throet

Haha ..... if I had a nickel for every bottle of Merchurochrome that got used at my house .....

Not far from Mt. Ida is the Hwy 27 Fishing Village that sits directly across the street from the midpoint of the Womble Trail. You can do out-and-backs in either direction from your RV spot, or the folks there will shuttle you to / from either end. It's incredibly remote and scenic, but there is a small town to the north where you can go in for some grub, etc. One night we went up there and were treated to a local bluegrass gathering. Believe the name of that town is Story. Mt. Ida isn't too far either going south. Best bet though is to just pack what you need and enjoy the surroundings. They have cabins and tent spots in addition to the RV spots, and it's never been overly crowded from my experiences. Everything around there is "dry" - so pack plenty of libations to cover the duration of your stay. If you need more riding than the Womble offers, the trails in and around Hot Springs (including LOVit) are less than an hour away. Highway27FishingVillage (homestead.com)

It's been a good weekend! The GD Pumpkin Ale is the best store-bought Pumpkin beer I've had - hands down. Christmas Ale from SA is one of my favorite beers - period. Will be stocking up while I can. First time trying either of these readily available bourbons. The OF 1910 is good, but I like the OF 1920 better for a few dollars more (heard the opposite from Bourbon Junkies on YT). The FR Small Batch Select is outstanding and will be a regular resident in my cabinet as long as I can keep getting it. Definitely an upgrade from the FR Single Barrel IMO.

I got 5 solid years out of my Next SL cranks, then this. Suppose I should have known after 4 years to just swap them out. The pedal came out while climbing, which was no big deal. Could have been really bad if I had lost the pedal while launching off a drop or navigating a boulder-laden downhill section. I replaced them with RF Atlas, which added over 1/2lb to my bike but worth it for the kind of riding I like to do. Also went from 175mm to 170mm, which I've been meaning to do anyway. I might end up moving the new Atlas over to the backup bike and getting something in 165mm for my primary bike, as I'm definitely digging the shorter cranks.

Nice! How comfortable is the riding there this time of year?

Dude so sorry to see this! At least it happened during summer when you won't miss riding as much. Seriously though, I'd highly recommend allowing a full 4 weeks for healing, even on a minor fracture like that. The bone will have fully healed and should be at full strength by then, thus reducing the potential for further injury. Just my two cents.

Diggin' several tracks off of Neil's new album, none better than this bluesy jam!

I was tempted even before Newsom ran his TX newspaper ads abhorring Abott's dumbassery.

Sucks dude! Glad you made the best of it. Hard to believe it's been over two years already that we've been dealing with COVID. Got my second booster yesterday for a total of 4 pokes of the Pfizer.

Nice score! Curious if you sized down from what you had been riding? When I was looking at the SB130, I concluded that a M would be right for me even though I've always rode L bikes.

My preferred riding time in the summer is 9:00am - 10:30am. Too early, and the dew point and temperature are too close for comfort, meaning the air is saturated with moisture. On any given day though, the dew point doesn't generally drop drastically later in the day, meaning there is just as much moisture in the air but at much higher temps. Late morning is the perfect compromise IMO because the temps are high enough to allow some evaporative cooling, but not so high that they raise your body temperature even when you're standing still. I rode Friday night from 6:30 to 8:30, and that first hour was brutal. Temp was 96 but "feel like" was 102. Of course it also depends a lot on how much you exert yourself, and Double Down probably wasn't the right place to start my ride that night.

Did you seriously have heat stroke or was it heat exhaustion? Neither is good of course but from what I understand heat stroke can be life threatening. In any case, I hope you fully recovered. The closest I came I think was pushing myself real hard on the greenbelt mid-day in May a few years back. My legs were literally seizing up riding on the pavement to get back to the car. I ended up drinking a gallon or so of melted ice from my cooler in an attempt to recover, but I've really never been the same since when it comes to riding in the heat - so I just don't (or at least don't push myself). We rode Back 40 mid-May this year and I was thinking that was about as late in the year I'd ever want to ride there. There was a cooler full of ice-cold drinks on the trail near the end of our ride that came in handy.

C'mon dude - you can't fake that. If only you could see the label on that Falstaff, you'd know it was the real deal! 🤣