hurronnicane

Bentonville, last week with the family plus extras.  

Craziness on the streets?

I was there in 1968.  We were on a family vacation and the train that ran from Ojinaga (across the border from Presidio) to Los Mochis, Mexico ran right by the canyon.  It stopped at an overlook for about 20 minutes and we got to lean against the rickety wooden guardrail and stare into the abyss.  It was a grand time, riding old Pullman cars from the 1930s with portraits of American presidents hanging on the walls and people in third class holding live chickens on their laps.  

I thought Hermosa was okay but the most epic ride we did in the area was Engineer Mountain.    Thumbs up for Alien Run.  There is also some fun stuff in Farmington.  

That is very cool!  My wife and I also did the whole bike trailer, tag-a-long, tiny-bike progression with our two kids. Once my son, who was the youngest, turned seven, our family started doing birthday camping weekends with his friends at Muleshoe.  In the early years we did not attempt the whole loop but we did memorable rides there each year. Since the loop pops out on the road several places it is easy to do partial loops.  I think we did five birthdays in a row at Muleshoe, followed by one year at Flat Rock Ranch in Comfort.   My kids are now 19 and 21 and we are heading to Northwest Arkansas for a mountain bike vacation in a couple of weeks! 

On 1/11/2019 at 10:37 AM, CBaron said:

Hmm....not sure.  I don't think so because its the older version(s).  Are you talking 29x 2.8"?  I'm running 29x3 and it won't fit.  But I've been meaning to try and modify it to work.  This may give me the impetus to figure it out.  Are both the bikes 2.8?

-CJB

The largest tire size in our bunch would be 27.5+ (2.8 inches).  After that it is a couple of 27.5 with 2.4" tires and a 26" relic ...

That would be awesome!   Swapping for the would be perfect.  Does yours accept fat (2.8") tires?

My family is planning a trip to Bentonville for March 9 – 17.  We have a receiver hitch Thule Pro 2-Bike Hitch Rack and need to be able to carry two more bikes.  So, I was wondering if anyone has the T2 Pro XT 2-Bike Add-On that I could borrow or a four-bike rack that I could borrow?  This may be the last time we are able to get the whole family riding together for a while. 

I also just switched to flats and have only two rides on them but generally like the experience.  However, on the second ride in the middle of a log pile crossing the pedal body detached from the spindle.  Second ride.  That does not inspire confidence.  I can think of a lot of places where that would have been catastrophic.  Anyone else have that happen.  These were VP pedals.  

On 12/30/2018 at 11:40 AM, cxagent said:

The book I posted was written and produced by a local MTB rider. He may have been part of a group that produced other areas but I don't know. I met him a year or two ago when he donated a bunch of cinder block to ARR. He said he still has his bike and wanted to start riding again. I hope he does.

BTW - I have a copy of a similar book about trails near Moab. My wife calls it the "Liar Mel" book. She and a riding buddy did a ride in Castle Valley while the rest of the group rode Porcupine Rim. They got lost. And then they got lost again. And then they got lost some more. Not to say Mel's book is bad - but there is only so much that can be shared in a one page description of the ~30 mile trail. And when the book says to turn at the sign for the camp, she did not expect to be looking for a 3" x 3" picture of a tent on a Carsonite post. Fortunately I had given her a Garmin with maps in it. They finally made it out at sun down when at the time I was starting to ride backwards with lights in hope of finding them. To tell you how desperate this was I had gone metal to metal on my rear brake at the top of Porcupine. I still had no rear brake on my bike. I was not going to allow anybody to ride with me so I could move faster. And because I had 'borrowed' all of the batteries for lights. I expected to be out all night looking for them.

I had a similar experience in Moab, with an earlier Trail Guide.  After getting hopelessly lost on the Porcupine Rim trail following tire tracks after the guide book's descriptions became useless, we ended up on Matt Martin Point as darkness approached.  After several attempts to just follow the nearest drainage down to the River and ending up at a 30 foot pour-off, I convinced my buddy that we weren't going to get back to our camp at the Slickrock Trail safely (fully dark by now and we have one little mini mag light between us).  It was Fall and temperatures were expected to be in the low 40s.  We found a place out of the wind and settled in for the night with a fire to ease the discomfort.  Then it started raining.  We managed to move the fire across the arroyo under a rock ledge for shelter and after eating Advil for supper and drinking the last of our water we attempted to sleep.  At the first hint of light I was up, having barely slept and started exploring hoping to figure out how to get down to the River.  I found a USGS marker pounded into the rock and was able to find that marker on our tiny topo map in the guidebook and soon we were on the trail and limping into Moab for a huge breakfast.  At breakfast we happened to notice a disclaimer in the book that stated that the information in the guide was just enough to get you lost.  

A big group of us went out there a couple of weeks ago for an annual camping/riding trip only to find out that 95% of the trails were closed with no timetable for their re-opening.  The park ranger said they had received 36" of rain since September 1st!  The issue wasn't that they were too wet but that they were washed away!  We were hoping to ride most of the 40 miles of trails out there over the weekend and had to make alternate plans.  We did ride down the road to the Bandera Bike Park and while it is clearly a work in progress it was fun to check it out and it has a lot of really promising terrain.  

1 hour ago, Albert said:

Damn, where did you hit barbed wire with your face?  

Having a mirror is interesting.  I've used my phone before for such things, but that doesn't work as well as a mirror would.

It was one of those unnamed trails.  I actually saw the lower strands on the ground but I guess my helmet visor prevented me from the seeing the one just above eye-level.  So I popped up the front wheel over the lower strands and just as I was trying to hop the rear wheel over the wire, the previously unnoticed strand caught me between the helmet and my sunglasses.  It made a nice deep cut.  That was when out I found that all of wound wipes had dried up.  I did a fair amount of reassessing what was in my first kit after that.  

After ripping my face open with an unseen strand of barbed wire, I started carrying a small mirror so that in the future I could determine how bad I was cut.  This was right above my eyebrow and it bled profusely.  I thought I had stopped the bleeding and cleaned it up but when I got back to the car I looked like an extra from a horror movie.  This helped explain the reactions I was getting from hikers I passed on the greenbelt...