throet

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.  

On 7/10/2022 at 1:35 PM, AntonioGG said:

100% this.  My new bike came with Next SL and I’m expecting they will fail at some point.  At least I’m the original owner so so should be able to get a replacement unlike the ones on my last bike (used) which had the pedal thread insert come loose.  My XX cranks had >10k miles with lots of CTX pedal strikes and obviously marred and they have a second life on someone else’s bike now.

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.    

17 hours ago, AntonioGG said:

Brevard, NC

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

13 hours ago, WLemke said:

Just a simple splint. I wasn’t given a timeline at the urgent clinic but was told to go see an ortho for a proper diagnosis. Honestly, I’ll probably skip that since it’s so minor. Google tells me 4 weeks so I’ll give it 1 week before I start some light road biking and 2 weeks before I start testing the water on the MTB again. 
 

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! 

On 7/21/2022 at 1:32 PM, AustinBike said:

I am finding that suburban CA is actually about the same price as living here for me. Even with a state income tax and $6/gallon gas. It's crazy here.

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

On 7/19/2022 at 11:49 AM, ATXZJ said:

Well, after nearly 2.5 years, I finally caught the Rona. Started with bubble-gut and diarrhea the first or second day in telluride last week. No respiratory issues until Thursday night when I began experiencing a dry cough. Friday's ride on the high altitude xc trails was brutal, and had me completely gassed.

Tested positive Monday with fever, cough, and fatigue as symptoms. Currently on paxlovid, with no fever and taking the week off .

Blarf

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.  

19 hours ago, Kobra Kai MTB Guy said:

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I went into Peddler’s and they made it sound like the Bronson and Hightower would be difficult to get. After further review, the Bronson seemed a little big for around here as well. Long story short, Cycle Progression had a T2 SB130 in stock, and I went with that:

 

 

My feedback is mostly positive. Really, I’ve been quite blown away. The lack of bob when pedaling is very nice, and this bike takes big hits VERY well. I hit the 4-5 ft B-line drop to flat at the end of City and it felt super smooth. I was hoping you guys could help me out with the couple issues I’ve had:

 

1.  I was told this would be the case, but the anti-squat makes technical climbs more difficult than expected on a 29er. I just feel like it’s much harder to keep traction. 
 

2.  Similar to the above, every little bump in the trail is more noticeable than on the diamondback, while the bigger hits feel quite smooth. As a result, it performs quite well at City, but not as well on Double Down.  The videos I watched did warn against this, but I wasn’t sure if there was a way I could tweak the suspension to fix this. 

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.  

1 hour ago, AntonioGG said:

Yeah after a warm ride yesterday afternoon I got up at 6:50 am today, my thermostat said 92% humidity.  I just stayed in.  I definitely  prefer late afternoon rides these days.

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.    

22 hours ago, cmc4130 said:

I got heat stroke in Bentonville’s “Back 40” in June last year. The humidity was worse than here. 

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. 

3 hours ago, Chief said:

That's just some random picture of a current hipster that's furnished his house retro🤣

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! 🤣

21 hours ago, Sluggo said:

Rock and Roll High School! I bet you guys were styling.  

Weren't all high schools in the seventies Rock'n'Roll Highs? Definitely was stylin' back in the high-school daze! 

On 6/2/2022 at 7:27 PM, Sluggo said:

Steven Tyler at his best. I’m lucky I was young in the 70’s. Cheap tickets, grass and ass. 

Indeed! I was fortunate to see them play at my high school in '75 during my senior year. We had a large gymnasium by high-school standards, at least in that era, but it still seemed odd that such a headline band (Toys in the Attic had been released earlier that year) would be playing in a high-school gym. I think security was provided by teachers and administrators, who were no match against the reefer madness that ensued. Front-row seating was on the basketball court, and for the rest of the year we were reminded of the event by the burn marks covering that section of the floor.   

Picked up a sixer of these at Randalls today. Really light and refreshing with a more subtle Saison profile than what I'm accustomed to. Malty goodness with just enough spice / fruit. Ice cold works best for me, especially this time of year. 

1 hour ago, ATXZJ said:

 

Youngest just graduated. Our house is now listed for sale and we have our eyes on two places to spend our time.

The heat & humidity can go fuck itself. We're done with trying to make the most of cycling here. 

On the plus side, it's pretty darn nice here for riding 8 months out of the year. Still, I'm sure there is better out there, especially when factoring in cost-of-living. I'm taking the summer off from riding this year, unless I take a trip to the mountains. 

Anybody else like to pair bourbon and beer? Doesn't work so well with pale ales or IPAs, but the brown and amber ales really compliment bourbons IMO. This is an excellent paring here, as the chocolate notes from the Brewhouse really set off the vanilla custard coming from that ECSB. Doesn't matter which chases which, it's good all the way around!  

2 hours ago, notyal said:

Tallboys suck for golf. The bouncing golf cart makes a beer flat after 1 hole. That's why they sell 18 packs. 

I carry a high handicap, that gets exponentially higher with every beer consumed on the course. Prefer 2-3 cold ones at the 19th hole! 

3 hours ago, The Tip said:

It's probably been said. Probably by me at least me three times! But it can't be said enough. It was really amazing what it did for my shoulder after suffering for six months or so. Immediate results. Not totally cured, but huge progress made that very day.

Might need to check them out for my hip ......... shoulder, neck, feet, knees, ankles, and wrists! 

Finally got around to picking up a bottle of this stuff. Really good for $42. Great nose, and sweet on the palate with notes of caramel and custard. Really mellow for a 110-proof selection. Will buy again if it remains available at this price.  

36 minutes ago, ATXZJ said:

Another from the beer vault

 

 

You ballin' now brotha! 

They should consider upgrading to one of these! 

On 5/19/2022 at 11:04 AM, olddbrider said:

Just got back from a quick trip to the MBCotW. I've been there a few times, but one of the guys on the trip was a first-timer, so we tried to hit a good mix of old favorites while also checking out some of the newer stuff that has popped up since the last time I was there a year ago.

Day 1 - We rolled into town a little after noon and after a quick lunch we hit Slaughter Pen Phase 1. We sessioned All American Heroes, spent some time at the skills area, but spent the bulk of our time at a new zone at the far SE end of Phase 1. I've seen it called The Castle, but I'm not sure it has an official name yet. They are clearly still working on the hub, but the trails seem to be done and they didn't disappoint. We hit Catapult (big berms, big rounded wood bridges, and a few dirt tables) and Medieval (flowy jump trail) multiple times and Dragon Scales was an awesome techy black trail with a ton of man-made rock gardens and optional rock features. There's a nice return trail to get you back to the hub.

After checking into our VRBO, we headed back out and went to the Huntley Gravity Zone. Another awesome spot if you like flowy jump trails. There are only a few trails here, but Shock & Awe and Air Raid alone are worth the trip if you are into that sort of thing.

Day 2 - We knew rain was coming, so we hit Coler first and spent some time on Thunder Dome and Family Flow. After some time lost to a mechanical, we headed to the other side. Unfortunately, after 2 laps on Fire Line (amazing flow/jump line) the skies opened up and it rained like hell for a couple of hours. That was it for Day 2...

Day 3 - Thankfully, the rain ended mid-afternoon the day before, so things were pretty well dried out by Monday morning. We headed over to check out Handcut Hollow, which turned out to be a favorite for everyone on the trip. We parked at the J Ave. parking area and rode over to the hub. Turns out there's another parking area that might have been closer to the hub, but it was a pretty nice ride from where we parked (although it involved a fair bit of climbing). Once you are at the hub there are 6 trails that go back down the hill (5, if you don't count the return trail). They were all fun and there's some good variety. Interplanet Janet was a blast, with a little bit of everything - flow, rock features, jumps. We all really loved Schoolhouse Rock as well because of it's super fast sections and rocky tech.

After lunch, we headed out to hit as much of Slaughter Pen as we could. Ravine Trail, Masterpiece, Boo Boo, Choo Choo, Techgnar, Leopard Loop, Barn Burner, Red Barn, Hammer Down, Ozone, and Schroen Train. Of course, we had to show the new guy the Bush Push. We were all dead tired by this point, but he actually tried it and made it all the way up.

I had hoped we'd be able to hit some of the Alice in Wonderland trails (Mad Hatter, Ace of Spades, Area 51) but we ran out of time. Maybe next time...

The whole time there we kept saying how much we wanted to hit the Hand-cut Hollow Gravity Hub, but we never actually made it over there - next time for sure. We did manage to hit the Castle, but didn't ride Dragon Scales. I'm thinking it was roped off the day we were there. Catapult was huge fun! 

Last one of these beauties! Not sure I want to pay another $16 for a sixer, but they sure are good.