hurronnicane

City of Rocks, near Silver City, New Mexico. Somewhere around 1988.

The expensive plastic frame was purchased used, ridden hard for years, and then handed down to my son when I got a new bike. And when he cracked the frame, it was repaired with glue and fabric. And he paid for it himself from his hard-earned wages and we supported a local craftsman in the process. Hard to see much downside. We are all happy. And you should probably convert your lawn to a vegetable garden or wildlife habitat since maintaining lawns is a huge waste of resources, though we will be happy to stay off of it all the same.

Just had a 52 inch deep, thousand foot long trench put in across the front of our property to stop an Oak Wilt outbreak from wiping out our trees.

Thanks for the recommendation Seth! I just got my son's bike back. Cracked Carbon Repair fixed us up. As you said, the price was great and he was easy to work with. Thanks again!

Camping options near Bentonville seem limited. Devil's Den State Park is southeast of Fayetteville and it has pleasant camping and a trail system. Certainly not as developed as Bentonville area as far as trails go but we have had fun there. There is also a City Park with camping near Eureka Springs, Lake Leatherwood, which has an extensive trail system which we were unable to ride when we went due to torrential rains. And the camping was a little sketchy due to a huge semi-permanent Canada Goose population with attendant goose poop issues.

In the mid 80s I ran into a couple of dudes at Lost Maples State Park where they were riding. The day before they said they had ridden Enchanted Rock. They claimed to have ridden to the top.

It did just fall over but it hit a rock retaining wall at a perfect height to strike the frame. It made a really sickening sound. I was thirty feet away and knew immediately that it was badly damaged. I think my son is going to take it to C6 to get it repaired.

We pondered similar fixes. My doctor friend would probably put a plaster cast on it.

Though there is no good way to destroy a frame, this was one of the worst. After riding at Walnut Creek with my family on Wednesday, my son let his bike fall into a rock retaining wall while putting my wife’s bike on the rack. This bike has been solid contributor in the family. I rode it for years and when I moved up into a new bike I felt lucky that he my son had grown enough that it fit him, and he has become a beast on it. He was convinced that he could just wrap it with duct tape and keep riding it but it looks like it will need a lot more than that. Is it worth trying the local carbon repair folks on a ten year-old carbon bike? He was really bummed and lacks funds to start over.

My wife and I rode the lower portion of the Grindstone trails that circle the lake last summer. There were some long swoopy downhills that were really fun.

Zeus.

We have a neighbor in Dripping Springs that caught a jaguarundi on his game camera. The photo was not perfect but I was convinced. The tail and short legs are really distinctive.

Has anyone spent much time in Ruidoso, New Mexico? It has proximity going for it (a little over nine hours from Dripping Springs). We went through there last summer on our way to Yellowstone and managed to get in one ride at Grindstone Lake which was fun. Just wondering if anyone has more thoroughly explored the area. I know Shane at Canyon Cycles used to live there and has talked it up. Twenty five years ago we used to travel to the Cloudcroft area (just down the road from Ruidoso) for mountain biking, but my understanding is that Ruidoso has a more developed mountain bike trail system.

I used to ride with a buddy in Wimberley and we liked stashing thermoses of coffee or other treats without telling the other one. Then in the middle of the ride we would ride up on the coffee or whatever. Hot drinks were usually on bitter, cold-weather days. It made a good ride better.

We did the Engineer Mountain Trail years ago after a local suggested it was sufficiently burly. High alpine fun! We were there in August and there was a lot of lightning danger with afternoon thunderstorms. I think we started at little Molas Lake, followed the Colorado Trail for a ways, and then dropped a ton of elevation.