Ride baby, ride!

Dad and I loaded up the bikes this morning and drove up to Sedona for a proper new bike break-in. Crazy Joe and Gordo the Wonder Dog made the trip down from Flag to help with the festivities.

Once we had our shit together we all rolled out through Oak Creek Village toward Baldwin. After a mile and a half or so of pavement we shot off toward red dirt on on some unknown trail in search of adventure. Our little shortcut got more and more faint until it disappeared completely in a wash. Now bushwacking and walking we made our way back to real trail and the road in search of Baldwin, Buddha, and Templeton. Once the start of Baldwin was found the rest of the ride really just fell into place.

Up to Templeton, on a brand spanking new bike.

Joe, on the sidewalk.

Dad, loving the trail.

Closed? Yeah, right! Really though, after consulting a map post ride we really should have continued on Templeton but oh well.

Hauling ass just for the camera.

Joe and Gordo doing a little bushwacking.

Not a very big ride by six months ago standards but it sure kicked my ass today. Something a little more mild perhaps tomorrow. Sleep well little big wheeled bike.

Bike formerly known as Unit vs. El Mariachi thoughts, impressions, comments, and concerns will be forthcoming within the next week or so.

Woohoo!!

What does it say about me..

... that I stared at this picture for a good 2-3 minutes before I noticed the guy in his superhero underwear?

You gotta love the work of Sacha White.

The photo is stolen from Bummer Life who stole it from someone else. If it's yours and you don't want it up I'll gladly pull it down.

Hurry up and wait

So my flight's been delayed. Here I am sitting at the airport pondering today's dumbest decision. Never again will I take a bus that goes right by a high school immediately after school gets out. Holly fucking hell, I cannot believe how many of those little loud, gangly, pubescent, shits crammed onto the bus. They were everywhere, yelling and screaming, causing a general ruckus. There's no way in hell I was ever that obnoxious. Ok, so maybe I was, but when in the fuck did I get old? I'm old enough to pay for a taxi, that's for god damn sure.

Speaking of money, I had my three month review at work today, a full five months after starting. It went quite well, nothing but positive feedback and a 9% pay raise effective immediately. Now I feel a little better about the new bike purchase. Who am I kidding? I never felt bad about it, but perhaps the person with whom I've joined forces will feel better about it.

If my flight gets delayed more, and I'm still crazy bored I've got some other things bouncing around that I'd like to get down, but we'll see.

El Mariachi has arrived!

Well it's made it to Scottsdale anyway. Dad's going to pick it up tomorrow and I'll be riding it on Saturday. I also talked to both Crazy Joe and SuLing today. Joe's going to join us for Templeton loop on Saturday and Jeff and SuLing might hook up with us for some preserves action on Sunday. It's going to be a whirlwind trip for sure and I'm really looking forward to it.

A day full of adventures

It's not really worth getting into why but I needed to make a work related trip to Vashon Island sometime this weekend. As long as I had to jump on a ferry I figured I might as well bring Michele and the bikes. I prefer to get my money's worth from my ferry dollar, and unfortunately I only got a couple chapters from Fauntleroy/Vashon. At least it wasn't my dollar.

The BBTC trailhead instructions were less than clear and MTBR was as unhelpful as ever so it took a little doing to figure out where to start. The first 1/4+ mile was incredibly overgrown and difficult to pick out, not to mention slippery as all hell and nasty brush stump punji sticks all over the place. 100 yards in and Michele was out while I trudged on.

I can't remember ever riding anywhere as slippery as this, worse than the occasional snow excursions back in Spokompton. Of course that doesn't make it bad, just more interesting. Didn't that long for me to take a nice little off bike excursion. The culprit is in the foregound, freshly broken, the bike is where it came to a rest, and I stopped rolling another 10 feet down the trail. I was carrying a fair amount of speed when I hit the slick stick. The front of my bike went off to the right while I continued straight ahead along with the back of the bike. Fortunately the ground is quite soft and not a punji in sight.

Michele refers to this photo as "a new take on a Sean classic".

Same old, same old.

I didn't stay out too long partially because I felt a little(really, just a little) bad about Michele not riding. When I got back to the E Michele was working on a book but ready to go. We headed straight for the ferry, home for a quick pit-stop, and off again to St. Edward.

Definitely Michele's favorite local place to ride so far. We did a couple times around the St. Ed's triangle loop that Michele loves so much.

It was much muddier than last weekend thanks to a good helping of overnight rain. The trail was real nice wet and not very slick at all. I really liked the way the new meat cut right through it and allowed me to climb just like on dry trails. Very satisfied with my winter tire choice thus far.

I got a little muddy.

Michele too, albeit less so.

Post ride we hit Redhook for eats, the food was ok but we were both a little let down by the scene in general. Given the distance from home and the "meh" factor it's unlikely that we'll be visiting again anytime soon.

Home again for a short time then up to Mukilteo for yet another birthday(speaking of which, Happy Birthday SuLing), and finally home again just a short while ago.

Now I'm off to bed.

Weekend Update

Friday was Michele's birthday and conveniently enough she got off around noon and hit the bar early with a few off her co-interns. Later we did dinner up on Phinney with Rachel and Casey. Back at the house for more fun and cake plus a little Wii.

Saturday we went to Carkeek Park to watch the salmon run. Michele's never witnessed this particular part of the circle of life and was chalk full of questions, questions that I did my best to bullshit my way out of. When she got tired of my answers she turned to Quinn the talkative random five year old who somehow knew it all.

Today we went and did around six miles or so around St. Edward/Finn Hill. It was good to turn pedals with my wife, it's been a while. No more words, just pictures.




'08 El Mariachis show up at Salsa tomorrow and ship to dealers later in the week. The new bike should hit Rage before I land in the 'nix. Woohoo!