My riding buddy

After being away from my family for 7 months with few visits, I've learned to appreciate time @ home, and don't desire the all day bike-a-thon's that I used to before leaving. Watching you child grow from a distance is not fun, or easy my hat is off to all the folks who travel for a living, and for those who split their time with their children. On those day where I just want to get out there, I've found that I have a new riding buddy. This riding buddy is by far my favorite. She enjoys taking the hard lines and isn't afraid to walk. Mostly, she just enjoys being outside in nature, and I couldn't be happier about that. I hope she wants to be my riding buddy for as long as I'm able to ride, and hope she never forgets the pure joy of riding her bike in the woods. She is my bestest riding buddy ever!

Ready to hit the trail, this is fun she exclaimed! Notice her cycling socks!

We found martian brains on the trail and she decided she wanted to know what they looked like inside

Taking time to stop and observe and learn. Have I mentioned what a cool kid she is? I hope you get out to ride, or hike, or whatever with your buddy. It's the best time you can have and an investment in time that can't be measured. Get off the couch and explore your world.

More tinkering in the garage

since buying the pugsley, I've been playing around with configurations. The bike is amazing and comes, or at least it came, with rack and fender mounts for almost any set up you could dream of. I've wanted a porteur style rack for it, but a custom rack can run well over $300, and I just don't know if I'd like it enough to justify that cost. I had an old junk rack that I picked up at a Performance yard sale some years ago for like $3. Problem with it is the struts were very narrow as this was for a road/touring type bike. It was also lacking mounting hardware, which is why it was only $3. I decided rather than throw it away why not hack off the struts and fabricate some of my own and a new bracket while I was at it. I picked up some flat bar aluminum @ Lowes for $5. A dremel tool, a few clamps, a metal file, and some time and I turned a throw away rack into a useful front rack for the Pugsley. If I use it enough and like it enough, I may be able to justify a proper porteur rack like a Cetma or a Paul Flatbed. Until then, this will be a good jumping off point.

Ciclovia Fat Antonio style

This is the 3rd Ciclovia in San Antonio. We missed the first two, my friend John met up with us and told us this was the best one yet. I'm glad the city is starting to see the light on events such as these, and judging by the turn out, the masses are happy about it too. Hopefully by next time they will have more vendors (food trucks, open market things) and more stores along the route will be open. It was a fun time for the whole family, even the elusive Mrs. Fat Bob jointed in on the action. We got a total of ~9 miles in for the day. Little E had a great time and everyone loved her striped outfit... she'd fit right in in Portland or Eugene. We finished strong with some food @ Sams Burger Joint :D

No.. I don't need to pee....

This made my shitty week, not so bad! What a rad little guy. Kudo's to dad for being involved!

Tinkering in the shop...

This weekend I was supposed to try out my first s240 (see previous thread), however the weather conspired against me with the skies opening up and giving us some much needed rain... great for the earth, not so good for a bikepacking adventure. So instead I decided to do a little re-cycling for the upcoming slosh and mud. Who knew an old ERA jug, some wire ties, and a couple of coat hangers could be so much fun? I'm pretty happy with the down tube protection and the front spray contraption. The rear fender and mount need a little work aesthetically, but work just fine.

Bikepacking set up shake down ride

I've had an assortment bikepacking gear for quite some time now. I had planned and planned, but never actually pulled the trigger on a trip. So on Saturday night, my insomnia got me thinking about bikes and bikepacking, specifically on the new (to me) pugs. Why not? I knew I wouldn't put an overnighter together with Monday being a school day, but I've mapped out the route and loaded up the pugs to see how the set up works... the pugs is heavy when not loaded, and when you add camping gear it is an absolute tank! My primary goal was to figure out the route from my house over to river road, which is a slow curvy road that will take me from the outskits of town all the way to FM 306 and on to Canyon Lake a super secret overnight camping location. Total mileage from my front door to the lake super secret camping location is ~25 miles, then there's ~9 miles of trail to off-road on, and ~25 miles home. The idea behind this is to do what Grant Peterson coined an s24o which is a bikepacking adventure right out your back door. The idea behind it, is you don't have to spend weeks or months planning it. It doesn't have to be an epic adventure, it is a less than 24 hour overnight trip just to get away from it all, right in your back yard. Awesome! So since I'm not much of a roadie and I've never tried to lash my gear on my bike before, this was just a trial run. If the weather cooperates I plan on heading out on Friday for my first real S240! The blue thing is a cheap-o foam pad that will be what I sleep on. At some point I'll replace this with a nice Neo-Air, since my 1994 Therma rest weighs 4lbs and has about 10 patches from over a decade of abuse. Rolled inside is my Golite Utopia 1 and poles.

The rear pack is a Carousel Design Works medium seat bag. That has a extra shorts, extra synthetic SS shirt, synthetic LS shirt, extra socks, camp pillow, sleeping bag. I could fit more stuff in there, and I'll get more picky about these items as I get more of these trips under my belt.

Not pictured, is my Osprey Raptor 18 hydro pack. While not my favorite pack in the world, it does have a lot of storage compartments and is a clever design... I do miss my wingnut desperately and will pick up a new Hyper 3.0 when funds are available for such things, but for now the Osprey is what I have. This contains 3L of water, a handful of cliff bars, some cliff blocks, some fruit snacks (thank you E), spare Surly Toob, tools, swiss army knife, led flashlight. These items will move around and will evolve as I get more experience doing these trips. One of the benefits of doing a short trip, and in my case, a shake down ride. Is that you get to see what works and what doesn't work so well. So what didn't work so well in this case is that the camp pad when cinched up tight is it interfered with the operation of the brake levers. It wasn't enough to be dangerous, just annoying. At some point I could purchase a bar bag from Eric Parsons or convince my wife to sew me one :D yeah, right. I'll probably also invest in one of his frame bags for longer journeys when I'll need more things like cook kit, more water, etc. The bags are expensive, but Eric makes great stuff and they are all hand made by Eric in Alaska.

Another fab/mod was making a new GPS mount out of an old reflector bracket. The one that I bought from Garmin lasted exactly one crash. I did learn my lesson from that crash and added a lanyard to keep from the GPS being launched if/when I have the next crash.

So with any luck, next week I'll be posting up pix from my first s24o on the pugs

Jeff Jones, I love you man...

Your designs are brilliant, but damn... even your aluminum bar is silly expensive. I just couldn't justify them on the "play bike" so I got a knock off... sort of. Say hello to the Origin8 Bullnose bars... they're a bar and stem all in one, just like they made in the early days of mountain biking. The biggest nit against them is if you don't like the angle up/down, you're SOL, unlike on Jeff's bars where you can adjust to the specific degree you want up or down. With the extra $90 I saved buying the Origin8's I hope to pick up some less gnarly tires, or maybe a second hand frame bag... whatever I pick up it's much easier to swallow the cost, when I haven't broken the bank on the bars.

Bicycle-Works

So if you ever find yourself in the PNW and are in need of a bike repair, check out Aaron's new shop, Bicycle-Works. Aaron's a good guy, and will set you up @ an honest rate. His work is top notch, and if you're in the area looking for a ride, he knows were the good stuff can be found too, just drop him a line. I'm very excited to see Aaron doing his own thing, it's a challenging industry and with so much on-line competition it does my heart good to see him utilizing his vast mechanical knowledge and carving a space for himself. Congrat's Aaron! Adding your shop link for the 3 readers who follow :D

soul-o ride

Took the fat bike to the Madrone trail again today. Decided to explore closer to the lakefront, as this is partially what these bikes are made for. The section I rode was mostly pea gravel type stones, a nice little area to stop and enjoy the shallows if you're a boater, however this did get me thinking how limitless the fat bikes seem. Explored a little further up the shore onto the bigger boulders, this too was doable and fun, until the wet rocks and muck made it slipper... found the limits of the fat bike. Overall a fun day of exploring, have the desire to get a packraft now though :D

Lakefront riding... rode in the water a little, but never went to bearing depth.

Fat tracks

Multi-track trail

FatBob gets a FatBike....

Wow, no posts since Colorado.... Wife was feeling a lot of pressure, and daughter was missing me to the point of having trouble with school, so I left Colorado and have been working from Texas. Being back in Texas means having to deal with ridiculous heat, so that means not much riding for me since I loath the heat. Since I haven't been very motivated to ride lately, a little retail therapy helped get me motivated to ride again. I have been wanting a Pugsley for some time, and after riding my friend Mitchel's Pugs while in Colorado, I knew I had to have one. My first ride was just rolling through the neighborhood... what a hoot, still smile when I think about how ridiculous this thing is. My first dirt ride was less than stellar, a combination of a chest cold and friends riding on non-fat bikes just made me suffer. I finally got out for a proper solo ride on the Madrone, my go to shake down trail. This bike is desperately stupid, and I love it! Controls already changed, will likely see a few more changes

After the fire.... this part of the trail used to be green & lush all the way down to the lake, now it seems ideally suited to the monster truck pugsley.

What bike would be complete w/out a little bling? E is growing like a weed, but is still very much a sweet little innocent girl. She still loves stickers and decided that my new bike needed some flair. I'll look back on this age fondly as she grows into her terrible teens and make life hell. For now she's a little angel and I love her more than life.

photo dump

A Photographer I am not... my image capturing is terrible, but I finally found my little point and shoot, which is way better than my camera phone. Anyhow, here are some random biking pictures in no particular order.

Snow Ride, pretty deep. Evergreen, CO

March 73* and sunny with Mitchell

My co-workers idea of a custom bike :p Thanks a lot Sarah!

More of the same snow Ride with Mitchell, check out his Pugsley

Tim & Stephanie rock'n the dual Niner single speeds

Snow Commute

I've been off the commute for the last couple of weeks, and I'm noticing a significant increase in my frustration and irritability. I'd like to say it's 100% due to not commuting, but other factors are playing a role. I have not had nearly enough dirt time since winter has set in, and it's been a very mild winter for CO standards. I've been buried at work lately, and have begun to notice some unfavorable tactics that I need to gain some distance from (need to take the high road instead of trying to prove my point... since no one really cares anyway). Finally, the distance and time between my family is really getting old. So, in an effort to not lose my mind and job, I've decided to start commuting in again, and what better day to choose to commute in, but the day we're expected to get close to 2' of snow... heck, why not?

I'm not gifted at taking over the head pictures, my arms are too short, and my head is too fat, but here's my best attempt. *note* mine were the only tracks on the trail Friday

I left the office ~4:00PM on Friday, some very deep sections of snow, but the bike paths were mostly clear!

Skinny(ish) 700x32's will go back on soon, as will fenders. The Salsa El Mariachi does it all and never complains.

The last two weeks....

As I mentioned in the last post, Colorado weather is schizophrenic. Last weekend we had 60* weather and Schnauzer insisted we ride and show off his new "Beast" a giant diesel F350. He suggested 3 Sisters in Evergreen, and since I'd never been and he was going to drive, it was an easy "sure". We met up near his place, and continued on to the village of Evergreen, CO. Passing through downtown Evergreen it felt like a Norman Rockwell winter scene, or the cover of an L.L.Bean catalog. Frozen lake, kids ice skating, people ice fishing, dogs frolicking in the snow. Awesome little town! We got to 3 Sisters and Schnauzer let me in on his secret weapon... evidently, over the holidays he got bored and purchased a Pugsley (see honey, it's not just me others suffer from the same bike lust affliction). Needless to say, we had a blast on 3 Sisters, we only got 8-10 miles in total, but it took us all day due to the snow drifts and hike a bike sections. If you haven't tried out a Pugsley, put it in your list it's as much fun as I can remember on a bike... did I mention we were riding in snow drifts while wearing short sleeved shirts an enduring 60* temps? Crazy.

So Yesterday, not to be outdone, Schnauzers once again put together a great ride. This time we would travel south to the once bustling city of Pueblo. While temps in the Golden area were hovering ~ 38*, Pueblo would see a high of the mid 60's. The trail system was a mix of west Texas and open prairie. This time around we had Tim and his very capable girlfriend along for the ride. Tim has been in Colorado for a few weeks more than I, and is originally from the east coast also (VT). His girlfriend is originally from NY, Schnauzers is also from NY/NJ and I was born in the NY area and lived on the east coast a good portion of my life, so we were a group with very similar tastes. Tim is a wild man and has not yet learned fear. His girlfriend while a little more reserved on the tech stuff, did not give up and smoked us in the wide open sections (she is a former roadie after all). The trails were fantastic and the weather unbelievable. Pueblo is very arid and warm, the perfect get away for mountain bikers in CO while the good stuff is covered in snow. We only rode 10-15 miles, but they were super technical. We finished off the day in style with "Sloppers" from Grays Coors Tavern. Evidently these guys won on Food Wars Battle of the Slopper in 2010... I'm glad I got to taste it, and after a hard day of riding it did hit the spot, but I don't think it will ever be a part of my regular diet.

Oh, and sorry for no pixels, I've evidently misplaced or lost my camera and I'm sick of my mobile providers stupid billing system, so I'm going old school with no fancy cell phone pix. Going to try to track down my camera, it's been lost since my last trip to TX.

Colorado weather = koo koo

at 4 am there was no snow, by 5:30 the streets were covered. After a day in the cube farm, it was 20* colder than the morning commute but the snow was mostly gone....

Protected bike lanes work

Kinzie Street: Chicago's First Protected Bike lane from Streetfilms on Vimeo.

I stole this from Seattle Bike Blog Nice work Chi town... now if only you could fix your broken "pizza" and lessen your brutal winters ;^)

What do you do on a snowy Saturday....

....with no rides on the agenda? Install fenders on the commuter bike of course.

Some "minor" modifications were needed as these fenders, while listed a disc brake compatible, should really read (Disc Brake Compatible if you have a degree in Mechanical Engineering, and several years of mock up and design under your belt... a full on manufacturing facility is highly recommended too).

As you can see in picture #1, the support struts required a good amount of massaging to get to work with the disc brake caliper. I suppose I could do what everyone told me was "easiest", and add a ton of spacers, but frankly I don't care for the look of that. Just looks wrong. While I won't call my butchery...er..."modification" elegant, it gets the job done. These fenders are also not out of the box compatible with suspension corrected forks as you can see in the last picture. I had to improvise a new bracket which would have meant using a dremel tool to remove the old bracket, and fabricating a new bracket. My dremel is in TX, and I don't have any errant bracketry up here in CO... not to mention a bench vise to simplify the modification process. Instead I used an old Mavic hub adjusting tool I had laying around in the bottom of the tool box, cut off the wrench end, and hand bored two mounting holes to extend the existing brackets reach.

Overall I think they turned out pretty well. I'm not super happy with the gap on the rear fender, I'll have to ponder a fix on that. Considering the lack of a proper or even half ass shop, they will do. The ultimate test will be Monday morning to see if they keep the slush and road grime off my bum.

And time passes

Wow, have I really not blogged since Sept? It's been a busy few months. New place to live, new job, new friends, new rides. I should be documenting more of this here, but alas my lazy bone has gotten the better of me. That and the ease of the evil facebook have limited the time I take out to reflect and journal about my adventure.

So, since moving to Colorado, I've become a full time bike commuter again... wish I could say I'm car free, but I'm not that brave... yet. My commute is, as always, the best part of my day. I start the morning and have accomplished a goal, no matter what else happens during the day, no one can take that away from me. Then, on the way home I can purge the stress built up during the work day, by enjoying the ride home. It's the perfect pressure relief valve for my mind. The added benefit of course is that I'm burning calories and not contributing to co2 emissions.

I've also been inspired to try to take better care of myself, it's amazing how just a nudge of fitness will make you think more about the choices you make, or perhaps it's just the natural balance our mind and bodies crave. I've been eating a more plant based diet, and have tried to eliminate all animal based foods from my diet. It's not the easiest thing, nor am I some hard core vegan, but it makes sense that more natural, green foods are what our systems are designed for. I've read bits and pieces, and seen loads of documentaries. Most are pretty far out there, but the one that sealed the deal for me was "Forks over Knives". I'm not suggesting that everyone needs to go radical I've found that especially with families this is recipe for disaster, but if you just eliminate some animal based foods and slowly introduce a plant based diet over time, you will yield much better results. I say if you're a meat & potatoes kind of family, try going meatless one day a week. It's really not that hard, and it's a far better gift than anything money can buy.

Now the not such good stuff. I miss my family desperately. Fortunately we live in a high tech world, and I can video chat, text, FB and all other sorts of ways to communicate and stay in touch. This is a great relief, and makes being alone much easier, but I miss being with my little girl, hugging her, putting her to bed. This is a really tough time to be away as I feel I have limited "good years" left with her before she becomes more and more independent and wants less and less to do with me. Honestly, I feel selfish and trapped. I made this situation hoping things would fall into place, but my 20 something nomadic abilities have been thwarted by the responsibilities of family life and a shitty real estate market. But the decisions have been made, commitments need to be fulfilled, and with luck the experience will only serve to make our family unit stronger... only time will tell.

I think that's it for now. I have a bunch of pix to post up, will try to upload them from the phone & camera to picassa so I can link them here. Hope you all are doing well and enjoying this wonderful winter.

FB

Catching up....

.... so I've been in Denver for two weeks now. I still don't have internet access and the new job has been trying to melt my mind with a metric sh!t ton of new systems, cisco certification (11 hours to go), juniper self study, and PM self study for certification.... mix all that up with trying to learn new people, departments, responsibilities and I've been in the weeds... this will be the case until mid October, so not much update wise, but I'm sitting in the airport with free wifi (sucky 512k... seriously?) time to kill... thank you TSA! So here's the update... I'm loving Denver so far. Not so much that I love the city or anything... frankly it's nothing earth shattering, but the front range is awesome. I've been to Golden & Boulder, and while Boulder had the cool factor, Golden may just be the new place for us. It's like Boulder w/out the college and not nearly as expensive... did I mention they have a killer bike shop? Now I have to have one of these...

Made it!

Well, it took me 2 days... 971 miles. I used to be able to make this length of a journey by myself in one shot, but my body and mind won't allow it anymore. Leaving proved to be much more difficult than I imagined, I'm going to miss my girls terribly over the next 10-12 months. Panic stricken, I thought about turning around at Palo Duro Canyon SP and heading home like a failed run away kid that only gets to the end of the block before he realizes he's made a critical error in judgement. The thought plagued me right up to the point of taking possession of the apartment. The damage has been done, old job is not an option (couldn't stand that place)it's time to take my medicine. Typing this now, I miss my girls, this was not expected as K and I are very solid, we can weather any storm, but my precious little E... brutal. I don't know how people cope with divorce or loss. I've gotten soft in my old age I suppose, maybe I've learned to care and think of more than myself through the experience of being a parent? Looking forward to my first visit home.

Day 2 here has proved to be much better, went for an easy spin just to get out of the house. Rode the Cherry Creek trail around Cherry Creek State Park (lake)... got about 1/2 way though before I got a flat... looks like tubeless will be a requirement here too. The Rockies are beautiful, but I'm having a tough time enjoying them without the rest of my team :(

T minus 24 hours....

.... no time left to eff around. Tomorrow morning I'm off for 16+ hours of windshield time. I have most of my clothing sorted, and boxed save for a couple of suits and some random bits. I have to put together a quick kitchen supply, and finish up with the bike/camp stuff. Then this evening I have to load everything up and get a good nights sleep. When the girls depart for school, I'll head on out. I'm still on the fence as to where to stop. If I were Chuck Norris tough, I'd solider on and drive until I got to Denver, but I'm no Chuck.... I'm thinking I'll look for a place to camp overnight in southern Colorado. Need to check the forecast and make sure it will be doable then commit to it. I still have so much to do, why do I always wait until the 11th hour to do stuff... So this may be the last post for a while. I still have to get settled in and I'm sure it will take a week or so before I'm acclimated, but I'll post up as soon as I'm all set and have some pix to post up.

Wish me luck....