So, Dirk had a day off over the 4th so we headed up to the Crest trail. Since it was an odd numbered day, we avoided Mill Creek and went down to the Mill D trailhead. This was my first time on this somewhat technical downhill trail, but that didn’t keep me from trying to bomb it the whole way. I had 3 pretty gnarly crashes, one in to a substantial aspen tree. My ribs are feeling good enough now that I think they are just bruised, hopefully not cracked. Dirk put this video together from his GoPro Hero helmet cam. Good job Dirk. I’ll be ready for another in 2-3 weeks.

So, for my May mountain bike ride I went for an early morning excursion with Dirk, Casey, and Cam up Little Cottonwood Canyon. We got off early and had enough cars to shuttle it twice for extra downhill goodness. The small uphill we did up to the ruins actually was nice. I used to look for any way I could to shuttle a ride, but now that I ride daily to work, I don’t mind some nice climbs now and again. The video is Cam jumping over Dirk on one of the side trails. Not quite Nitro Circus level, but still awesome in it’s own lame kind of way.

So, it’s been way too long since I’ve been mountain biking. My GT got pretty trashed from the year round commuting that I did on it before I got the trike, so I haven’t even really had anything to go out on for the last few years. This winter I picked up and old Cannondale Super-V and decided it was time to get back on the trail. The weather has been pretty warm, so the nearby ride on Stansbury Island seemed like a good idea. Some years, with a mild winter, you can ride this trail year round. The weather was great all week, but there was a storm that was supposed to move in Saturday afternoon. When I woke up this morning and checked the weather, there was definitely a big storm heading straight for Salt Lake, ahead of schedule, but we decided to go for it anyway. Needless to say, we got snowed on big time.

Here is the trailhead, looking up at the canyon where the trail starts. It was about 40 degrees, cows were grazing, and it looked like the start of a great ride.

Here is the same spot, after we finished. It only took about 2 hours to ride the 10 mile loop.

This is the climb at the start of the ride. It’s about a mile, steep and rocky. It almost killed me. I ride a recumbent to work every day, but there was a whole new muscle group at work here. This made the rest of the ride, including the snow, seem easy. When we reached the saddle, a light sprinkle started to fall, it was actually kind of refreshing.

Then the heavy clouds and snow rolled in. It just got worse from here. I can’t believe how narrow the trail is. It is only about a foot wide and you don’t ever dare get up too much speed since there are quite a few rocks embedded in the trail. It’s a pretty technical ride, just because there isn’t a lot of room to maneuver and the rocks surprise you along the way. It would have actually been a lot of fun to hang out and enjoy the views of the Great Salt Lake if we weren’t in a hurry to get back to a dry car.

You might think we had a bad case of explosive diarrhea, but that was just the mud.

The super-v was properly inaugurated on it’s first ride. My GT was a hardtail, and I can say I definitely liked the full suspension. It did well for a 10 year old bike. Hopefully this is the first of many rides we go on together. Oh, and thanks Sam for not calling it off, even though we knew we were in for nasty weather.

So last week I visited the good folks at GAC in Portland for a press check of a catalog and magazine that featured some of my photos for Stampin’ Up. It was a good experience to see first hand the limitations and possible adjustments of an image on press. I was just as impressed with the city of Portland itself though. My favorite was this trike outside of Powell’s book store. I can’t even imagine taking my kid through downtown Portland on his trike, still I admire the parent that is patient and crazy enough to do it. I think you could only pull it off in a biker friendly city like Portland. I wouldn’t mind living there myself, being a bike commuter. Anyone have a good photo job for me in Portland?

see more pwn and owned pictures

I’ve been thinking that it would be nice to have a 4 seater bike trailer so I could take all of the kids on a bike ride. Maybe something like this would be better. Why just have 4 seats when you could safely and comfortably take 8-10 kids? By my calculations, we could have 6 more kids and still be set. Thanks Failblog!