someone must have thought the traffic previously encroaching onto their wet concrete could have only come from here, right? In lieu of using the more traditional barricades and signs, this was their very best idea toward protecting the newly poured sidewalk. I'm guessing there was a brain-trust involved in the decision making as it usually takes a committee to decide upon applying the least effective method to address a problem.

Thanks again for your tour guide services, without which I might still be wandering around out there. Glad we could rearrange that pile of stuff and open up that section. It was a lot of fun, give or take the chiropractic adjustment I received on Mulligan. (speaking for tall riders everywhere, those not-quite-low-branches are actually dangerously low branches for us) I need to carry some flagging tape so I can hang a streamer on offensive branches that remain hidden behind my visor, until they make themselves known. When I hit I felt and heard vertebrae popping from my neck on down to almost mid-back making a noise like brrrrrrraaaaaap, as maybe a dozen or more were "adjusted" by that pesky oak. I stopped immediately and took an assessment, but all seemed well. I'll see how it feels in the morning. Great temps today as long as we kept moving. After 12 miles or so I'd had enough and bailed onto the sidewalk for the last half mile to the Y parking lot. @throet hit some more singletrack, then stopped by the parking lot for a visit before I headed out to find some breakfast. Decided to roll out of town on Parmer and found a place called the Silver Grill that fit the bill nicely. Because I admire how The Dude abides, I had a Stella Ar-toes, then, because I feel The Duke also abides, I had the John Wayne omelette and washed that all down with some coffee. It was about 6:00PM by then and with a full belly I moved onward, thru the fog (and through Manor, and Elgin, and McDade) as I meandered back to la casa. Has anyone else noticed that Austin traffic sucks? A finer day of riding I would have never expected considering how dismal it looked outside. Glad we made the effort. Loved riding Brushy and all the work y'all have done there is fabulous. Looking forward to visiting it again, with even better weather next time. Though the air conditioning today was appreciated. Couldn't have asked for better company, it was a pleasure riding with you. Oh, and I wanted to weight in on the 1/4 Notch debate. The trail is really at least 23/64 of a notch up from Walnut ... just saying.

Ain't not no never rid this action and this thread has had me chompin' at the bit to give Brushy a whirl for some time now. The stars have all aligned and I'm thinkin' I'll traipse into the big city this afternoon and "sequence" some of this Brushy trailage. I've bookmarked the caltopo link, and if anyone who knows the place would let me tag along for a tour that would be even betterer. The promise of beer and pizza nearby has only added to the allure this riding area offers.

On one of the videos the guy described it as a Terminator arm with the skin tore off. As for me, I've always been a function over form kinda guy when push comes to shove. Reading a thread on mtbr.com there is a poster, Kamkam from Central Texas, that has an E18.

I can't stop looking at the information on the Motion Ride E18. It appears to be chock full of awesome with a better price point than the Trust. (about half the price, with the 200 Euro discount offered for joining the Motion Ride club) Watching the videos and reading the articles and testimonials of those who have sampled it have a few nits and picks, but all are enthusiastically saying the pros outweigh the cons by a significant margin because of how it transforms the ride. Still, a pretty steep buy-in just the same. This sort of tech is bound to re-invent the front suspension for MTB as they are getting the travel and weight into comparable ranges with traditional forks and the performance aspects will put distance between them and what will eventually become old-school.

So, this explains the drizzle and the cold front?

Even just two names can be bad. Have "Mike Hunt" paged at the airport ...

It is the name of a new strain now available at the Colorado dispensaries.

The design looks as though it uses similar principles that a few motorcycle designs have used. The idea being that it will absorb bumps without causing significant changes in wheelbase length. An axle that moves vertically, instead of sliding both up and rearward like a telescoping fork, is less likely to require constant adjustments to steering due to suspension action. Meaning it will "track better" as those in the video described. Another benefit to such a design should be less brake dive, as braking forces will be coming at a right angle to the vertical travel and won't compress the suspension as much as a higher angled telescoping fork will. This will further improve how the wheels track while turning because the wheelbase remains static in both braking and while the fork is moving through its travel. The riding "no hands" into a curb segment demonstrated this aspect. Another aspect is how a telescoping fork that is say, a 150 mm travel design, may only be providing 120 mm in vertical travel (actual bump absorption). The angle the front axle is moving has both an upward and rearward aspect when a telescoping fork compresses. This will affect the turning radius of the bike as the suspension moves. A fork like this one with the axle moving closer to 90 degrees in reference to the ground can absorb an equal size bump with less overall travel when compared to a telescoping design. As good as these things are, the issue on longer rear travel bikes and this fork making a lower BB height leading to pedal strikes, and the need to install spacers to bring the handlebars up for a good cockpit fit could be addressed in the design by making a small, medium and large version to match the overall height that a variety of rear suspension travel frames will have. Hopefully this tech will get enough interest to trickle down to a more affordable price point as other Weagle designs have done.

The videos were clearly unsustainable.

I get paid to work on IT stuff all day. I don't take my work home with me. Many folks share this mindset. If a professional trail builder were to feel the same way it wouldn't be all that surprising. I certainly wouldn't blame them for wanting to ride trails in their spare time.

So, the answer is a local/national trail builder who makes fantastic cheesecake, and abhors cheese.

When will you have beer and pizza available on the trail?

Shinerider for the win. His sequence includes Beer, more Beer, Wings, and Pizza.

Except for that washboard road to the trailhead. It will rattle a car apart. Those sinkholes are something to ponder, and the ones you ride over that haven't broken through. The trail on top of that ridge is pretty cool. Not a destination, but anyone passing by with a little time to kill should pick this one up. Went over to MTBProject and found this video of White Mesa, enjoy! and for good measure, here's one at Phil's World on Rib Cage

Ska's Steel Toe Milk Stout is my fave. I always bring back a few cases whenever I pass through. I have one can left and once it is gone I have to plan another trip.

Over the years of experiences with Garmin products used in making the maps for Rocky Hill, and later adding them to MTBProject, I've had several run-ins with uncooperative supporting software from Garmin as well as other compatibility issues. I have bookmarked a number of sites for conversion of file types, as well as have ascended the steep learning curve on Garmin's Base Camp to get to the point of finding many of the features that make map creation easier, and which, for whatever reason, Garmin does not provide as part of the default tools. (you must go into View and enable them) I can relate to the hair-pulling necessary to get info from and to their devices as well as headaches involved from sharing it with other applications. This should all be much easier to accomplish. Even something as simple as using a custom route for road navigation created in Base Camp is, for whatever reason, different between two of their Zumo GPS units. In one you can upload the route you design and it will follow it exactly as you create it, with prompts for turns and lane placement at intersections. On the other, it will reroute between waypoints however it damn well pleases. The only way to force that unit to follow a created path is to save the route as a track and upload that. Which then loses many of the features like turn notification, POIs, etc. that navigating by route includes. There have been many, many "What were they thinking?" moments over the years I've used Garmin's products. And, they are "the best" in the industry.

Phil's World is a hoot, and from there you can see a Sleeping Ute. Definitely worth the stop if you are in Cortez. The Rib Cage increases in fun factor on each subsequent pass.

Mad Skilz

Have you tried it with Garmin's Base Camp software?

As a corollary to the route info, are there preferred places to park a vehicle? Any places to avoid parking? This could be useful in the Trail Forks info.

In some countries dogs are considered a staple.

Scars always look better after stitches. Not certain this would leave a scar worth making up a story about.

Well said loop_out! You can't put the body where the seat is due to some silly rule of physics. Dropping the seat offers more options for keeping the CG exactly where wanted, rather than compromising. A static seatpost makes a rider work around the seat in any given situation with fewer options regarding where their CG can be. Then, there is how those pesky baggy shorts can sometimes hang up on a fixed seat when trying to get back over it ... this is yet another problem for me that a dropper addressed nicely. Even off the bike a dropper can be pretty handy while loading bikes when there is handlebar-seat interference or any similar fit issue involving the seat height. Rather than adjust/remove the seat and post, just press the magic button and lower the seat. Granted, it's not for everyone. Still, there is no denying how useful it can be for a rider who appreciates the multitude of options a dropper offers.