Sweet parking lot view. I heard that the ocean is on the other side of this building, hopefully I’ll have a moment to look at it later today.

Everytime I have to come to Florida, this gets stuck in my head:

 

Trying my hardest to cull it down to the absolute essentials for this 3 leg trip. It’s a crazy itinerary with SSAZ sandwiched between work meetings. A little stressed about the work stuff and feeling under prepared for 50 miles in the desert, but it’s all in the name of fun I guess.

Thanks to my mom for watching the boy, even though this trip ended up almost twice as long as originally negotiated. I really appreciate the support and it means a lot to me that she can do this so that I can do this.

Looking forward to catching up with friends, having some beers, riding bikes, and especially enjoying a few days of warm weather and sunshine. Updates may happen, or may not. We’ll see how things go.

…and inside, a little, er, reward for finishing your drink?

just a quick one of these.

Trails were soft thanks to an entire day of pouring rain on Friday. Saturday was warm and things hadn’t really firmed up enough to have much fun in the woods on the Pugs. It was pretty though.

The Caletti got all packed up, snug as a bug in the S&S case. Thanks to M2 for coming into the shop to help me get the cleats positioned just perfectly in my new shoes. What a big difference that makes in the fit and function of the shoes.

Did a little snowboarding with K on Saturday night, but that just turned into an unfortunate situation and I’m not ready to rant about it here quite yet. Finished off the weekend with almost 30 miles of dirt roads, some of which were more ice than dirt, on the cross bike. Tired and happy.

Had my fortune told.

According to this ancient, mystical oracle I’m will be a ninja.

Perfect. Just gonna ninja my way through the next week at work. Try to keep the sanity. Kinda just like what Doug says. Only I’m a week and a day from getting to the desert, seeing my friends, life living, etc.

I ended this mountain-tastic weekend with a golden hour Pugsley ride up in Waterworks. The busy crowd of snowshoers, hikers and skiers had tracked out the trail network over the weekend, and then abandoned everything to go watch their football game. Seamus and I had the place to ourselves.

Riding soft, squeaky snow. Singletrack snow biking. Pink sky and golden mountains.

Saturday’s snowfall still lingered on all the trees, waiting for the wind (or possibly rain) to knock it off. Such a gorgeous end to a brilliant weekend of mountain living.

Earlier in the day K and I had gone to Bolton Valley for our first turns of the season. This year he’s got new boots and a new, longer board and has picked up right where he left off last season. Though I didn’t end up getting a season’s pass for us, I’ll be watching the discount offers closely so that we can get our chair lift time this year.

The open trails have coverage, but overall the snowpack is really sad this year. Check out the above photo. Those are benches behind K. Last year there was so much snow that the benches were completely covered, this year you’d have to be a giant to sit on them. There are still many trails yet to open, but I have to admit that conditions were perfectly fine today for green run cruising and it really wasn’t crowded.

Felt like I really took advantage of living in a mountain town this weekend. Saturday I made it to the dump and then rode snowmobile trails for two hours despite the bitter cold. Greensky Bluegrass at Higher Ground on Saturday night. Sunday riding and riding with a stop at the local pub in between. Good times indeed.

It is pretty good. Even when you dig your bars deep into your thigh, leaving a mark and a big bruise through 2 thick layers of clothing. It’s still a fun time.

Dropped the boy off at school, navigated the slick roads and met George at Town Loops for a pre-work snow bike ride. Warm enough at 17 degrees to make it fun. Sun poking out at times. Exploring some of the snowshoe trails. Damn good start to the day.

It still surprises me what this bike can ride through. It’s so solid and responsible feeling. Note, I didn’t say ‘responsive’. It’s definitely a tank. Can’t wait to get out on it some more this weekend.

If you’re into such things, I got the website up for Singlespeed USA. There aren’t a lot of details yet, but when there are they’ll be found there. For now it seems to be a nice little shit-talking forum for the folks vying to host the 2013 edition.

The big news — I got new bike shoes. No more busted up boa system that has prevented me from tightening my left shoe ever since SSAP last april. No more poorly fitting shoes. I got a scorching deal on these fancy Specialized shoes while I was in AZ. They need to blow out a little bit, but I’m cautiously optimistic that they’re a step up.

Skiing. Finally got out for an XC ski. Rec path on Monday. With twenty first and second graders yesterday. As always, I continue to really suck at this sport. Can’t wait for the time to get back out on my pugs — that I can do.

My travel bike needed some love. So far I’ve taken it to Ireland, Oregon and Tennessee and the repeated assembly and disassembly had resulted in a bunch of parts rattling around in the bottom of the case. In addition, in December I pulled the fork and shipped it off to Push Industries for a rebuild and performance tune. It came back really quickly and already feels better. Until I get to ride it for real to know for sure, I can only hope that a little attention made a big difference.

So I took it into the shop and George and I (well, honestly mostly George but that’s why he makes the big bucks) stripped it down, cleaned it up, and regreased all the bits that needed to be regreased. Remember that time I arrived in Nashville and my rear wheel was missing a spacer and there was a whole big adventure to get a wheel to borrow? Well, while mucking about with my rear wheel George found the missing spacer. On the axle deep, deep, deep, inside the hub. Where it was never meant to be.

The spacer in question

And then he showed me where all those other spacers were supposed to go. And I took exploded diagram-esque photos in the hope of maybe doing a better job next time I put it together.

Think this will help?

The Center Track belt drive is finally available in other gearings so he put on an easier sprocket which should make riding the Caletti in areas with climbing a lot more fun. However, it seemed that I managed to come home from TN without some other spacers and my fancy Chris King lock ring to hold everything together. Whoops.

New tires. Trying out the Hutchinson Cobras. Just a bit of fiddling with the brakes left to do and then to pack it back up again for Singlespeed AZ on Feb 4. It’s a fine looking ride and seeing it all built up and shiny has got me all excited to ride it again.

A bike to borrow, some sunshine, 14 miles on South Mountain, Carne Asada burritos. Good business.

The next day involved an excursion to Sedona. Red rocks, hero dirt, more sunshine, 70 degrees, and the new trails on the west side. We rode Chuck Wagon, Gunslinger, and finished up with Mescal. A couple of spins around a vortex. Three hours of riding and this out-of-season girl was pooped. Beautiful day.

Back at it. Thankful for a weekend of good meetings and a little treat at the end. Hoping those few hours of sunshine and trails are enough to keep me going back in cold, dark winterland.