L-Train Station

Randonneur Cycling?

2012-01-23T06:09:00.000-08:00

Ever heard of randonneuring in a biking context? I hadn't, but I stumbled upon this guys site called Rando Montana yesterday. Very interesting. Riding long road distance, loosely organized, non competitive. Of course it is a Euro thing going back to some very old roots of cycling I am sure. In my search for good ways to get motivated and train for the Butte 50 again, these type of events would be pretty good. Only problem is they aren't on a mountain bike! I have some routes in mind for rides like this that would incorporate a significant amount of dirt, and would need to be done on a more off road setup. The concept is great though. I may need to try some of the rides this guy has planned. Nothing like a good reason to go out and ride a bike all day! Also check out RandonneurUSA site for more good info. I may just have to give this a try this year.

Cheap-Ass Hardtail Beater Bike Love

2012-01-17T17:56:00.000-08:00

Take one 89 dollar hardtail frame from Price Point.
Buy a new headset, one tire, some tubes, and some derailleur and brake cables.

Add spare parts and parts from older decommissioned bikes.
Result: Instant sub $200 training/beater/winter/dirt-road/nonracing mountain bike.

I keep it in good enough tune to shift okay. The wheel bearings need help. Brakes pretty much suck. But after riding a lot of full suspension, nothing feels like hopping on the hardtail and pedaling hard and going nothing but forwards. So fast! It feels like this bike pedals itself up the hill compared to my now shelved 6" travel, 32lbs Santa Cruz Heckler.
As a sidenote, I actually think some of the 29er hype is due to guys like me coming off years of riding 6" travel AM rigs, and getting a hardtail 29er and thinking it is magical, when the real magic is not the wheel size, but the newly discovered efficiency of a hardtail while pedaling. In fact, I suppose there are people who started mountain biking on full suspension and have never even ridden a hardtail. This would of course make the hardtail experience dramatic regardless of wheel size. I just don't really want to have multiple wheel sizes to take care of. Maybe some day.
If it is between November and June, I run fenders on there to keep the crap off me. And a light if I have one that is working.

Bar ends were added pretty quickly after I built it. Also there is a tube and tire lever strapped to the down tube, and a pump attached to the water bottle mounts. I run two bottle cages when I don't have the light on there, which means I can do a good ride with no camelbak in the summer. (I have become anti-backpack if at all possible.) It is great to have a bike that you really don't care about, that you don't have to baby, you don't have to wash if you don't feel like it.

I figure as I replace parts on my nice bike I can give the hand-me-downs to this bike and it will be slowly upgraded over time. I like that the suspension fork is on there, as I like the more upright position the taller front end affords. But I have been thinking I may get a rigid fork to simplify the bike further. As long as I can find one with the axle-crown length close to what it is now I will do it.
Then I will end up with Dual Rigid 26er, which isn't too hip these days, but about perfect for off season riding on dirt roads around here. My dad has been riding these types of bike with a vintage twist for years in Maine.

Fringe Bikes

2012-01-14T08:20:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I think about bikes. Okay, a lot of the time I think about bikes. I always play the "what bike do want now" game in my head. Doing research online, checking different stuff out. It changes over time. I have a road bike and it is perfectly great for road biking. It is a nice bike, and I love road bikes because you hardly have to maintenance them compared to mtn bikes. They barely get dirty ever. I love that. So I never think about road bikes.
I am always thinking about mountain bikes though. I have 4 of them. But am continually interested in different ones than the ones I have. Lately I have been thinking about two different kinds.

Fatbike:

My dad got a Pugsley over Xmas and I got to ride it around some. I even did a 12 mile road ride on it. On snowy-ass crappy-plow-job Maine roads. It was fun as heck! I was incredibly surprised at how well it rode. I figured I would go twice as slow as on a normal bike, but I think it was more like 25% slower. And it makes up for slowness with the fact that it will ride over damn near anything you can pedal it on. I want one.
There is a rapidly growing movement of folks who love these bikes, and ride them on snow, sand, and whatever else a normal mtn bike sucks on. Heck you can ride them on normal trails and I have a feeling they would be super fun there too! I think the Northern Midwest and Northern New England is ideal for these bikes. These areas usually have tons of snowmobile trails around, and the snow is often dense and hard. I am not certain I would get a ton of use out of it here where I live, as the snow we get in the mountains here is deep, and super low density. All the snowmobile trails are up in the mountains. There aren't any that close to my house. Yellowstone Park would be epic on a fatbike in winter, but for some stupid reason aren't allowed in the winter season. If that should change I think it would be game on. I mostly ride dirt roads in the winter in the valleys, which are usually fine for a normal mtn bike. I like being able to ride out my door during the week.

And for that I think I might like to try a:

Singlespeed rigid 29er.

Speaking of dirt roads in the valleys....I think this type of bike here would be great for them. Super simple, reliable, dirt road cruiser. Back to the roots of mtn biking. Most of the valley roads are fairly flat which may make it okay to ride singlespeed. Also, this would be a cheap platform to check out the 29er situation, of which I am still somewhat suspect but very curious.
Not that I need another bike. But that's beside the point. No one ever NEEDS a new bike. But when you wake up at 4am and need something to do, sometimes you think about bikes. At least I do.

Finally A Night Ride

2012-01-06T06:57:00.000-08:00

Good to get out last night. Did about an hour of uphill. It was 40 out and windy, pretty warm really. My feet didn't even get cold. I haven't been riding at night cuz my old light crapped out on me and I am waiting for a new one. I borrowed the Cateye commuter light off Steph's town bike, and had a headlamp on, and it worked just fine. Two cars passed me on Swingley, which is roughly paved for about a mile, then dirt. There is no snow in Livingston now, just a few drifts in the ditches. I will keep riding till we get some real winter conditions. The mountain snowpack is really poor, and 3 people died in avalanches last weekend so I think the splitboard is staying home till things improve out there.

Lamar River Trout Fun

2011-09-26T16:22:00.000-07:00

900: Leave house, gas up, get snacks, hit the road south to the park.

930: Realize I forgot bear spray at home for the second weekend in a row. U turn and lots of cursing, and an extra hour of driving. I already own two bear sprays or I would have just bought one in Gardiner.....it's still unnerving to head into country where there are things that actually will eat you. A couple people have already been snacks this year alone.

1100 At Tower Junction. Head to Lamar.

1200 on the Lamar River. I brought too much stuff with me. Backpack, big camera, fishing pack, rod, 2 bearsprays....I looked like Fishing Tourist Number One. Crap.

No one on the river where I am at though. No sign of fish either. I started throwing a nymph rig out, and got no love at all. I was wet wading in my sandals and the water was cold as hell. I decided to hike downriver a bit...mostly to wait for the water to warm up a little.

The air temperature was ridiculously warm. I bet high 80's. I was sweating just walking around. Further downstream the river was really cool. It was the kind of river I really like to fish. Big enough, slowish, but with big boulders strewn around. Not too many though that it was hard to navigate, but enough to make good runs and pockets in between big pools. I fished the lower Gardner River the previous weekend and it was really jumbled up and difficult to work through. This part of the Lamar has enough space to be really easy to deal with.

I caught a number of rainbows and cutthroats on a hopper/dropper rig. I went with the hopper setup after walking downstream in the meadow and kicking up hordes of little 1" brown grasshopppers. It is amazing that fish go for some of these hopper patterns that look absolutly nothing like a real grasshopper. Two of the fish I caught were actually snags on the dropper which was pretty weird. They came up, decided the hopper really didn't look like a real hopper, and turned right into the dropper nymph and got snagged. That was the first time that's happened to me.

Chubby little Rainbow snag. Oops.

Crap picture of a cutthroat. This one actually tried to eat the fly. Good job buddy! All the fish I got were in the 10-12" range and were quite spirited once they got hooked!

It was a great day of fishing. At one point I caught two fish on two consecutive casts, which is always a surprise. The last fish I got had a strange thing happen. It was fighting the line near the surface, and I saw a big trout cruise underneath it near the bottom. He went by twice and I think he was hoping for a free meal! The fish on my hook was 10", and the cruiser must have been 20" or so. That was a new one to me. I know the big ones eat the little ones, but eating a meal 50% your own size? Wow.

Noticed the Shop Vac dropper I had on only lasted about 4 fish before it was toast. I think it worked better when it was half unravelled and shaggy, but then worked less well as a bare hook after all the dressing fell off...! Need to start tying my own flies soon. Signed up for a class in November so hopefully that will be a start.

Also, there was no one around in the section I chose to fish! Pretty incredible. I cruised further up the road when I was done and there were a bunch of folks fishing where the river got really close to the road. World renowned trout fishing river....no people near me. Fantastic.

Last weekend on the Gardner was fun, but I liked today better. A little easier to get around on the river, and easier currents to deal with.

Wyoming Fishin' Mission

2011-09-18T18:39:00.000-07:00

4 days of Wyoming fun were had by the crew from Livingston at the end of August. Left Thurs AM at 630 and didn't come back till Sunday night.

Day One: Drive through Yellowstone to the East Entrance, and fish the North Fork of the Shoshone River. Catch a ridiculous amount of rainbow trout of the 18" variety. Stay at Matt's family cabin in the woods. Drink whiskey and play poker till 4 am. Summary: EPIC DAY!

Day Two: Fish the North Fork again with Grif and Joe who came in Thur. nite. Another epic fishing session. We were stacked up five deep down the river and were all catching fish. Those buggers were hungry! Wow!

Then drive a few hours to Devils Canyon over by Bighorn Lake. Load up the ATVs and head in to the canyon.

Day Three: Fish Devils Canyon, Wyoming Style....The Razor was the pimp ride of the weekend. Robby Gordon edition gets it done, with custom diamond plate roof, and custom thermarest fly rod holder system....! Tiny creek full of fish that pretty much ate whatever you threw out there. None were bigger than about 12" but they sure were fun! Good camping too by the creek: dutch oven cooking, swimming session including cannonballs, shooting guns, saw a black bear, drank more whiskey....

Day Four: Ride out and head home....satisfied.

Big Empty

2011-04-02T05:00:00.000-07:00

Living in Montana has one overarching benefit I think I most enjoy. Space. Big Space, with NO PEOPLE. Couple this with the fact that such space can be reached from my doorstep within about 5 miles.

Yesterday's Ride:
Mtn Bike
1.75 hours
20 miles

This is what I am talking about:

Having this type of stuff available to ride after work from my door, no driving involved, makes me really happy. This stretch of road is about a 30 minute pedal from my door. We may not be able to ride the mountain trails till late May or June this year, but I will get by with rides like this no problem. I saw one car on this road, and two dirtbikers. In two hours. Just wonderful rolling hills with views of the mountains. Did I mention it was also above 60 degrees out for the first time this year! It felt like summer all of a sudden.

This is the view coming back down looking towards town.

A lot of people wonder about living in Livingston vs. Bozeman, and this is the big reason I like it over here better. If it were like Bozeman over here, there would be subdivisions all the way out this road and it would be paved and busy. As it is, it remains ranchland and that's all. Someday it may be different but I hope it stays like this for as long as possible.

Exploring

2011-03-31T18:48:00.000-07:00

1 hour today on the mtn bike. 11.1 miles.
Checked out some roads up the Wineglass area south of the highway. Left the house and headed south. Hit dirt in two miles, and then had about a 4 mile climb up a pretty good dirt road. The road dead ended in private property so I had to turn back. It was windy as hell, pretty much the norm around here. Steady 25mph from the west. It was spitting rain too but never really got going. I love checking out new roads! I have a few new areas I am targeting to explore in the next couple weekends. Trying to find as much dirt roads as I can in the vicinity to ride on for the next few months. It will be late May I bet before the high country trails are melted out enough. We have had a big snow year.

Preparation Begins

2011-03-05T06:18:00.000-08:00

So two days ago I registered for the 2011 Butte 50 endurance mountain bike race. I have a training plan, with hourly goals by week, leading up to the race at the end of July. I have a big spreadsheet I have built in Google Docs to track my training and planning. Unfortunately it is still quite wintery out there in this neck of the woods, with a few inches of snow falling two nights ago and still remaining on the roads.

Fed Ex brought me a bike scale and some racey tires on Friday. I have all sorts of things to change for this years race after my experience last year. I have decided tires are the number one upgrade for the least amount of money. I was basically on heavy DH oriented tires last year which had the most rolling resistance possible. So I begin with some low profile race tires for starters. I got the scale to see how much my bikes and parts weigh. I am no weight weenie, but my good friend Josh's advice was to race a bike that is "25lbs max." I think my Heckler last year was around 35! I would ultimately like to have a whole new bike built up for endurance racing by the time the race rolls around, but can't quite afford to do that yet. I will be selling some old bikes, and hopefully my dirt bike to fund this project.

Here is my winter training bike setup:

It is heavy and slow, and that's just fine for ramming around on the snowcovered roads. I don't have studded tires, just big 2.4 knobbies. Studs don't seem to be neccessary here on account that it usually stays cold enough that the snow stays snowy and doesn't get super icy.

Training Hours so far this year:
Jan: 22.8
Feb: 20.1

This time has been a mix of running, backcountry splitboarding, and biking. It has been less than I planned, but more than I have done before in this part of the year. March is usually the turning point when you can really get out on the road around here so hopefully I can ramp it up this month. It may still snow, but the daytime temps and sun are usually enough to melt it off within a day or so. My work is located along one of my favorite after-work routes in Bozeman, so that will help this year with mid-week training efforts. Not far also from Hyalite road, which is a good 12 mile climb which I will be doing intervals on plenty often!

The motivation and focus I am feeling for towards this race goal is something different and new for me. I know I am not going to do great at it, but I just want to do good for myself and my abilities. It's making me get out there and be in the outdoors more which at base is really the best thing I can think of for personal well being. Overall I think this is going to make for a fun year!

Getting Things Done by Edwin Bliss

2011-01-08T12:45:00.000-08:00

Just picked up a book at the consignment shop for 1 dollar from 1976 called Getting Things Done by Edwin Bliss. This surprised me as I though David Allen's book was original. After a quick glimpse I find a very similar information processing procedure to Mr. Allen's, about 30 years earlier. Hmm.

The Butte 50 Part 5: Race Day

2010-10-24T10:05:00.000-07:00

After my terrible night of barely any sleep and many emergency jogs into the woods, I got up, got my junk organized, filled all my bottles and camelback, and went to the start line. Lining up at the start was 112 people for the 50 miler. I could immediately see I had the LEAST appropriate bike in the group. People seemed to be mostly on 26 inch 4” travel full suspension xc bikes.

I had made a critical mistake which was not preriding the course at all. This was to have a big effect on my race. The gun went off and the pack shot up the road to the a short ATV trail climb that had me at max heart rate immediately with tons of skinny dudes in spandex passing me. This is bad. Then there was a downhill right away that was about the scariest thing I have done on a bike due to all the yahoos around me that don’t know how to ride down hills. I thought I was going to be hit by, or run into, someone any second. Bad course design to have a congested downhill 2 minutes into the race. They need to start with a longer climb to sort out the pack.

Right away I noticed the TOTAL LACK of course markings as we rolled down a big dirt road to the flats. And then, I saw a marker that pointed straight ahead, but everyone was turning left!!! What the ....! I followed the group and started a good climb past some houses and into the woods on trail. Again, barely or nonexistent markers. This is the part where you would expect spray paint on the road with arrows. Nope.

Up this first real ascent I labored trying to not go too hard since I knew I had to do this for the next 6-8 hours or so. I saw a few marking flags at one point and figured they were saying I was on the right trail. At the top of this climb I saw a bunch of racers yelling and running around apparently trying to find the race route. No markers. No tire tracks. Three trail options. So much for the awesome course marking I heard about the night before! In the hectic mindset of the race start I followed a group up a trail I KNEW was the wrong way, but I had no way to find the right way. In hindsight, I should have backtracked the way I came up until I found the turn, which was at the flags I had seen earlier. In the heat of the moment I just felt I had to keep moving, and thought that we would get back on track pretty soon based on some comments from some of the group. It was pretty demoralizing to have this happen this early in the race. Anyway, it ended up that we did an extra hour and maybe added 8-10 or so miles to the race course, including a LOT more climbing. When someone had said “We can get back to the road this way” I figured they meant 15 minutes or something, not an hour plus. I was pretty angry at this point.

The misdirect really messed things up in my fueling plan and I didn't bring backup calories for such a contingency. My one bottle of Perpetuem didn't last the 3 hours it took to get to the first aid station. My water just barely lasted. So in the first leg I already was bonked. I refueled at that first station, ate a clif bar, took two Endurolites, drank two bottles of water, refilled my camelback, and mixed another bottle of Perpetuem. The second section was STEEP AS HELL right out of the gate and I was redlining hard. It was also hot as hell out like 95 degrees. It was 3 miles of mostly pushing up a sandy two track. During this section I was thinking I should turn around and quit. I was going SO SLOW and just redlining my system it was really ridiculous. The leaders in the 100 miler started passing me in this section, looking like machines cranking up this stuff that was killing me. Tinker Juarez, a mtn bike racing legend, and local endurance master Bill Martin passed me on the steepest hill of the whole course so far. Tinker was pushing his bike, which gave me a small bit of satisfaction, and close behind him was Bill cranking in the granny gear. "This is brutal...." croaked Bill. I kept pushing till the top of the sand hill/hell and then hit the Continental Divide Trail singletrack which was where things got a little better. Fantastic trail. Not as steep climbing. Somewhere in this part I started getting leg muscle cramps which was a new experience for me. Super painful. Had to get off and walk or pedal super slow. They went away pretty quick but scared me into going slower still. At 5 hours I kind of got a second wind and settled into a rythym for the rest of my race. I also ran out of water and Perpetuem at 5 ish hours. So for the last hour I had no water. Doh! It was rainy by then though and not quite as hot.

I finally made it to the second aid station. I was a little out of it but not too bad. I was cashed for any sort of steep climbing though, and the next section was called the 8 MILES OF HELL. All up. Steeply. I could have kept going but it would have been pretty dumb to push my bike for the next 8 miles at a snails pace. I had already done what I could tell was a TON of climbing with my 200 pound self. I decided to call it good as I had done 33 miles in 6.5 hours. I figure if I hadn't gotten on the wrong trail early and added a bunch of miles (6-10 depending on who you ask) and climbing I may have made it up the next 8 miles and THEN quit...haha!

The Butte 50 Part 4: Pre Race

2010-10-24T09:43:00.001-07:00

Picked up Team Muleterro member E-Mule and we headed for Butte on Friday PM for the registration at the Outdoorsman, a bike shop which I think happens to be owned by top American road racer Levi Leipheimer’s older brother Rob. Got registered, got our resupply stuff put in the aid station bins, and heard the organizers spouting off about how the course was marked “so much better than last year!” Hmmm. This would prove to be an interesting statement later on....

We staked out a campsite up on Homestake Pass about a half mile from the race start. Some other friends showed up and we made a big fire, cooked a bunch of food and had some beers and stories around the fire. I made the mistake of trying to “carbo-load” and ate about 2 pounds of pasta with sausage and a burrito. I was also trying to “hydrate” and drank at least forty two water bottles before going to bed. This overindulgence produced all sorts of problems for me that night. I had to get up at least 5 times to go to the bathroom in the woods and had to pee every 15 minutes it seemed. It was terrible. My stomach was totally freaking out and I barely slept. Of course this is after I proclaimed haughtily at the campfire how “I NEVER get stomach issues like all these delicate XC racer types....” HA! So it was up early on no sleep and still having digestive problems all morning.

E-Mule was doing the Butte 100 and was decidedly more prepared than I was. He had done a lot of 24 hour races this year and trained specifically since like January for this type of event. His bike was a full rigid Niner Air 9 set up 1x9 running tubeless tires. I took it off my bike rack when we go to camp and was astonished at how light it was. I think it weighed as a complete bike as much as my wheels alone did on my bike. Uh oh.

The Butte 50 Part 3: Training

2010-10-17T08:13:00.001-07:00

After I decided to do the race, I think I had three weeks or so to tune up my training for the event. I had been splitting my time between road biking and mountain biking and continued to do so. I knew the course would have a ton of climbing: around 9000 ft for the 50 miler. Every Tuesday I ride the road bike up Bozeman Pass from Livingston on the frontage road. It is a 12.5 mile climb at a pretty mellow grade. I usually get up it in about an hour. I kept that up, and added going down the other side of the pass to Jackson Creek and got another half hour of climbing in. I also made sure to do some moderate intensity intervals on the long climb. I was doing 4x6 minute cruise intervals and then going real hard up any of the shorter steeper sections.
I also did some 2-3 hour road rides. The weekend before I did big mtn bike rides back to back on Saturday and Sunday. From my house I rode the highway to Suce Creek and then up and over and came out Livingston Peak Road to Swingley and then home. That was about 25 miles and three hours and 3600 feet of climbing. I felt good and strong for the most part. Sunday I did Bangtail Divide as a loop from Brackett Creek. 4:20 ride time, 31 miles, and 4000+ ft climbing. I felt pretty good on that one too. I had done it in June and gone 40 minutes slower, so that was good improvement.
In a colossal failure of judgement I decided NOT to preride the course at all. In hindsight this was a major error, given that it is only a 1.5 hour drive away. I was relying on course maps and descriptions, both of which proved to be woefully inadequate.
I felt I had basically done the bare minimum amount of training to be able to survive and perhaps finish an event like this.

The Butte 50: Decision and Bike Setup

2010-10-10T10:19:00.000-07:00

The Butte 50 Part 1: Decision
Sometime in early July 2010 I decided I would do the Butte 50 portion of the Butte 100 endurance mountain bike race. I had been riding and training from 5-12 hours a week since May and I decided I had enough fitness to warrant a try at this type of race. I knew I had NO chance of doing well, and also a big chance I wouldn’t even finish but I figured regardless of outcome I would know if this type of racing is something I wanted to do. I had a bike that was totally wrong for this type of race, I was over 200 lbs in bodyweight, and the longest I had ever ridden any type of bicycle was about 5 hours. But I wanted to do it, and I had been riding more than I have in years in the spring and summer.

The Butte 50 Part 2: The Bike
I had one mountain bike at this time, which is a 07 Santa Cruz Heckler full suspension bike with 6 inches of travel. It weighs about 35 pounds which is ridiculous for any sort of race bike other than for downhill. Using this bike for this race is like racing a bobsled in a XC ski race. You basically push it uphill, but the downhills are pretty fun! But it is my only bike so I am using it. I decided to prep it as best I could for limited funds and time.

I figured the drivetrain was most critical and had to be basically new to ensure no problems out on the course. I go through bottom brackets pretty quick being 200 lbs and my current BB was toast and making bad noises. I had crappy Shimano XT Octalink cranks/BB but they never seemed to last or not make noise in some fashion. So I got a whole new setup with Truvativ Stylo GXP’s, and a new chain and cassette. Also I redid my shifter cables. The Stylo’s with the outboard bearings felt solid as hell, but time will tell if they last.

I got some new ODI Rogue Lock-on grips, which are softer large diameter grips which are good for my bigger hands. I had ODI Ruffians on before, but they are too hard. I replaced my 90mm stem with a 120mm I had lying around, as the size Medium Heckler frame is actually a little short in the top tube for real XC riding. I have dealt with it for years but any steep extended climbing was pretty unpleasant. Downhill of course was super fun having a shorter bike to whip around so I had always tolerated the less than optimum fit. The longer stem stretched me out over the front more and weighted the front wheel enought to really help the climbing. The final cockpit modification was some bar ends. I got the smaller Serfas type which really helped by giving me alternate hand positions during climbing. I have issues with carpal-tunnel and hand numbness and need all the help I can get to be able to move them around during rides and not keep them in the same position for too long.

Tires: My rear tire was a slow rolling Maxxis Minion 2.3 which is kept on there. I had a Maxxis ADvantage 2.4 on the front which I replaced with a WTB MutanoRaptor 2.4 which is actually like a 2.2 in width. In hindsight I really should have replaced the rear but I didn’t want to spend any more money than I already had. The WTB front I had laying around from when I did the 24 Hours of Rapelje, a fantastic event, a few years before which was also the last time I had raced my bike.

The Butte 50: First Time Endurance Racer

2010-10-10T10:05:00.000-07:00

I raced in the Butte 50 endurance mountain bike race in July. I plan to review my experience of being a novice racer in such an event and the steps I took to prepare. This event significantly changed my approach to mountain biking and has become a singleminded focus and goal for next year. I will try and break my entries into sections to make it easier to digest as I have a lot to say on the subject....Thanks!

Back To Basics

2010-10-09T17:30:00.001-07:00

Well, having not posted in LONG time, I have decided to start again. I am changing my blog title from Montanadualsport.com back to LTrainStation. This is because I haven't ridden any dual sport motorcycles in the last 6 months...and have really gotten back to riding mountain bikes instead. It is much better for me physically, and financially, and more effective time-wise. I have wanted to do some entries in this last time period but I felt it did not fit the theme of my blog...so I will change the theme and start posting away, I hope!

Deck Phase 3

2010-05-23T18:29:00.001-07:00

Deck phase 2....

2010-05-10T07:24:00.000-07:00

I set Steph up on the welder so she could give it a try!

Updating MTDS headquarters....

2010-05-06T19:24:00.001-07:00

So the deck project is underway.
First we pour some concrete piers....

Next is some steel fabrication including welding the legs to the main beam.

Here we have the main beam in place.

After that we start with the rim joists, which are 10" steel C-channels. Steph is checking for level here.

At the end of the weekend we had this much done.

Pipestone: First Dirt, 2010

2010-03-11T10:33:00.000-08:00

Sunday morning came for me at 10:00am, foggy from the previous nights festivities, with a phone call. Its Lincoln.
"Want to go do some moto today?".
I ran through the checklist of things to do, and realized that a possible moto ride trumped the IRS, work, and a chance for clean clothes. But what about his moto? Last time I saw it, it had some very important parts laying on his workbench.

"Yea! ... But isn't your bike in pieces?".
"Nope, I put it all back together".

I realized then that he'd been up since the wee hours of the morning, wrenching on his bike to ride. He had already eaten, showered, and done something productive with his day. I hadn't even made coffee yet.

In the time it took me to drink a pot of coffee, I managed to wrangle up all my gear packed away from the long winter, and do some quick checks on the moto to make sure that nothing was going to explode. As if on cue, as soon as I had the truck loaded up, Lincoln pulled in. Motos on truck, people in truck, truck on the road. Arriving at Pipestone, it was pretty busy. Quads and bikes loitered around the parking lot, and we got a pretty impressive wheelie show while putting on all our gear. Bikes warmed up and ready to ride, we hit the trails.

A good majority of the section is closed off this time of the year, due to the snow still melting. The south facing, more open and fast section was open, and I was suprised at how dry it was. Once we moved into the foothills, things got a little soggy in places. On a few trails we simply turned around. Mud is one thing, but adding snow and ice is the slippery-condition trifecta.

We explored some new trails in the area that we previously just roosted right past. I've learned now to trust Lincoln's gut on trails that look challenging. I'm usually game for anything, but I end up with lots of stories that are funny in hindsight, but usually suck pretty bad in the moment. Lincoln has an uncanny ability to detect right at the start if things are going to go pear-shaped.

One of the new trails we rode, took us up to the top of a hill, with a spectacular view, and we had to stop for a photo op.

This was easily the earliest off-road riding I've ever done of any motorcycle season. The trails we're in great shape, and the weather was spectacular. 58 degrees! The ride was an absolute success. No mechanical break downs, no crashes, and no flat tires. 2010 is shaping up to be a pretty good year already!

Acerbis Gas Tank Repair

2010-03-06T09:58:00.000-08:00

This is the situation. Two brass in-molded inserts ripped totally out of a 6 gallon Acerbis Xr600R gas tank. This happened in a stupid fall on a double track where my wheels found themselves in different ruts. I lowsided and the bike slid about 15 feet on it's side. I am not sure, but I think the handlebars pushed into the front lobe and leveraged it away and ripped the inserts out.

Step One

Order G/Flex epoxy from Hamilton Marine from near home in Maine

Step Two

Take down tank from where it's been hanging in the garage since last fall when I fell down on the XR600R and the inserts ripped completely out of the plastic tank on one side.

Step Three

With a knife, carefully cut off the in-molded ridge around the insert hole that previously held insert in place.

Step Four

Thread a 2" long bolt into the insert for a handle. With pliers, try and dry-fit the insert back into the hole to see if you removed enough material.

Step Five

When Step Four is a failure, repeat Step Three and Four about twenty times until the insert finally goes in.

Step Six

Clean out inside of insert holes with q-tips and rubbing alcohol.

Step Seven

Sand the brass inserts with 240 grit sandpaper

Step Eight

Mix up G/Flex epoxy in a little plastic cup

Step Nine

Using an old knife from the surplus silverware box in the basement, scoop the epoxy into the first hole, filling about half full.

Step Ten

Using pliers, grab the bolt with the insert on the end and press the insert into the epoxy-filled hole. Watch the epoxy spooge out around the sides. Wipe away excess with paper towel.

Step Eleven

Repeat Nine and Ten for second hole.

Step Twelve

Set tank in a position so that the inserts are flat and upright and allow to cure for a few hours.

Summary: I have been waiting to do this procedure for around 6 months. Finally ordered the epoxy last week. I wasn't about to spend 250 bucks on a new tank, so this had to work. I think it did, but I won't know till I swap the big tank back on to the bike.

Pre Season Maintenance

2010-03-02T18:06:00.000-08:00

So what we have here is a bike in the middle of rear shock removal. This past weekend I finally began work on the bikes. The XR600R here needs a rear shock spring of the correct spring rate for my weight so off came the wheel, the muffler, the airbox, and soon the rear linkage. Up here in the high country, a few 45 degree days do a lot for the melting of snow in the yard and for the itch to ride motorcycles. I invited fellow MTDS author Alex over for this inaugural event, and we had a few PBRs, changed a tire, and got the XR to the state above. Being a noob motorcycle mechanic, I am proceeding slowly and carefully every time I do something I have never done before, which is just about anything beyond an oil change.

I have an extensive list of items to take care of on the XR including:
rear tire change - done
rear shock spring change - 1/2 done
oil change
rear linkage check and lube
valve check and adjust
fork spring replacement
super duper general clean and inspect and lube
tighten steering head assembly. I installed new bearings last year and they loosened up quite a bit right away.
replace choke plate in the carb with solid plate

In addition to the XR I have the SV and the KLR to check over, and the Ninja 250 to get running for the lady...she wants to learn to ride, so I better get to it...

Check out

2010-02-17T10:41:00.001-08:00

The gnarliest motorcycling ever....

First Ride of '10....

2010-01-17T09:04:00.000-08:00

How the heck do you write or say 2010 in short form? I guess it will just be "ten" but it seems wierd. Anyway, it was around 50 degrees yesterday here in Livingston, and Alex called me up from Bozeman and said he was heading over on the Guzzi. I ran out to the garage and scrambled to get the charger on the SV's battery so it would start by the time he got here. Luckily about 3 weeks ago I charged it up and started it, so it didn't take long. While I was out in the garage I also replaced Steph's headlight bulb in her car. Then I rolled the XR600 out and proceeded to take what seemed like 15 minutes of kicking before it caught. I just wanted to start it and run it around the block to make sure it was still alive after months of dormancy. Sitting on the XR in my crocs, I was just about to take off when the familiar notes of the Italian twin came down the alley with Alex close behind. I took off and did a lap of my block, tried to do a wheelie, failed, and pulled back into the driveway. I am sure the neighbors were really happy that I was braaping the throttle with glee the whole way. The XR is loud with the FMF pipe that is on there...

Grinning with joy at my short ride, I ran inside to get dressed for our real ride. I put on old snowboard pants over my jeans, my moto boots, my big moto jacket and a windproof neck thing. We saddled up and headed South for East River Road.

It was windy as hell as is frequently the case here in Livingston, and we were riding straight into it. We saw some Harley guys with some MC club vests on at the gas station, sans helmets of course, and I wondered how far they were planning on going in this cold air with no gear on. I found out one minute later when I saw them turning around in the parking lot of the Pop Stand restaurant about 2 miles south of town. So much for being hardcore! I laughed in my helmet as we whizzed by.

The Paradise Valley is a place of incredible beauty which surrounded us as we arced along the road. The Yellowstone River runs through the middle of the valley and all sides are dominated by the Northern Rockies towering above.

It was strange to be on the SV again. There was a lot of gravel on the road in spots that made me very watchful as we cruised along. Our speed was held in check as well due to months of not riding, and the poor surface conditions. I was heading for the Old Saloon in Emigrant which is about 22 miles South of Livingston. Montana has all these great old places to check out, and I wanted to show Alex this one.

It was a cold ride, but really only my hands suffered. It had been sunny when we left the house and it was cloudy in the Valley, which makes a big difference when you live at elevation. Sun often makes the difference between tolerable and not tolerable at marginal temperatures.

The Old Sally as it is locally known has been a bar for over 100 years and was recently featured in Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations episode on Livingston. It is old and dark inside, filled with numerous ancient dusty antlered animal mounts, a wood stove, a pool table, and lots of old saddles hanging from the ceiling. It is one of the Old Greats of the Montana bar world, and I place it alongside such grand places as the Pony Bar in Pony, and the Lumberjack outside Missoula.

We pulled up, de geared, and went inside. The bar was full, at 3pm, with what was obviously the regular crowd. I long ago learned that in places like this, just get a Bud, which is just what I did. The regulars are ususally upset enough that dressed in our spaceman gear we are interrupting their good time and the Budweiser serves as a statement that we are not interested in upsetting the status quo, or do anything Wierd while we are there. Of course I really dislike Bud, but usually they taste tolerable and appropriate in a place like this. We sat and sipped and talked about bikes and riding and how good it was to be out in the middle of January even if for a short ride. The woodstove was cranking, and our hands thawed out by the time we finished the beers, and it was time to head back.

As we re-geared ourselves and started the bikes, two patrons came out and shuffled over to us, and asked a few questions about the bikes, including "Which one is faster?" and "Do you have Harleys too?" I like that about motorcycling. No matter what you will always get people who talk to you wherever you go which would never be the case if you were in a car doing the same thing. It is somehow a bridge for people to connect during travelling. Bikes raise peoples curiousity enough for them to reach out even just a little bit beyond the normal public insularity of our modern society.

The ride home was better than the ride down, as the wind was at our backs, the sun lighting up patches of countryside as it peeked thought the cloudcover, and I wasn't quite as nervous for lack of riding lately.

Back at the house I parked the bike in the garage, went inside and made a nice mug of hot chocolate to rewarm myself. It was an eminently successful Winter Ride!

First Post 2010

2010-01-10T09:50:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago it was a warm 40 degrees out and rolled my XR600 out of the garage into the sun, just to look at it. It was a nice feeling and I thought "Hey! That's my DIRTBIKE! Sweet!"

Just the other day I remembered finally to get some Sta-bil to put in my bikes which is only about three months late! I never seem to be able to do it before New Years anyway, perhaps because I always believe there will be some warm day which I will be able to ride before the winter "really sets in."

On the television last night after a dinner of homemade pizza I found the season opener of the AMA Supercross series. It made me start thinking about motorcycles again after the last few months which I haven't thought about them much at all. I started having visions of last spring, before the snow had melted, trolling ADVrider incessantly for any and all items of interest, unable to think of much else besides how soon the mud on the dirt roads around here would be dry enough to ride on after the spring rains.

We do have a few more months before that can happen, and hopefully we will get some more frequent snow for the balance of the winter so I can put my Bridger Bowl season pass to more use.

Welcome To Livingston, MT

2009-10-15T08:47:00.000-07:00

So it has been a whirlwind few months dealing with a home purchase, moving, getting a whole new routine going, having a longer commute, and finally having winter descend upon us....

Steph looking out on the Yellowstone River not far from our new home. This was on Friday last week and it was about 15 degrees out and obviously had snowed. Livingston Peak and the Absaroka Range are in the distance.

My parents came to visit as well this past week, unfortunately in the midst of a deep freeze! It was 9 degrees out Friday night I think. Snowed a bunch. I had planned all sorts of good hiking and two wheeling, but it wasn't possible. We made the best of it. Here we are at Neptune's Brewery, a totally sweet local spot with great beers and a good food. If you are in town and need a beverage, check it out. Open 4-8pm daily.

We managed to get into Yellowstone National Park on Sunday for a short hike before adjourning to Chico Hot Springs for a soak and an excellent meal. A local institution, Chico is not to be missed.

Sorry for no posts!

2009-09-02T14:49:00.001-07:00

Moving into the house we just bought has consumed all my spare time lately, and then Steph and I had to go to Minnesota for a family wedding....

Hope to have my life squared away again soon to get posting!

Thanks
Lincoln

Day 2 of the Dirt 501

2009-08-14T10:17:00.000-07:00

After the minor get-off and mechanical fixing, we rolled off down the road into Pony, MT. The roads were well maintained, but completely saturated with water, which made the tight turns and twists interesting. Really had to flat-track style most of the turns to keep the front wheel tracking at all.

Rolling into Pony, we came upon the Pony Bar, voted one of America's 50 best bars. It was well past five o'clock, so we figured dropping in for a beer was a good idea. Some map reading, and blah-blah-blah with the locals, and suddenly it was 9pm, and time to camp. We rode a couple miles up the hill outside of Pony to the National Forest land, and set up camp at Cataract Lake just as it started to sprinkle.

The rain subsided, and we cooked up a delicious steak dinner over the fire in tinfoil. We broke out the Jim Beam, and started blah- blah-blah'ing with full stomachs and cups of whiskey. One important lesson in after-ride refreshment, is always wear your moto-gear when drinking. Rebelpacket had a little stumble down an embankment getting firewood, and was grateful for this rule.

Morning broke to blue, clear skies and great sunlight. The awesome-ness of our selected camp area was shown to us in full glory.

Rebelpacket was a little late packing up in the morning, sleeping off the whiskey. The mornings are when the cam-buckle luggage straps really sucked compared to the Voile straps L-Train was using. It would take a full 20 minutes just to strap the gear onto the back.

All set, we started roosting early. Down the road past pony, and off to some pretty nice trails marked "4WD only".

The 4WD trails are sweet. Rocky, steep, and pretty wide, which allows for multiple lines through the mess, and some real sweet roosting. Some nice berms have built up over the years, which means through the twisty bits, you can tip it over, stick the foot out and grab big handfuls of throttle. Of course when the terrain is that much fun, one isn't very inclined to stop riding to get photos, so we don't have any of that section....

On the way down, we passed some real sweet views too. We're high enough up here, just above Sureshot Lakes, that there is still snow from last winter on the peaks!

The way down was pretty tame, fast well maintained dirt roads. We moved on and down towards Alder, hoping to find a good place for breakfast. Unfortunately for this part of it, we did have to hit some pavement. At least the views and the sky we're alright! Numerous storm cells were moving through the area, and we got some sprinkles here and there.

Alder had no breakfast options, however 5 miles up the road we found a little place with some options (and hot coffee). The lady running the shop was real nice, and didn't seem to have a problem with smelly, dirty, armor-clad dirtbikers sitting in her fine furniture. We proceeded to consume huge bowls of Potato Cheese soup and then some burritos for dessert!

Filled up and ready for more action, we headed into a expanse of BLM land, hoping to find a route to connect us through into Butte, MT. The route was uncertian, as was the trails. But we found ourselves on some awesome routes through the middle of nowhere, fast-paced 4th and 5th gear stuff that wound over these sagebrush prairies and through old mines. This is some of Montana's finest dual sport terrain, this rolling open country, no people, old roads, the occasional antelope or deer, and the mountains all around.

Most of the old mines were blocked off with fences and warning signs, presumably to prevent people like us from hurting ourselves. Still pretty neat though.

At this point, our spirits we're very high. Our heads were exploding with the views. Bikes were running great, and we were having the time of our lives. A few miles up the road, all that would change quickly.

It started pouring rain. Not a drizzle, not a steady rain. Pouring. The roads turned into a solid creek. L-Train busted out his PVC tarp, and we set up a mock shelter on the side of the road. The rain continued, and the temperature really dropped. Not good.

Day One of the Dirt 501

2009-08-12T20:03:00.000-07:00

Three days of Montana Dirt

The Plan: L-Train, Rebelpacket, an XR600R, a KTM 625 SXC and 500 miles of unexplored dirt roads. Leave Friday evening, come home Sunday evening. A trip inspired by a certain ride report on ADVrider.com: 10 Days of Utah Desert Madness.

The Prep:
Ultra-Minimalist Camping protocol. We packed only what we'd absolutely need. Some instant food, aluminum foil to cook in, metal cups to drink/cook in, sporks, big knifes for cutting things, trowels and metal files to dig shit-holes in, tarps in case it rains, tools and tubes. Our only luxury item was flip-flops, because after a day in moto-boots, sometimes you need to let the feet air out.

Lincoln had scored some Voile straps, but every shop in town didn't have any when Alex went to buy some. These are ski straps recommended by our idol in ultralightness, Joe Motocross. Alex ended up having to use nylon cam-buckle straps, which proved to be a big-pain in the ass every time he needed to unload anything.

We did a basic check to make sure we had remembered everything, and took off into windy, cloud-filled skies.

Our route took us back behind Logan, which we refer to as "The Baja Training Route". Its a seldom-used road that has huge ruts, and generally nasty road changes. The Gallatin valley has had an unseasonable amount of rain, and the road was completely in shambles. This made things pretty interesting. After we got back there was a newspaper article about "the worst hailstorm ever" in Manhattan Montana....which damaged many county roads. Golf Ball Size Hailstones. Ouch. Last time we did this route flat-out at close to 70mph. With many miles, and two days ahead of us, and 3 ft deep crevasses and many big rocks in the road, we tamed it down to around 50mph.

We stopped just outside Logan to check everything over after the high-speed roost, and make sure nothing was loosening up... and... disaster! Our nights dinner; two steaks that had been dirtbike marinating in southwest sauce, had been forcibly ejected from Alex's wet bag, and were now lying on a trail somewhere, giving immense joy to some hungry coyotes...

No worries, we stopped at a store in three forks, and picked up some replacement steak. This time, we secured it in Lincoln's backpack, to be sure we wouldn't loose it. Some water and a few phone calls to family letting everyone know we'd be off in the wild for a few days, and we took off again. A few miles of pavement, and then we hit more ranch access roads.

The roads here, normally quite pleasant, were also completely wrecked. The previous night, golfball hail and torrental rains had washed away more of the road, and left a nice slick layer of silt and rock over everything.

On a lame, flat part that was covered with slick mud, Alex took a dirt-nap in the 625. This wouldn't be a big deal, except it bent the shifter up at a un-natural angle. We viewed this as a Good Thing, considering the last time he took a spill on the left side, the shifter snapped off cleanly. A couple minutes with a 8mm wrench, and some cleaning of the splines on the gearshift, and we were rolling again.

Packing sucks....

2009-08-06T22:27:00.001-07:00

its 1130 and i haven't finished packing....ugh....
...should have started prepping like Monday.....dammit.
swapped out my rear tube at least, but my floor pump wont acutate the valve, too short or some shit so I will bring wheel to work and air it up there....
got my voile strap setup rocking on the sleeping bag, pad, and front fender bag....looks like the rest goes in the pack....
oh, i bought a steri-pen.....so we will have no worries on water....
dad learned about it on the AT, and everyone used them....sweet rig.

Pic of the Day

2009-08-06T09:58:00.001-07:00

taken by RTWDoug on ADVrider.....

Buying my first house!

2009-08-05T10:24:00.001-07:00

Montanadualsport.com headquarters are relocating! I am moving to Livingston, Montana, over the hill from Bozeman to the East 22 miles. Much smaller town, more laid back, no college kids like Bozeman, Yellowstone River goes through about 6 blocks away from the house. Yellowstone National Park is about an hour to the south, Bridger Bowl ski area is still only about 25 minutes away. Downsides are limited to a reputation for being ridiculously windy.

Found a good place for a good price with a good garage that I am buying with my girlfriend. We are going to do major renovation over the next few years as I work as contractor and she is an architect.

Nice newer two car garage to hold my ever growing collection of two-wheelers! Alley access too which is super nice.

Weekend Dirt Tour Planned

2009-08-05T06:56:00.000-07:00

Alex and I are planning to do a riding/camping trip this weekend involving riding from Bozeman to Alder, then through Butte, around Helena, and over to White Sulphur Springs and then back to Bozeman. We are trying to do it as much on dirt as possible. He will be riding the KTM 625SXC and I will be riding my XR600R. Hopefully we can find some good routes as most of our planned route has not been travelled by either of us.....

Strategy is to go ultralite in the packing dept....no tent, no stove, minimal clothing besides riding gear, mostly just tools and a sleeping bag and pad, and food. This will allow us to rally at a good speed through rough terrain. Should be at least 400 miles total, and I am betting we can do it with less than 50 or so on pavement.

Headwaters Relay

2009-07-31T10:33:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I ran my KLR650 all over Southwest Montana running as support for the
Headwaters Relay which Stephanie and a bunch of my friends ran in!
This is a ridiculous 232 mile relay running race.....crazy....nearly all on dirt.....
It was a cool thing to be a part of and ran over many roads I have been on, and many new ones as well.....
I will post a report soon.

Garnet Peak Ride Report

2009-07-29T10:38:00.000-07:00

Alex: Lincoln and I had been wrenching on his XR during the week, and over the course of replacing the steering head bearings and drinking beers, we decided that an exploratory ride around little bear and up to Garnet Peak was needed.

The rear tire on the 625 was completely shot. Almost a slick, so I trucked down to Nate at the Bike Shack, and picked up a sweet Pirellio Scorpion Pro XC. Big knobbies. Unfortunately while putting on the new tire, I realized I had a broken spoke. Nobody in town had spares, but Lincoln has a welder! With great skill, he put a nice bead of weld on the top of the spoke where it had broken off, and five minutes before the Saturday ride, I laced in the repaired spoke, and rode off!

Alex: Lincoln, Allen and I rode the access road up to Trail 417, which Lincoln believed was the other end of a nice trail he had ridden during the week. It had some pretty nice elevation changes, and wound up and around the mountian. A few loose boulder hill-climbs, and some off-camber technical section requiring some minimal moves. Mostly 2nd gear stuff, with some really tight turns requiring a shift down to 1st.

Alex: We had been riding about 45 minutes at this point through some tight rocky stuff. We stopped at this little outcropping, and Lincoln was uncharacteristically further behind us. When he got off, he said "Man, I need to take lessons or something! I'm horrible at this stuff!". As he was sitting there taking off his gear, I noticed that his rear tire looked a little... flexible. "I think you have a flat, bro..". %!&#@!

LTrain: So, flat tire. Used my long-dormant drystack stone wall building skills to work up a nice work stand, and got to it.
I was wondering why there seemed to be so much inner tube in the tire, and it turned out the previous owner had wrapped an extra cut up tube around the real tube as a pinch protector I guess. It was like 20 pounds of inner tube I pulled out of the tire! On top of that, we got to do it twice cuz the first tube got pinched on the install, neccessitating a 2nd try with a 2nd tube. That one worked, and off we went. I was sweated up pretty good though from all the tire wrangling...

Alex: After Lincolns tire was fixed, and we discovered that Trail 417 seemed to dead-end, we headed down the mountian, to start the climb up Garnet Peak. The trail up was pretty popular with hikers, and it felt weird to see other people on the trails. We came around the corner to a couple of horses too. We immediately shut the bikes off and let them pass. A cool dog came up to me with a stick and kept wanting me to play fetch with him. I eventually had to start the moto, throw the stick and take off so he wouldn't follow me!

Alex: The ride up was pretty smooth and flowing. 2nd and 3rd gear stuff, with an occasional 4th gear straight. There was a couple moderate inclines with rock gardens in the middle of them which kept things interesting. Some turns had some banking too, so we could rip off them effectively sling-shotting you around the corner and into the next. Lots of hooting and metal horns we're thrown.

Alex: At the top, what a view! We could see 191 (Gallatin Gateway) carving next to the Gallatin river between the mountains, and the huge valley off in the distance. It was pretty cool too look out where we started some 40-50 miles away, and see the mountians we climbed to get here.

Three "non-trail bikes" on some killer trails, overlookin

LTrain: Last stop: Korner Klub!!! MMMMMMM BURGER TIME!!!

Alex: The new rear tire on the KTM really made the bike completely different. How sweet it is to have traction! Unfortunately I think I roosted Lincoln a few times. Every time I go out on this bike, I like it more and more. We learn little things about eachother each time, and I get more comfortable with her.

Teaser For Garnet Peak Ride Report

2009-07-28T14:45:00.001-07:00

teaser for Garnet Peak Ride Report....

Great News From Maine....

2009-07-27T15:58:00.000-07:00

I always keep tabs on the news in Maine, my home state. And once in while there is some pretty great stuff:

Dude Run Over at a Mud Run...

Giant Brawl at Cod Fish Races....

Pic of the Day

2009-07-20T11:02:00.000-07:00

Up off Little Bear Road in the Gallatins....

Quote of the Day

2009-07-13T20:50:00.000-07:00

"Thanks to the Interstate Highway System,
it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything." Charles Kuralt

Bangtail Divide Trail to Flathead Pass Ride

2009-07-12T14:50:00.000-07:00

Sunday AM we all left the Panda Pump gas station and headed up Jackson Creek to get on the Bangtail Divide trail. Unfortunately Alex had a little issue with the access road.

Lincoln: So Alex, what happened to your arm?

Allen had a first aid kit and patched up our boy pretty good.

"Ummm.....honey? Yeah, so, well....I kinda crashed....."

The scene of the crime.

Allen and I continued while Alex headed homeward sans shifter. We hit the trailhead and right away I run off the downhill edge of the trail at a corner and get stuck in between the embankment and a bush. Grunting and cursing followed as I hauled the XR backwards out of my predicament. It was pretty low speed and there was no damage and I got back on it. The trail is ATV wide most of the time and only a couple of tough spots, otherwise once you are up top it is pretty smooth sailing and fun. Open meadows with views higher mountain ranges in all directions.

We stopped here for lunch break and talked about how we had both done a lot of mountain biking in the past and found many of the skills transferrable to riding motorcycles off road. The brain circuits for picking lines and steering and reacting and planning are all the same. I still find it hard to deal with clutching and shifting and throttle and braking all at once when the trail gets intense though. I kind of panic sometimes and only can do like two of them at once. On a mtn bike you are coasting a lot more and don't ever need to downshift unless going uphill. Also, shifting is clutchless, you just shift....one motion instead of two. I am still learning on the moto but trying to practice as much as I can!!!

The wildflowers are out in force and it is beautiful up there! After the meadow sections it shoots into the woods for a really fun section of wider buffed out singletrack that twists and turns nicely.

View of Saddle Peak, and Bridger Bowl. That's where the goods are in the winter....New chairlift up the drainage off Saddle, and about a 20 minute hike to sick powder fields!

Allen had an issue with his shifter as well, it was cracked at the mounting collar and he needed to tighten it up every 10 or 15 miles....

We came down off Bangtail Divide on Skunk Creek Road to Brackett Creek to Flathead Pass. This is the pass looking West. I did this a few weeks ago as well.

Allen ran out of gas twice and had to tip his bike way on it's side to get gas from the other side of the tank to slosh over to the petcock side....before we made it to the gas station back in Bozeman. He was pretty happy to make it!

The importance of washing your bike

2009-07-11T18:58:00.000-07:00

Talk about washing your bike (especially if its a dirtbike) and some people may look at you funny. "But its got -dirt- in the name! Why would I bother?" Just because its built to ride in the dirt, does not mean all the components are meant to live in dirt.

After our Gravelly range ride, I washed the bike, bars to wheels. I pulled off the skid-plate and noticed that there was a section of caked mud and dirt that -still- looked wet, after four days. It could only be an oil leak. After some troubleshooting, I tracked it down to a bolt behind the countershaft sprocket. Hard to get to, and hard to see (unless your looking for it).

The bolt had backed out, and was rubbing against the countershaft sprocket, slowly wearing away the head, and in the process bending it pretty good. Not only does this bolt hold on an important part (clutch slave cylinder), but it also holds back oil. Could have spelt disaster if the bolt finally worked its way out hundreds of miles from home, or worse yet, jammed into the countershaft sprocket, and ripped out a portion of the case.

I have long since given up with getting the OEM bolts from dealers. Not only are they ridiculously expensive, but in the time it takes you to explain to the parks clerk which one it is, you might as well had sorted through a box of bolts at the hardware store. I picked up an M6x16 bolt at Home Depot. Below are the two bolts. Original on the right, new one on the left:

As you can see from the picture, the original bolt head is shorter than the new bolt, to clear the countershaft sprocket. (Some of the wear is visible, but you can still see the grade 8 stamp in the bolt cap). At this point I could have simply ground down the bolt head enough to clear, but then I'd have spent a bit of time trying to clear out the allen hole to accept a 5mm wrench with a file. Not my idea of a fun Saturday evening. So I chucked it up in the lathe instead.

Couple of quick passes with minimal cutting fluid, and it was done. A nice even flat cut, and still plenty enough of the 5mm allen key left to get good purchase on, and not strip out. The original is on the left, the new bolt is on the right:

I generously applied some Loctite 243 to the bolt, and re-assembled everything. The countershaft sprocket cleared with plenty of room, and the loctite should keep it from spinning out again. Just in time for "Dirt Church" tommorow afternoon with Lincoln and the rest of the dirty-birds! Moto-diasater avoided!

Friday Night Little Bear Trail...

2009-07-11T05:21:00.001-07:00

Went for a quick ride Friday night up Little Bear Road, Oh yeah: on the way to the trails we came out Cottonwood Road to 191 and discovered there is a 4 wheeler trail on the side of the road all the way down to Little Bear Road! Fun!

Up Little Bear we explored a trail we found that went clear up to the top of the mountains. It climbed up and up winding around the mountainside on an old logging road track. It was a pretty fun little doubletrack with some fun waterbar jumps and great views.

It was about an hour from the house to this point. From the top we had a great view overlooking Bozeman and the Gallatin Valley. The sun was low and the light was really great. I was riding a little timidly as I had a cyst removed from my shoulder on Tuesday and have fresh stitches in there.....But Alex was roosting up a storm! He really likes that KTM 625 it looked like!

After a hectic workweek it instantly clears my head to be out jamming along in the woods using full attention to navigate the trail. There is no room left for stress or worry or thinking about problems. Only the flow of riding....

View of the trail up top. This kind of stuff is pretty fun on these bikes. We went a little farther up than this but the trail got pretty sketchy, getting narrower with a big dropoff right at the outside edge, and big rocks in the trail surface. I pulled the plug with my shoulder making me hesitant to get into anything too rough and we headed for home. It is so great to live in a place like this where a 25 mile ride from the house gets you on top of a mountain watching the sun go down over the Northern Rockies. Welcome to Big Sky Country!

We are going to do a big ride on Sunday and get some more people along. We will leave from Bozeman this time and see where we end up out there....

Gravelly Road Ride

2009-07-10T10:19:00.000-07:00

Alex: At 8:00am, I get the call I was waiting for. I can tell over the phone
that Lincoln is excited for the ride too. The plan? An all-day moto adventure over the Gravelly Mountain range, just outside Ennis, Montana. On dirt.

Lincoln: Sunday Alex showed up at my place, and we loaded my XR600R into his truck next to his new KTM 625 sxc for a trip down to Ennis to ride the Gravelly Range Road. He had picked the bike up on Friday and was super stoked to go ride it for the first time in it's natural environment: the DIRT! Brad also showed up and he followed us down on his super modified Darth Vader Black DR650.

After fueling up bikes, truck and ourselves we arrived at a nice fishing access lot and unloaded. After some celebratory wheelies by Alex in the parking lot we buzzed on down the road for a few miles of pavement before the dirt. It was a beautiful sunny day, maybe 75.

Alex: We unloaded at a fishing access parking lot, and geared up for the ride.
Boots, goggles, gloves, jackets and pads. I fired up the 625 and ripped a wheelie in the parking lot in a vain attempt to lower my excitement and keep myself objective. This did not work at all, and I became more excited. We rode the 5 miles of tarmac to the dirt road, and stopped at the entrance. In front of us, a long winding dirt road up the side of a mountain, with waterbars and other gleaming moto-road accessories. With a wave Lincoln said "Meet you at the top!" It was all I needed, and I rocketed through the gears on the 625 and up the hill, bounding off waterbars whenever possible.

Lincoln: We hit the dirt and wound our way to the bottom of a long hill that dissappeared up into the trees. This was the beginning of the real ride, as said hill has numerous waterbars and starts to get rugged. I told Alex to hit it, and he did, roaring off in a hail of gravel and dust! I was close behind and he rocketed up the hill, jumping the waterbars and dissappearing into the woods.

Alex hammering the new bike!

Alex: I was surprised by the power on the 625. My previous KTM had rip-your-arms-out-of-their-sockets power that would put you into a different zip code without some throttle discipline. The 625 had smooth, usable power, but not in heaps and gobs like the RFS bike I had previously owned. However, it did feel 'planted', and secure ripping on the dirt-roads, and you could really let it hang out around corners. The brakes (despite the added weight of a 5-gallon gas tank) proved excellent as well.

The excitement in the crew was high, and there was much whooping and hollering at stops. We took a chance on a little rutted out side trail, and came across a spectacular view of the valley and mountains. More whooping and jeering, and we took our first stop for the day, enjoying the view. After a number of pictures, some water and cigarettes, we moved back onto the main road.

Lincoln: After our break we hit it again and rallied across the open meadows on top of the Gravelly Mountains. This road is really pretty amazing. There were a few cars out as it was July 4th Weekend, but there was plenty of room for everyone. We jammed along, testing the limits of speed, traction, and braking, and had a grand old time of it!

Alex: While I'm sure there is some inferred speed limit on these dirt roads, there is none posted, which leads us to believe it defaults to the Montana standard of "Safe and Prudent". "Safe and Prudent" to us seems to be "As fast as you can without riding off the side of the mountian", so thats what we did. The downside of these access roads, is that they are frequented often by cars. I couldn't help but think to myself "How fun is this, if cars are doing it too?"

This type of thinking led us to our first adventure. We found a sign with a number that pointed to a seldom-used trail, marked only by matted grass from ATV's. We followed it for awhile, and then it seemed to peter out to nothing. In an attempt to find it again, we ended up on top of a hill with another spectacular view, which we made our second stop of the day. When we scanned the horizon, we saw what looked to be some sort of marker at the top of an even taller hill. "I think we're going to have to go see what that is", I remarked to my fellow riders. It didn't take much convincing, and we soon blazed our own trail to the top.

Lincoln and Brad at the Overlook

Lincoln: After finding our way up this hill we had a great view of Black Butte and the whole area. At this point I noticed there were some T-storms off to the West moving towards us....

Alex: We had talked about finding a nice place to enjoy a small lunch, and could think of no other. Over jerky, pizza, cheese-its and some beers, we debated our next move. Ominous clouds
we're forming the traditional afternoon Montana thunderstorm in the direction we had planned to head, so we decided to take trail 413 (marked as a primitive road) and miss the inclimate weather.

Lincoln: At the very top of this hill we found a cairn and a old log stuck in it with some rusty plates with what I think was section coordinates punched in them. This was our lunch spot.

Lincoln: This here is one happy KTM owner! Alex was riding pretty well and seemed to enjoy his new rig thoroughly. He is a recent transplant from the East Coast and I did my best to blow his mind with this ride.....Welcome To MONTANA!

Wanting to explore a little more challenging terrain we headed for a trail we found on the map. I had reservations about the clouds and the rain falling out of them, but said F-it and twisted the throttle. It was a good ATV trail, pretty eroded in spots, and really fun. I still think about how much more awesome my XR is on stuff like this than the KLR was.

Alex: The trail was fantastic. Whoops, and ruts, ups and downs, across
meadows, and around snow drifts still melting. I found my second surprise from the KTM for that day, on that trail. Many folks have said that the 625 is just too big and heavy for tight trail riding, yet I had absolutely no problems bobbing around the tighter trails, and some technical sections. It handled great, and the power was plentiful for the trail. If it wasn't for the bigger tank, and the "LC4" stencil on the motor, I'd have thought I was on my old 520.

Lincoln: We reached a crux point with a "stream crossing to steep off camber embankment" move, which put Brad in the dirt, rider side down! Doh! After renegotiating his DR up the bank, we took a breather. And it started to rain. I reconned ahead while Alex and Brad sought cover in the trees. Trail looked easier ahead and I came back to wait out the rain.

Alex: While everyone was catching their breath, it started to rain lightly, and a thunderclap echoed in the distance.
"Uh-oh" remarked Lincoln.

Those ominous clouds that we had seen before? Sensing our change of direction they had bee-lined right for our position. We looked at the cove and quickly decided that if it was going to pour, it would be better to be in some sort of natural shelter, and prone on the top of a barren hill on the bikes.

Lincoln: After a lot of waiting and no sign of abatement of rainfall, we decided to press ahead. Now, those of you who have ridden in the Montana high country when it is wet know exactly why I was hesitant to head out into the boondocks....Rain turns the grass and soil to a slick mess, that is near impossible to ride. We stymied in our forward progress by a huge hill climb and had no choice but to backtrack. In doing so, all the little hills we came DOWN on our way out, became barely rideable trying to go UP on the way back. Much cursing, falling over, spinning out, skidding, overheating, sweating and general misery promptly followed. Alex and I celebrated summiting the worst climb. I ended up having to push my bike under power up the hill....Alex rode the whole way after failing on attempt number one.

Alex: We came to a small hillclimb that proved to be the first big challenge. I watched Lincoln rally up it, and make it more than halfway up to the first shelf before finally getting stuck and having to push-ride the bike up the rest of the way, with a trail of mud roosting off the back. I followed behind Brad up, and as soon as my tires hit the sodden earth, I knew I had made a big mistake. He reached zero-traction seconds before I did, and next thing I knew, I was wheeling backwards to avoid having him hit me. The front wheel skidded sideways, and flung me off. Ouch. I was not expecting to drop the bike on its first run out.

I rode the bike back down to the flat and level and looked at the climb as objectively as I could. The main trail was essentially un-rideable. Taking that route would just be a matter of luck and a lot of pushing. To the left there was a rocky, grassy section that was steeper, but might offer more traction. I gunned it in second gear, gaining as much speed over the grassy bog as I could, and rocketed up the hill. A couple of off-camber rocks almost threw me off, but I stayed on and reached the top. Phew!

Lincoln: The ride out was super slow first gear clutch slipping foolishness. We all fell down, our bikes were covered in mud, and the ride quickly turned NOT FUN. We just wanted to get back to the road.
Lincoln: Finally we made it out back to the main road. We took a good break and of course, IT STOPPED RAINING! Of course. After de-mudding my bike the best I could with a broken stick of sagebrush, we hit the road, all cold and soaked. I was the only one who had a rainjacket by the way, but I was plenty wet inside it just from sweating so much....

Alex: We fought, and fought down tiny hills, through huge ruts and slippery sections. I flipped the bike on its side for the second time, and even the seemingly crash-invulnerable Lincoln took his turn with the shiny side town. When we finally reached the section of the trail that had the smallest amount of gravel on it, you could hear the sigh of relief over the sound of the engines. Lincoln once remarked to me that dirt-biking was like a ritual, putting on gear and armor and doing battle with nature, and when we finally reached the main fire road again, its exactly how we felt.

Brad and Lincoln coming out of the trail.

Lincoln: Despite all expressing our wishes to take it easy after our ordeal, Alex and I ended up riding out even faster than the way in, and I pretty much felt like I was racing Baja or something. It was awesome. Sliding corners, barely staying on the road, sweet! Then, the sun came back! Even better!

Alex is loving the 625!

Alex: Halfway back, the sun finally peeked out, and boosted everyones spirits almost instantly. Where before we we're almost putting around the dirt roads, we now ripped around them with legs out, and rear ends sliding around. We stopped right before the
final descent and let the sun warm our backs, soaked gloves and hands.

We stopped before the descent back to the start, and soaked up some solar BTU's. The views up here are pretty much ridiculous.

Lincoln: I am really glad I got a new bike. This ride was the one where I finally got comfortable with the XR and was able to really ride it like it wants to be ridden.....FAST! After getting back to normal temperature in the fingers, we headed down, sad to leave the dirt road Shangri-La that is the Gravelly Range. Git out of the way you cows!

Alex: All in all, it was some of the most exciting hours of motorcycling I've ever done. While I have ridden in mud and the wet many times before, never have I ridden in anything so challenging. Simple climbs and descents turned into 15 minute ordeals where the only objective was to get down without totally eating shit and falling off the mountain. Likewise, I've never been on such amazing trails (in the dry), with stream crossings, and uphill climbs.

Lincoln's patented "Steering with the rear wheel" technique on his XR.

Lincoln: And of course we still have saloons in Montana....this is the Claim Jumper in Ennis....a great place to end a ride. We had a great day of true adventuring out in the rain and mud, but no one got hurt and we had way more sun than rain, so it was a fine ride in the end. See you next weekend!

Something New...

2009-07-09T19:30:00.000-07:00

I would like to announce the addition of my friend Alex Pearsall as co-editor of Montanadualsport.com. He is a cool cat from back east who recently relocated to Bozeman and shares my interest in two wheelers with motors.....
We going to try and have this site become more of a resource for people interested in dual-sport motorcycle touring in Montana. Hopefully we can have more posts, more ride reports, some gear/bike reviews, and more good stuff to read. Maybe try and get some GPS tracks up, and some maps..... Stay tuned!
Thanks
Lincoln

Bridger Mountains Ride

2009-06-28T07:18:00.000-07:00

Hit the road yesterday at 230pm after going for a 30 mile road bicycle ride in the morning...it was to be a full day of two-wheeling! Even leaving the house I didn't know where I was going as I am always conflicted with so many good riding choices within about 20 minutes of riding. I had narrowed my choices to either exploring some trails up Little Bear Rd south of town, or heading north along the Bridgers up toward Flathead Pass Rd.

I ended up going north. I am still getting used to my XR600R, but we are fast becoming friends. It is so much lighter, more powerful, and better suspended than the KLR! It's road cruising speed is lower than the KLR though so I am learning to relax a little on my way to the dirt goodies....

It was a little hazy out but this view is across Gallatin Valley towards Belgrade with the Tobacco Root Mtns in the distance.

Looking north on Rocky Mtn Road. This is maybe 15 miles out of Bozeman. Glad I don't live in some big ass city where I would be an hour getting out of the suburbs....

This is the bottom of Flathead Pass Road, which leads right up through the Bridger Mountains. It is pretty tame at the bottom....

Further up the road deteriorates bigtime and becomes steep, rutted, rocky and pretty off-camber in spots. You wouldn't make it in a normal car.... It was pretty fun on XR though. I am still learning how to ride this bike as it is vastly different than the KLR. Incedentally, the first ride I did on my KLR 5 years ago when I bought it was to come up this same road! It was really rocky and loose in spots and the bike was skittering all around but I held it together and made it up fine. Big ruts at the top to navigate too. But the view is a great reward.

On top looking west back to the valley through the pass. The road gains some pretty serious elevation in a short distance.

There are all sorts of two tracks, trails, and roads in the National Forests around here. I took one from top of the pass and it climbed way way up the mountain to the north. This is looking south from a meadow straight across at Sacajawea Peak (9650ft), which is the one that is bare rock, no trees. There is a north facing couloir on Sac that is called the Great One, and it holds snow and is skiable way in to the summer....

Looking back down the way I came up again. After checking out my maps I headed east to try and find a trail that goes over to Fairy Lake Rd.

It only took me two or three dead ends before I got on the right trail! This is on the east side of the mountains and it is all old clearcuts and logging roads. Riding in the shadow of the rocky peaks is pretty intense. I had no idea where the trail went, and navigated by following some recent dirt bike tracks. The trail wound all around the contours of the shoulder of the mountains generally heading south.

In most places you could look out over the Shields Valley to the west and the Crazy Mountains. The trail was just and old logging road, not challenging at all, but it was still fun to explore something new and get more used to my new bike.

This time of year is beautiful in Montana as everything is lush and green with spring runoff. By the end of July everything is brown besides the pine trees....

But for now there is plenty of nice grass! This trail obviously doesn't get used much. I saw three kids up here and that was all. They had a quad, and two tiny dirtbikes that they were way too big for. Oh yeah, and they all only had goggles on, no helmets....probably from a nearby ranch. It's nice when this stuff is your backyard!

The trail eventually spit me out on the Fairy Lake Road which I was expecting. I decided to loop back down and around and get on the pavement for a few miles to get back to Flathead Pass road at the east end. It is a good few miles of pavement being the last twisties of Bridger Canyon Road as it comes out of the mountains. Whoohoo!

Back on the dirt. The space and scale of this area is pretty amazing. Views like this are just awesome! Big Sky Country all the way!

This is a typical scene for the rides I do. I feel fortunate to live in a place with so many cool dirt roads to explore. And there isn't ever anyone out here! A few ranchers is all I ever see. You need a big tank riding out here as you can go for a long time and not ever get to any towns. Flathead Pass is right by the top of the telephone pole in the photo above.

I am really not sure how I would deal with living anywhere else but Montana sometimes. In our crowded world, to have this sort of remoteness so close by to my home is pretty awesome. Sometimes it takes me a long time to do a ride because I have to stop so often because there are so many good pictures to take!

This is coming back down Flathead Pass road back to the Gallatin Valley. One of the kids on the minibikes I had seen earlier is in the picture in front of me bouncing his way along.

Looking back uphill from the same spot.

This is back in the valley on Bear Creek road, where a few weeks before I got in major trouble on the XR. I hit this section when it was wet and got way into the mud before I realized it. 20 minutes of sweating and cursing and clutch frying ensued before I made it back to solid ground. My bike probably had 50 extra pounds of mud stuck to it. Very Bad.

It is dry now and I took this and a few other roads back to within about 10 miles of home before I had to get on pavement.

Ride Time: 4 hours
Dirt: 75 miles
Pavement: 25 miles

I was pretty tired by the time I got home after my 2 hour bicycle ride in the morning. It was a good ride, with beautiful weather, and I explored some new terrain which is always my favorite. A successful day!

Bozeman ADVrider Crew having fun....

2009-06-27T06:45:00.000-07:00

Riding a vintage Yamaha trials bike in Putts' back yard!

I am the first clip....haha! That thing is pretty fun!

Bangtail Trail Ride

2009-06-24T12:44:00.000-07:00

Last night Alex and I did the Bangtail Divide ATV trail....sweet trail....until the hill climb...
I was riding my XR600R and Alex on my KLR650.
I saw a hillclimb off to the side of the main trail...and jammed up it on the XR600. It was something I never would have attempted on the KLR, having learned the hard way. The XR charged right up the hill, no problem. As I was coming down, I was greeted with the spectacle of Alex rallying my KLR UP THE HILLCLIMB!!!! Needless to say, the KLR did not make it all the way up ...and did come to rest upside down on the slope. DOH!
We had to muscle the KLR back down the hill, and then my XR wouldn't start for a while, despite many kicks. I got pretty sweated up for a bit there.
I told Alex afterward that I hadn't even considered that he might try it on the KLR....but realized he hasn't ever ridden one much before and was therefor unaware of the limitations of said machine. Now he is fully aware of said limitations!
Luckily no injuries to man or bike resulted.
It was a great ride!
Forgot my camera though so no pics of the carnage.

Trail riding the XR600R at Pipestone

2009-06-22T09:11:00.000-07:00

So I went and rode the XR at Pipestone yesterday....SO FUN! I am figuring out how to ride that thing a lot better already, like leaning way back when hitting whoops or big bumps so the back end doesn't kick way up....

Once it gets moving the bike just eats trail for breakfast....like an all terrain freight train!!! Obviously it is much better in the more open trails, above 25 mph or so. I rode a little singletrack on it, but it isn't the best there. The wider two track and roads out at Pipestone are a total blast though!

Tuesday night I plan on going out and doing Bangtail Divide. And linking it to Flathead pass....Any takers? I have done it on the KLR. Not sure about bikes bigger than that though....Tuesday is supposed to be sunny all day, and it will dry the mud out.

Alex, the KLR is yours if you want to ride it some more....we just gotta fix all the stuff that broke on Fridays Baja Training Run!!

BTW, on our Friday ride Alex rode my KLR through some gnarly shit faster than anyone I have ever seen .....with only minor consequences....broken shift lever, and blown head and taillights...

I did a major repair/reinforcement job on the shift lever, and you should be able to stand on the thing now.....

This is just a test....Big Timber Loop map

2009-06-19T07:50:00.001-07:00

testing posting google map links.....

View Larger Map

Looks like it works....oh boy!

Work in progress

2009-06-19T07:13:00.000-07:00

XR600R mod time!

2009-06-18T12:20:00.000-07:00

Last night I got the 6 gal. tank installed, and adjusted and checked the valves with Alex's help. More to come, and I will do a full write up when this round is done. Tonight we have the Bozeman Uprising ADVrider.com gathering at my house.....oh boy.....moto geeks and beers.....
This will be the 3rd meeting...should be fun. We watched the Erzberg Enduro movie. last time....tonight it might be Last Man Standing, or Dust to Glory.....

Let the mods begin

2009-06-16T21:20:00.000-07:00

So I have a 6 gallon Acerbis gas tank sitting in my garage waiting to go on the XR600. It showed up today, and is essential eqiupment for backcountry exploration in Montana. In my opinion you need a 200 mile range to really get to the good stuff. I think this will give me 240+ miles.....

Coming soon is a new cockpit setup with Protaper fat bars, risers, grips, and adapters for the handguards.....
The setup it came with is too low for me when I stand up, and the stuff thats coming will give me an extra two inches I think.

The front fork did a wierd hopping thing on the pavement the other day on another test ride, and I backed out 2 clicks on the compression adjusters to see if it helps.

Waiting for the weekend for more riding. Hopefully Thursday and Friday will be spent getting the new parts on there, and then Sat and Sun out riding!

New Bike!

2009-06-14T07:55:00.001-07:00

1996 XR600R:
Baja Designs Dual Sport kit
FMF Megamax muffler
Acerbis handguards
Trailtech Endurance computer
Acerbis Front brake shield
Utah Cycle Sports skid plate
Scotts Sharkfin rear disc guard
Fresh Dunlop 606 tires
rejetted

Friday I left work at noon, filled with anticipation about my soon-to-be new bike. Alex came by at 145 and we hit the road to Salt Lake City. The drive was fine, and we talked about motorcycle for almost the entire 6 hours! After meeting the seller in person, he informed me that he was frantically looking for the title and couldn't find it! This was pretty upsetting especially considering I had emailed him specifically asking him this one question "Do you have the title?" To which he had replied "Yes." Alex advised me to do a partial payment for the bike, with full payment pending reciept of a clear title. This arrangement worked, and hopefully this week said title will arrive via Fedex....

The bike was in good shape, very clean, with new tires, clean and lubed chain, clean air filter. Started right up, and ran fine in my down the block and back test ride. Wheels in good shape, swingarm and linkage was well lubed. Motor sounded good, shifted good, etc. He had a box of extras, and two extra dirt tires, and a stand.

We did a good bill of sale document and I gave him half the money and off we went back to Montana. We had got there to his house at 8:10pm and left at 9:15pm. I was so excited I drove all the back to Bozeman that night! A Red Bull in Pocatello carried me through till we got back to my house at 4am.

I could only sleep for 4 hours and woke up at 830 itching to go ride my new toy. After making a trip to the auto parts store for some supplies I did an oil change, and then checked the suspension settings. I used the manuals recommended baseline settings and adjusted the clickers on the fork and shock. After riding a KLR for years, I was excited just to have clickers to adjust! I looked over the bike, and checked a few other things, and then loaded up the truck to head to Pipestone, which is a big area of trails about an hour away from Bozeman.

I have ridden moutain bikes for years at Pipestone, and tooled around on the roads a little bit on the KLR. There is A LOT of miles of trails and roads here: 75 miles of trails, and at least that much of dirt roads. I was pretty stoked to ride out here on my new bike for a first ride. I got out there, got all my gear on, realized I forgot my gloves, and hit the trail.

Getting used to the XR600R was a joy. My dreams of riding a good desert bike, since watching Dust to Glory so many times, were coming true! Coming from the KLR650, having good suspension was the most dramatic thing I noticed, along with the light weight. The power felt much better too, tons of torque, and it seemed stronger throughout the entire rev range than the KLR does. This thing is FAST! I was getting wheelspin all over the place, which was a big difference too. I hit up the trails after a short dirt road stretch and was delighted at the speed I could ride this thing on them! Most of the trails at Pipestone are 4 wheeler width, and I had a great time bombing along....I did notice the ergos of the bars were not to my liking....I need about 2" more of rise I think, and the bars on there now have a wierd bend that I don't like. I had to hunch over a lot to ride standing up which wasn't cool.

Me and my new friend out on the trail. What a sweet bike!

Lower Pipestone area, with the trail winding into the distance. I saw three other bikes on the trails....a few quads on the road. I stuck to the lower area as it is more open and suited to faster riding. The upper area is mostly trees.

This was as fun as it looks! I was able to rally all this stuff, and had a big smile on the whole time. I think I made a good purchase!

I got on a singletrack early on and followed it for a mile or so but stopped when I saw it go up some steep tight rock section. I turned around and decided to stick to the two track until more familiar with my new rig. I have never really gotten to ride a real dirt bike, and I have a lot to learn.

I rode for almost two hours, and did about 37 miles. It was a great way to really get familiar with my new rig. I was pretty tired still from my minimal sleep, and headed home satisfied.

For the most part, after watching Dust to Glory about a hundred times, the bike behaved like I thought it might. Light, ridiculous power, great suspension, and FAST! I have been wanting to do big powerslides around dirt corners forever, and now I finally can....Woohoo! You could get in big trouble on this thing if you weren't paying attention. I have a six gallon Acerbis tank coming this week, and once I get it registered I will see how it does in on my normal kind of dual sport ride. This bike is going to let me link up my standard routes with all sorts of stuff that I wouldn't have touched on the KLR, which will enable some really great backcountry rides around Southwest Montana.

Sureshot Lakes Ride, Last Sunday

2009-06-10T20:56:00.000-07:00

Sunday afternoon left the house at 230pm and headed west with the vague intention of riding around near Revenue Flats.

View west from Revenue to the Tobacco Root Mtns. There were lots of clouds and spots of rainshowers around, and I just hoped I didn't hit any.

Cool rock formations at Revenue....there are bolted sport climbing routes out here and plenty of good bouldering.

View of the Madison Valley. Basically looking right at the backside of Lone Mtn area. The land is green with spring rains. Ennis Lake is in the distance.

After Revenue I headed up to Sureshot Lakes. I had never been up this road all the way and I figured I would see if it was melted out up high yet.

This just below the crest of the pass, and you can see the snow.....it was snowing lightly on me at this point.
I think the thermometer said 37 degrees!

Just on the other side of the pass I ran into this scene. There was a lone dirt bike track leading off, and none coming back out. It was fresh, from today for sure. I walked down a ways and checked it out, and it seemed like this as far as I could see. While I was debating, I heard the telltale sound of a thumper in the forest....
A dude on a WR450 came thumping out of the distance. We chatted and he said it was like this for maybe a mile and then fine. I made sure the road did what I thought it did, which was connect down to Potosi and Pony. He said yes...and off we went our separate ways.

A few miles down his track took a left onto a way smaller road. I followed it through the woods. The shot above is pretty off camber trail surface...

As usual, the trail got smaller, more rocky, and way steeper! This seems to happen to me a lot. This is the view looking back, while I stopped to catch my breath from being totally gripped riding down this stuff. That is way off camber, and real steep, with lots of big rocks. I was making it down, but I don't think I would have made it back up if I needed to....it never looks as bad as it was in pictures....It was sheer luck I didn't crash coming down this, between the wetness, mud, rocks, etc. I just slowly bumped down on the trusty KLR.

I was glad to get to the bottom of the steep stuff, and looking back up, that sign says "Primitive Road". Yup. Sure was!

Coming out on the Potosi side, in the South Willow Creek drainage, I believe. This road section was more fun!

This is looking at Pony, a sweet old mining town that is tucked right up in the Tobacco Roots. Less than 200 people live here now, mostly a ghost town. The Pony Bar is locally famous as being a great little place, and world famous after being featured in some big magazine years ago. I think it is only commercial entity in the town. And it isn't very commercial! The rain makes the dirt roads around here a total crapshoot in terms of surface conditions. Some are fine, where there is more clay it turns to total slick mud....Getting out on the main dirt road was sketchy with patches of total grease at pretty regular intervals. Mind you my rear tire is nearly devoid of center knobs as it is due to be replaced very soon...Some patches I rallied through, skating around..others I slowed way down and crawled through.

The dirt for this ride started about 30 minutes west of Bozeman on pavement. This is coming back into the Bozeman area, looking at the Bridgers capped with clouds. It was a 3 hour ride, 116 miles. I had been looking at that area on the map all winter, wanting to get up over that pass and down into Pony. I was surprised it was open yet, the guy I met up there said the snow was still too deep the previous weekend. I was pretty nervous on the rocky downhill section. That is one reason I am getting the new bike...something lighter and more able to handle that stuff. Lighter to pick up if I crash, lighter for me to hold up instead of dropping...etc. It will make that stuff more like fun rather than "oh sh#*, I hope I make it!"

I love these kinds of rides, where I have a loose plan, and find something new, and don't have problems. Especially when it gets intense, but nothing bad happens. It's a pretty good rush. I really like exploring anywhere around the area and finding new roads and trails. I am formulating some multi day routes, almost entirely dirt, that wind all over Southwest Montana. Like Bozeman to Centennial Valley, with maybe 10 miles of pavement the whole way. Anyone interested in doing some of these with me later this year, please let me know. Also I am very interested in doing the Continental Divide route through Montana as well.
Ride on!
L Train

Getting a new bike!

2009-06-09T18:37:00.001-07:00

96 Honda XR600R

Beartooths, Day 2

2009-06-08T20:23:00.001-07:00

We awoke Saturday morning to a glorious warm sun glowing through the tent fabric. It was a beautiful day, full sun and very warm very early.

Matt was busy cooking a hearty mountain man breakfast with plenty of Meat Shoppe bacon, eggs, cheese....mmmmmmm.

We headed up the hill in short order. Once on top of the pass we parked, and got out on the road with our thumbs out. A truck stopped immediately and with 4 other skiers, Steph and I piled in the back. The dude driving rallied up to the drop off point, through these 20 ft snowbank walls....

This is the hike up to the top of the ridge for the Gardiner Headwall, the most popular spot up here to ski and ride. It is like 2 minutes if you hitch up the road like we did.

The posse on top getting prepped to drop in. It was super warm and nice out. No jacket required. That is Wild Bill on the left, B Nugs in the middle, and Steph on the right. She had never been up here and was appropriately exited about it!

View of the Gardiner Headwall, some good little lines to be had in there....

B Nugs is strapping in, ready to shred some spring slushness.

This dude knows how to rock the Beartooths....what a rig! Note the Grateful Dead was emanating from inside this bus.....it was probably permanently mounted in the tape player. I am sure it was a tape.

Matt didn't ride snowboards today but brought his KLR down for the weekend. He cruised up to check out the action in the afternoon after spending all morning trying to fix the flat on Pauls KLR....note the use of TRYING. Doh!

This is the parking lot scene up there. It's like tailgating for a football game, but for skiing!!! Much cooler, in my opinion!
Everyone just chills out and shoots the shit after riding.... totally relaxed, and you can look out and watch whoever is still out riding the headwall. There is a ton of people from Bozeman up here. It is a ritual every year.

Back at camp, relaxing is going full swing! The Missoula contingent showed up with a barrel of Bayern Dragons Breath dark hefewiesen...and the fire was well tended by P Furls. Note the presence of women around the fire. This was unprecedented in the history of Opening Weekend. Stay tuned for further developments....

Bill: I want to get in the hammock!!
Matt: Dude, that's my bed.....
Wild Bill decided to get into Mengs' hammock, and apparently was having some difficulty!

As darkness came on the fire was built up strong and many sausages were cooked. I think I ate 4 sausages that night! People were feeling the vibe and the Bayern was flowing freely, along with other choice libations.

This is fire coming out of Stephs mouth. Known as the Flaming Sambuca Shot, this was learned in Canada, of course, and now brought to the Beartooths. It was a huge success and everyone wanted to try it. Of course, not long after this it was bedtime. Another successful day.

Beartooths Day 1: Friday Nite

2009-06-01T20:40:00.000-07:00

Got out of work at 400
Raced home to pack and get ready for nights of camping and fun outside of Red Lodge, MT at the foot of the Beartooth Mountains. It is an annual Bozeman Ski Bum Rite of Spring to go attend the Beartooth Highway Opening Weekend every Memorial Day. Centered on Rock Creek Campground, hundreds of avid skiers and snowboarders congregate to access the sidecountry off the highway which remains closed all winter. I would say the focus is on celebrating spring with ancient Bacchanalian rituals involving consuming spirits and dancing into the wee hours rather more than the actual skiing part.

I was packed and on the road to pick up Stephanie at around 6 pm I think. I picked her up and we hit the road a little before 7pm. The little Toyota was loaded with snowboards, road bikes, camping gear, cooler, etc. The drive to Red Lodge is nice, about an hour on I 90 and then a beautiful drive through the foothills of the Absaroka Mtns all the way to Red Lodge.

We didn't pack any food figuring we would stock up at the grocery store in Red Lodge. We got to town around 930pm and found out the one grocery store, and most of the convenience stores were already closed! The only option left was one gas station store where we spent way too much on way too little and then headed up to find our buddies up Rock Creek somewhere.

It was dark driving up the dirt road, and I vaguely remembered where I was going from years before. A few miles up Rock Creek I saw a white Toyota truck looming out of the darkness, Meng's rig! We found them! A bunch of my friends had gone down Thursday and Friday and already secured a sweet camp spot. We pulled in and found the festivities in full swing with roaring fire, plenty of chairs, and tents arrayed about in the woods. Rock Creek was rushing in the background, and we hurried to set up the tent and get to relaxing.

Paul was cooking some concoction in his Dutch Oven, and there were various meats being roasted on the fire. Music was jamming from someone's car and everyone was having a great time, glad to be out in the woods away from it all.

The merriment continued, and Steph and I retired for the night, exhausted from a hectic week. We were going to be on vacation for the whole next week as well and had to make sure all our work stuff was squared away for our absence.

I fell asleep to the sound of the creek full with snowmelt rushing in the woods.....

Quick Saturday Recon Ride

2009-05-10T07:59:00.000-07:00

I decided to head out at about 430pm on Saturday to check the status of some good dirt routes in the area. It was nice and sunny and about 58 degrees. Very nice riding weather!
Aha, good dirt! I thought this would all be muddy and unrideable but I underestimated the power of low humidity and high altitude sun! This is about 20 miles out from my house.

These backroads are great when they are rutted up from the spring, have to stand up, and cruise at 35-40, and it's pretty fun.

Look out for 2 ft deep ruts that will eat you for breakfast....

View towards Tobacco Root Mtns....and a bunch of isolated rain showers cruising the valley...all of which I avoided.

Gallatin River, world class fly fishing for trout.

Quote of the Week

2009-05-06T13:39:00.000-07:00

You can actually get through bison jams way easier on a bike, the furry bastards are scared of it, and won't move for a car.

icebox, from West Yellowstone, MT, on ADVrider.com

Hahaha!

Another Sunday Ride

2009-05-05T18:34:00.000-07:00

I struck out to the East on Sunday, as the Western sky looked like rain in spots. I rallied up over Bozeman Pass with a general idea to explore the North side of the Yellowstone River past Livingston. I didn't even bring a map, just looked at the Gazetteer before I left. It got immediately warmer once I got to Livingston where I fueled up and then took off to go get myself lost. It worked out pretty well I think:

Yellowstone River, East of Livingston Montana.

Yellowstone again, with Absaroka Mtns to the South

East of Livingston, looking West. Near this picture I started running into antelope that would run ahead of me, at 30-35 mph. Antelope won't jump fences, they only crawl under or through them. When they are running away they don't like to stop to crawl under the fence so they just keep running and running and running. Deer would jump the fence, but these dudes just keep on truckin! I had to speed up to like 50 to pass them so they could stop and start running in the opposite direction after I passed them.

Absaroka Mtns, can't ride in there, it is almost all Wilderness designation. Doh! And still a crapload of snow!

View of Sheep Mtn, East of Livingston. Talk about Big Sky Country! Yeah!

Some road I found out there. When I find things like this I can't even contain myself and often start laughing and yelling out loud while I blast along on the KLR! So awesome! Oh yeah, I also saw NO other vehicles out here.

This picture defines so much for me:
Why I ride motorcycles that can go on dirt roads
The massive power and awe of Nature
How cool it is to live on the Northern Rocky Mtn Front and experience the dramatic landscape as it transitions between high plains to high mountains.
The space......the feeling of space that you get out here. Views of twenty, thirty, forty, fifty miles or more all the time. It is goddamn big out here!

Crazy Mountains, North of Livingston, getting snowed on while I was sweating in 65 degree sun.

On the way home I rode North to Clyde Park and then took Brackett Creek Road to Bridger Canyon back to Bozeman. Mission accomplished on this ride for sure. Found some cool new roads, cool views, didn't get rained on, didn't get lost...not bad! Can't wait till next time!

Hmm. No riding for a few days I think:

2009-04-24T11:23:00.000-07:00

This morning we woke up to this:

Forget Motorcycles.....

2009-04-23T19:53:00.000-07:00

I want one of these instead......

hahahahahaha!

Awesome Spring Weather!

2009-04-14T11:00:00.000-07:00

current conditions in Bozeman

doh!

Searching Craigslist for Motos

2009-04-08T07:36:00.000-07:00

So I pretty much look at almost all the Craigslist motorcycle listings for Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, Northern Colorado, and Oregon on a daily basis. And I copy and paste bikes I am interested in into a sticky note on my iGoogle page for future price referencing. Here is what I have so far....as you can tell, I want a big dirt bike! Currently leading the running is an XR600. Air cooled, simple, bomber, powerful. And can be had for cheap! Lots of parts available too. Gotta wait for an improved economic outlook though....

1992 Honda XR 600 - $1500 -
Honda XR400R, 2001, XR 400 - $2900 (Billings)
2002 Honda XR650R - $2500 (Fort Collins, Colorado)
2000 honda xr 650 - $2000
2003 Kawasaki KLX 300 - $2300
2006 KLX 300R - $3000
2001 Honda XR650R - $2400
2002 KTM 520 EXC - $2650 (Eden)
2002 KTM 520 MXC $3500 (Othello)
2005 Honda XR650R - $4000 - (Butte,MT)
2001 Kawasaki KLX300R - $1600 (Meridian)
98 WR 400 F - $2000 (Idaho Falls Idaho)
2004 Suzuki 400 DRZ - $2995 (Post Falls)
2001 Yamaha WR 426 - $2000 (Lewiston, ID)
Like new 2001 KDX 220R - $2500 (Helena area)
2005 KTM 450 EXC - $4500 (Bozeman)
2006 KTM 525 EXC - $4800 (Helena)
2001 KTM 400 EXC - $2950 (Whitefish, MT)
DRZ400E 2000- $2000 (Fort Collins)
2004 Yamaha WR450 - $3200 (Kalispell)
2005 KTM 250EXC $3700
2003 DRZ 400E - $2400 - (Spokane) pic
2002 DR-Z400E - $2700 - (Pocatello) pic
2001 Suzuki DRZ400e - $2300 (Idaho Fall)
2001 Suzuki DRZ400E - $2100 (Ammon)
Yamaha WR426 - $2600
2003 Yamaha WR250F - $2500 (Hagerman, ID)

26 degree commute!

2009-04-07T09:16:00.000-07:00

Rode to work today. Left my house at 30 degrees, and when I got there my thermometer read 26 degrees! It actually wasn't too bad. I got a windproof fleece neck gaiter and that pretty much saves me. I thought before the coldest I could comfortably go in was closer to 40, but now I know I am fine much colder than that! Which means I will ride most every day from here on this year. Sweet!

Last Weekend Rides

2009-03-27T14:13:00.000-07:00

Saturday I headed out to Pipestone area under the threat of rain....it held off and I had a fine time.

Sunday I went north out of Bozeman up past Maudlow, an old basically abandoned railroad town.

There were a few deer

And a few elk

Sixteen Mile Creek

Back in the valley heading home

I Finally Paid Off My KLR Today!

2009-03-16T18:43:00.000-07:00

It is a momentous occasion as I finally actually own all of my 2005 KLR650 motorcycle! I made my last payment and paid off my balance owed today. I have never had a loan on a vehicle except this one, and I am glad it's over with! It took me since late 2004 when I bought it till now. So that is over 4 years. Waaaaay too long. One less monthly payment is a wonderful feeling! Now I just have to try and restrain myself from getting another bike right away! It's gonna be hard not too, but the crappy economy greatly tempers my spending urges....

Boodles Blew Up This Morning!

2009-03-05T10:45:00.000-08:00

There was a huge explosion this morning downtown . Steph called me and said that it shook her building badly, and they looked out across the street and Boodles was gone....

Winter is Back!

2009-03-05T06:39:00.000-08:00

...WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING TO 5 PM
MST FRIDAY...

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN GREAT FALLS HAS ISSUED A WINTER
STORM WARNING FOR HEAVY SNOW...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS
EVENING TO 5 PM MST FRIDAY.

SNOW WILL DEVELOP ACROSS SOUTHWEST MONTANA BEGINNING THURSDAY EVENING
AND CONTINUE THROUGH LATE FRIDAY EVENING. SHARPLY COLDER
TEMPERATURES...GUSTY WINDS...AND ACCUMULATING SNOWS ARE EXPECTED.
BY FRIDAY EVENING...EXPECT TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATIONS OF 3 TO 6
INCHES AT LOWER ELEVATIONS...AND 6 TO 12 INCHES IN THE MOUNTAINS.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

A WINTER STORM WARNING MEANS SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF SNOW ARE
EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. STRONG WINDS ARE ALSO POSSIBLE. THIS WILL
MAKE TRAVEL VERY HAZARDOUS OR IMPOSSIBLE.

Sick Video Clip: BMW new enduro bike

2009-03-03T18:04:00.000-08:00

The new Beemer 450 getting rallied by David Knight and Co:

Check it out HERE

Holy crap those guys rip it!

Dual-sport From Wikipedia

2009-03-02T14:19:00.000-08:00

What the heck does Dual-sport mean?

"The concept of a versatile motorcycle equally at home on dirt and pavement is as old as motorcycling itself. Most roads were still unpaved when motorized bicycles first appeared around 1900. In a sense, all motorcycles at that time were dual sports, intended to be used on dirt as well as pavement. Advertisements well into the 1920’s depict motorcycles on dirt roads, raising clouds of dust. By 1940, most roads were paved and motorcycles had become heavier and more oriented to the street. In the 1950’s and 60’s British manufacturers such as Triumph and BSA offered versions of their, relatively light, street motorcycles with high exhaust pipes, and called them scramblers.”

^ Adams, Carl: (2008) The Essential Guide to Dual Sport Motorcycles", pp. 18; Whitehorse Press, New Hampshire. ISBN - 13: 978-1-884313-71-4

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Montanadualsport.com!

2009-02-28T16:49:00.000-08:00

So I have changed my site name to MontanaDualSport.com.
I just got the domain name, and I am going to try and make this blog a little more focused and see what happens. The new address will be www.montanadualsport.com.
The old address will work too, so for the 3 people that have my blog bookmarked, you won't have to update it.
Thanks
Lincoln

Today's Wisdom From ADVrider

2009-02-25T14:24:00.000-08:00

I love ADVrider.com! Best most entertaining dual sport dirt related moto site there is....
Here is a choice bit I found today in a lively discussion thread:

Q from CodyY:

"Since when is a 300lb (motor)bike with 25hp and flexy suspension that was out of date since the Regan administration considered good?"

A from Kommando:

"Since looking for a dualsport, and not an enduro/dirtbike.

Since climbing off a 500-800lb bike to ride more offroad.

Since climbing off a 250lb bike to ride more onroad.

Since the DL1000, 1200GS, and other such behemoths have been called "dualsports".

Since none of the bikes you mentioned above are limited to 25HP.

Since 25HP will haul a 200lb rider on a 300lb bike at a legal speedlimit just fine.

Since climbing off a bike with NO suspension, or since climbing off a bike with 12" of kidney-pounding MX suspension.

Since wanting to carry a passenger on some rides.

Since riding for fun instead of a time or a stunt score.

Since wanting to ride across continents, even in remote areas.

Since you asked about "good", and not "outstanding" or "excellent".

Since...Who the hell is "Regan"?"

original thread here

My favorite part is this one:
Since the DL1000, 1200GS, and other such behemoths have been called "dualsports".

Hahahaha! What an awesome line! Just go watch The Great Escape and the soul of motorcycling will be revealed to all...

Sunday was Good!

2009-02-23T12:36:00.000-08:00

Sunny, 50 degrees,

2 hours on mtn bike exploring local dirt,
came home, ate lunch, and then:

2 hours on motorcycle exploring other local dirt!

Ahhhhhhhh, so good!

Where Did Winter Go?

2009-02-20T16:44:00.000-08:00

Since there hasn't been a major snowstorm here in Bozeman since early January, I am itching to ride motorcycles! Dualsport motorcycling in Southwest Montana is maybe the best thing ever invented! I managed to get out yesterday for a sunset cruise of about 25 miles in 36 degree weather and it was wonderful! I finally bought a windproof fleece neckwarmer and it made all the difference. On the ride I also ticked over 18,000 miles on the KLR650's odometer! Thats after about 4 seasons of riding. 4500 miles per year. Mostly just commuting and then some 200-300 mile weekend missions. Sunny and 40 is the forecast for the weekend so I may get in some more riding....

Powder Day at Bridger Bowl

2009-01-12T17:35:00.001-08:00

This past Sunday I had a great day of snowboarding at Bridger Bowl. Utilizing the new Schlasmans chairlift our posse had an epic day of exploring and riding some sweet lines in great snow.

It had snowed 4 inches according to the snow report, but as usual, up on the ridge it was a different story. I would say about a foot of fresh in most spots, which was on top of more new snow from earlier in the week....not bad!

I met up with Matt and Brian at the base area and we headed over to Schlasmans. Our first lap was down the northern aspect, and we found plenty of great snow, and got some fresh tracks down a few nice spots. At the bottom we met up with the rest of our posse for the day, Paul and Heather. Later we added Tim and Steve for a 6 person power posse!

A key point about riding at Bridger is the aspect of "Hiking the Ridge." Prior to this season, this has meant riding to the top of the Bridger lift, unstrapping, and hiking straight up for about 500 vertical feet to the ridge of the mountain. Requirements for this activity include: an avalanche transciever, partner, and avalanche shovel, a good set of lungs, and strong legs. Those willing to hump it up the extra distance to the ridge are rewarded with at least a mile of ridgeline that is hikable either north or south to the boundary lines of the resort. "The Ridge" is known to hold good snow for a long, long time after a storm, and is the venue of choice for the hardcore skiers and riders at Bridger Bowl. This is due to the limited use it receives compared to the lift served lower mountain.

The other noteworthy aspect of The Ridge is the terrain. This upper part of Bridger Bowl holds some of the steepest, craziest, tightest, gnarliest in-bounds skiing in the world. If you can ride the harder lines up there, you can probably hang with just about anyone on the snow when the going gets gnarly. It is intricately riddled with chutes, cliffs, trees, rocks, steeps, blind rollovers, hanging snowfields, and on and on. If you do not follow a seasoned veteran on your first forays up there, you stand a good chance of getting in big, big trouble. There are so many places where taking the wrong side of a spine of snow means serious problems. Getting stuck on top of a 30 cliff with a bad landing and no way out but struggling 100ft back up a 50 degree, 6 ft wide chute is not a good time.

This season they opened the first new lift in 30 years called Schlasmans. It expands the terrain along the ridge to the south up the shoulder of Saddle Peak, opening up tons and tons of great new riding. Additionally, the new lift terminates about 50 yards shy of the ridge, and the hike is now very quick and very easy.

So, on this fine day we took a quick hike out of Schlasmans to the north, and hit up the old South Boundary lines. Super good! Sweet, deep fresh powder, and super fun winddrifts, little drops, and fun jumps. Next hike was south, this time out to Saddle Peak, to hit up the snowfields just below the shoulder just outside of the new boundary line. It is a quick easy hike, although it was blowing a good 45 mph over the ridge!
The snow looked good, and Mengs dropped in first, shown here on a little video I took. It is WIDE OPEN up there and Mengs hauled ass for two big turns....

The next jaunt took us north again into the area known as D-Route. This was formerly only accessible from the north, off the main ridge hike. It was a haul, and had a lot of uphill on the ridge to get to the lines. From Schlasmans it is either flat, or descending to get there. Way better.

Another unique feature of the ridge is that every single thing you can ski down has a name. Usually humorous, dirty(or corny) and coined by some ski-hippy back in the seventies. I opted to hit up the chute called Sixth Grade with Brian. We dropped in to some perfect turns through perfect snow that brought us down to the entrance of the chute, pictured below. The tree in the middle is pushed over from all the snow, but the ones right above the rocks give a better idea of the steepness of this thing.

I had never ridden this line before, and didn't really know what to expect. As Brian jimmied his way into the chute, it became clear that in classic Bridger fashion, it was extremely narrow, and extremely steep. Try "my board-barely-fits-sideways-and-sometimes-tighter" width! Oh yeah, and it's kinda steep. Like "fall and start sliding and you may not stop" type of steep.

So Brian got right down in there, jump turning away. Jump turning is how you get down stuff that is super steep and narrow that you can't just straight-line out of. You have to jump off the snow and turn your board to the other edge, then land again 0 to 8 feet below your starting point.

Brian was soon out of sight. I waited a bit and then made my way after him. It is always a bummer going second cuz the first guy has pushed a lot of the fresh snow down the chute with them. Right at the top you have to make a turn around a tree that is in the way that constricts the chute to about 4 ft wide, and then stop.

I made it in, and started hopping my way down. I saw Brian below me again after a bit, and he yelled up at me to stop. I was knocking too much snow down on him from above and it was threatening to push him down the rest of the way.

He continued after the slough stopped, and I waited a good while before following this time. When I reached the point where he was, I could see mostly out of the bottom. It was still a ways to go. I bet the whole thing is at least 100 yards long. No wider than about 6 ft at any point. I continued skitching my way down the thing, and about 50 ft from the bottom I caught my board at the tip and tail between the rocks and got pitched backwards downhill! Oops! Luckily I stopped after one backwards somersault, recovered and made it down the rest of the way.

Looking back up it looks like this:

In the center of the picture is the line. The couloir goes up and then turns to the right. Looks great right! Ha ha! The picture doesn't do the steepness justice. Lines like this are about the challenge, scaring the crap out of yourself, and the thrill of taking it right to the edge....

Oh yeah, and this was the easy way down. Check out what the other guys did! Click on this one so it gets bigger, and then look in the middle to see the dude in the pinch of this crazy line. Tim is holding himself with his arms, adjusting his board position, about to drop straight out of that thing. Welcome to Bridger Bowl!

We all made it down safe from this round and went back up for more! Believe it or not, the last run of the day was even more crazy that either of those two. We took a wrong turn right in between the two lines above, and got stuck on top of a crazy steep face. Luckily Mengs had his camera and had taken a picture to study when we were on top. So after some studying we decided we could make it, and jimmied down some steep-ass rotten-snow rocky ridiculousness, ending in a 30 ft shot that you had to straight line due to the exit being about 3 ft wide. Looking at it from below, it is the sort of terrain that you would definitely classify as "unrideable." Good Times!

I was totally exhausted at the end of the day, but I must say it was one of the coolest days on the hill I have had in a long time. Riding stuff that crazy is an experience you can't have any other way. We ended the day with another traditional Bridger activity, which is apres ski beers at the Grizzly Ridge in the base area, trading tales of our exploits like fisherman trade fish stories, sipping a good brew, and already anticipating the next day on the hill...

From this Summer: Gravelly Ride

2009-01-07T21:14:00.000-08:00

I found this in draft form on here and finished it up to post..figured it is good to remember about the summertime during the winter.

The Gravelly Road

This road has been lurking on my map of Southwest Montana ever since I bought my KLR, and I never got it together enough to plan and go ride it until this summer. I knew it would be good....

Sunday morning. Woke up on my bro Cory's couch to a fuzzy head from the evenings merriment at the Claim Jumper Saloon in Ennis Montana. After recharging with eggs, sausage, biscuits and gravy, I filled the camelbak, geared up, and hit the road on my trusty 05 KLR650.

Destination: Ride the Gravelly Range Rd south from Ennis to the Centennial Valley and return via the Upper Ruby Rd.

It was cold out! Thermometer on my bike said 40 something. I had on normal pants. Oops. It was pretty cloudy and windy out.

As I climbed towards the beginning of the Gravelly Rd, I entered the clouds since they were so low. So now the temp goes down even more, and I have to keep my faceshield up due to condensation issues. It was reading down to 36! I got cold. And I was in the clouds, so I couldn't see very far at all. This continued for pretty much the first hour I think. I had to go slow too due to the cloud-fog.

All I saw was some cows, a few hunters camped out, and a lot of grey! I had second thoughts about continuing as I was freezing my face off, and couldn't see anything cool at all like a view or something! I pushed on though on the hopes that it would burn off as the day heated up.

Finally it broke and I had super awesome views of my Montana home in all directions.

This road has got to be on the top 10 of any I have ever been on. It's right up there with the Beartooth I think, and maybe better cuz it's all dirt, and there are very very few people. If it hadn't been hunting season already, I doubt there would have been anyone hardly at all.

The road just keeps going on top of the mountains for miles and miles. It's unbelievable! I was hooting and laughing with glee inside my helmet at what a good time I was having.

After another hour or so I was further down the range and ran into a giant amount of sheep sleeping in the road! I hadn't ever seen that many sheep at once before. They were just hanging out and had two dogs with the flock to keep them out of trouble I guess. I shut off the bike and took my helmet off and just stood around for a bit watching them and absorbing the mellow sheep vibe. They looked pretty happy just chilling out up there on top of the world.

After the sheep I kept on rolling down the road and actually finally started descending down out of the mountains. I was using a color copy of the Montana Gazeteer map for the area for my navigation and it worked pretty darn well. I am a big fan of good ole maps. No GPS for me. I think a map works better, doesn't run out of batteries, and you can see way more area at one time.

I got to an intersection though that had some signs about this road and that road and I had to gamble on a left turn onto what I hoped was a shortcut to the Centennial Valley, FR 209. It looked on the map like the same size road I had been on, but when I got on it, it was way smaller, just a worn two track with a bunch of ruts. I had a moment of indecision, as I was paying close attention to my odometer for my gas gauge. I knew I wouldn't find gas where I was headed and had to turn around if I hit 100 miles and wasn't on my way back already. I was at around 60 something i think. I said F-it and kept going on the two track.

I won my gamble and was dumped out on the road I was shooting for on the north edge of the valley. It was pretty damn cool, and I want to go back and explore around the wildlife refuge another time. After more indecision I headed east to see if I could find a road across to the south side of the valley that appeared on the map. Said road did not appear in reality, and I ended up turning around after a few miles.

Now my way was clear and I blasted west at 65 mph back towards the Ruby valley road. I love the KLR on dirt roads, and these were like dirt highways! I had at this point been riding dirt for about 50 miles and 3 hours. The road up high had been pretty twisty and somewhat loose so my speed was maybe around 35 tops. Once in the valley though these roads were wide, and way more straight, so I hauled ass for a while! By the way, I discovered that antelope can run at least 40 mph. It's funny when animals try and run away by running parallel to you. I suppose Mr. Antelope isn't used to anyone being able to go faster than himself.

In short order I got to the turn for the Ruby road I wanted. The next 15 miles or so were maybe the funnest of the day as it was open country, medium curviness of road, and it undulated a bunch up and down. I could keep good speed and was really riding the bike with all the road variation. It was super fun! I never rode a dirt bike when I was younger so lately I have been trying to learn to slide the rear under power around corners. I got plenty of practice in that section. Still can't do it super well yet. I am running TKC 80's front and rear and I think I need to air them down some to get the right action with the traction.

I made it back to Ennis safe and sound, and continued back to Bozeman. It was long day, but one of the best rides I have ever taken, and one that I am sure I will repeat many times in the future.

10 Ways I Save Money

2009-01-07T19:29:00.000-08:00

Been thinking about saving money lately....

I am a bit of a gear-whore, and have problems buying tons of crap related to my many sporty hobbies: snowboarding, motorcycling, mtn biking, road biking, etc. I feel bad about that sometimes. On the other hand I am really a frugal fellow in many other ways. Here's what I do or have done recently on the savings side of things:

Cancelled gym membership 35x12=420/yr
Returned leased welding gas cylinder. Haven't used my welder in over a year! And I can still use flux core wire if I need to use it without gas. =40/yr
Have no car payment. I have a 20 year old Toyota 4x4.... savings here is 200-400/mo depending on your choice of cars. 2400 to 4800/yr
Cook at home. I cook at home a lot. At least one big meal a week, which gives me usually 2 more meals of leftovers. I always eat breakfast from my kitchen. Lunch is sometimes out when at work. Usually it is leftovers or a can of soup or a sandwich. Dinner out maybe 2-3x per week, but often that is 6 bucks for a few slices of my favorite pizza. Meals i could eat out but don't 21 total meals per week, lets say 3 lunches out and 3 dinners....so that's 15 meals that I could eat out but don't....10 bucks avg. per meal...150 bucks per week savings.
Bought a season pass to the local ski hill. This seems like it would go in the spending category, but I think it saves me money by me going snowboarding all the time, and not going shopping or whatever else, and i am so tired at night I just hang out at home and go to sleep early instead of going out. Oh, wait, maybe that part is just from me getting older! It also promotes excercise and health, and then I have less medical expenses. Actual savings amount is hard to calculate, but I will put it at at least 1000/yr.
Buy the Best Stuff. When I do buy gear, I do massive research beforehand, on what is the best product. This saves me money because the best stuff is often the most durable and most high quality. Buy something good that lasts, instead of five of something that falls apart or breaks......Then I do massive research on the best deal for said best products. Example includes a recent snowboard purchase, my second new board in....hmmm....6 years I think. I found a nice Nitro for 230 shipped on Ebay. Half of retail price! It took me months to find that board though. Also last winter i got a 200+ dollar Patagonia shell jacket for 100 bucks at their outlet store. This winter i found similar pants, again at half retail at 100 bucks. I won't need to buy ski gear for I bet 5 years at least and maybe forever, due to Pati's exceptional quality, and lifetime warranty. I have had the same guitars for over 10 years, nice Fender Strats....Last mtn bike I bought lasted 8 seasons and still is rolling. Buy good stuff. Keep it for a long time. Simple really!
Netflix. If you watch a lot of movies you already know what a deal this is.....
Eating good healthy foods. I eat mainly unproccessed foods or minimally processed foods. Results are that I am a healthy weight, and have good cholesterol levels. Heart attacks are expensive and I am not going to have one!
Simple entertainment: on Sundays during the summer to relax I go for a motorcycle ride through the backroads of Montana. Cost: 8-10 bucks in gas for 2-4 hours of awesome scenery and thrills! Or I might ride my bicycle from my house for a few hours. Cost: free!
Living in an out of the way place in a smaller town or city. I grew up in Maine. Cheap! I now live in Montana. Cheap! I live in the expensive part, which is in-town Bozeman, but it is still cheap compared to many other cities. There are less places to spend money....so you spend less money. The smaller the town the better this effect is.

Okay, that was fun!

Until next time,
Lincoln

Christmas in Montana

2008-12-27T13:53:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve I got up and went right up to Bridger to go snowboarding with Stephanie. I left at 11 to go get Arlo at the airport here in Bozeman. We ended up at a local watering hole and had some celebratory beverages with Steph. Back at my house for dinner: I made Panang Curry Pork Roast with vegetables and rice. Arlo went to bed at 730 pm! He apparently was tired. We woke up on Christmas and got right into the present opening. I got a hockey stick and a nice graphic design book from Steph, I gave Arlo a Robert E Howard Conan book, and I gave Steph and nice picture of the two of us, and a super sweet pair of goggles for snowboarding. Arlo gave me some computer accessories for my recently purchased MacBook.

After breakfast we headed right up to the mountain to go snowboarding. We spent the day cruising around Bridger and had some good runs over on the new Slushmans lift. After we were tired from shredding the gnar we headed back to town. Dinner that night was at Steph's great uncle's place in town, with their kids, us and her other relative Buddy. It was a full on holiday feast with turkey, all the fixins, and much laughter with her boisterous family! We had a really great time and a really great meal.

When we left their house we went out to the car and found a good 3-4 inches of snow with more falling pretty heavily. It was a good sign for the next day's riding.

Waking up on Friday we found nearly a foot of snow outside! Woohoo! We got rolling real early and made it to the mountain at about 930. A really fun day of riding was had in the foot of fresh on top of 5 or 6 inches from the previous few days. Arlo claimed it was the best day ever! We rode all over the mountain and had a great time!

The video below is a from the past few days of riding. Not the best quality but you can get a good idea of the fun time we had.

Notes From Gustav

2008-09-03T15:03:00.000-07:00

My roomate Jen has been down in Baton Rouge for two weeks at her family's place. She was supposed to be back yesterday. I got this text.

Got stuk n huricane b bak thurs

Doh!

KLR maintenance day

2008-09-01T11:12:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I futzed around with my moto all day with various maintenance tasks. After discovering the running light filament on my taillight was out I read a few msg board posts and headed to the auto parts store. I bought a 1157 bulb for the tailight, and a Sylvania Silverstar halogen headlight bulb....also some blue locktite.

I got back and figured I would try cleaning my air filter, which I have never done before. The mechanic at my recent servicing said I really should clean it regularly....and after I opened the airbox and looked at it I know why!! It was covered in dust. I maybe have 500 or so miles since the service so it must be all the dusty dirt roads I ride. It was pretty easy to clean, I just followed the directions in the manual. I cleaned it with brake cleaner spray, and then washed it with detergent in the sink, and then reoiled it. Took maybe 10 minutes.

Headlight replacement I did because I read all these posts about how if you get this certain bulb that it is like 200% improvement. I always have been unhappy with the stock headlight output so I figured for 20 bucks it was a good idea. I had to mostly unbolt the front cowling and the indicators, and after some swearing finally got the old one out and the new one in.

Tailight swap out was 2 minutes.

A few days ago I relocated my license plate up to right under the license plate light. I saw a great mod on ADVrider where the guy moved the plate up right under the tailight and then got rid of the black subfender underneath. I figured what the hell and went for it. Drilled holes for the new location, loc tited the bolts, and then hacked off the subfender as far up as I could reach with my trim saw.
I think it looks way better now, and the damn plate won't get bent up anymore from big hits. I took the plate light off altogether and just unplugged from the bullet connectors before I cut off the subfender.

Last night I rode the KLR back from my girlfriends house in the dark and got to check out the new bulb. It seemed fine on low beam in town, lots of streetlights and hard to tell, but near my house I turned onto a dark street just to see. I flicked on the high beam and it was like frikking daylight! Holy crap is it better than stock. I am amazed. Best 20 bucks I have spent on that bike besides gas! If you ever ride at night you should get this bulb!

Portal to Porcupine

2008-08-31T14:44:00.001-07:00

Last Sunday I went with 3 buddies, Ben , Dan, and Jeff, and did a shuttle ride up Portal Creek trail in the Gallatin Range, across Eagle Head Mtn, and down Porcupine Creek Trail. It was a 4 hour adventure which included some of the most epic single track and views this area has to offer.

We drove all the way to Big Sky and dropped a car at the Porcupine Creek trailhead and then headed back up the canyon to Portal. After bumping up the dirt road for a good 20 minutes we got out, geared up, and hit the trail. After a deceptive downhill and flat part, the trail goes up, steeply and covered in roots and rocks. I did a lot of pushing of the bike through the forested hillside. After about two miles you emerge from the woods and the steepness onto the Gallatin Crest Trail, which runs all the way down the range. This is near Windy Pass.

On top of the ridge it is open meadows, flowers, and huge mountain vistas in all directions. On the left you can see over to the Absarokas, and on the right the Spanish Peaks. It was a perfect day.

Stopping for a break before the final uphill section we surveyed our surroundings, and almost everyone commented, between labored breaths, about how awesome it is to live here and have easy access to such superlative riding. Shortly after our stopping spot is the final ascent to Eagle Head Mtn. It is totally unrideable and you have to push or carry your bike up what seems like a near vertical trail. It's kind of like hiking the ridge at Bridger Bowl, except with a bike instead of a board or skis. I managed about two minute intervals of pushing and then stopping to breath. Its about 9000 ft of elevation here. My legs were killing me, not used to all this hiking! A lot of people don't do this ride because of all the hike-a-bike, but it is totally worth it.

Once on top we again admired views, talked shit, ate clif bars and gu, and finally dropped in for our reward: 10+ miles of Grade A downhill technical singletrack! Woohoo! This downhill is unreal. The trail is so good for so long, and as you get toward the bottom it gets smoother and smoother as it enters sagebrush meadows. This is good because after two thirds of the trail, you are pretty tired. We stopped for some horse folks who had 3 corgis in tow, and claimed they were good trail dogs!! Their legs were like 4 inches long! It was pretty funny. Saw a guy on a XR400 too, who stopped right in the trail at the runout from a really good DH section. Doh! Didn't have any wildlife sightings even though it was prime griz country(did see a bear print in the trail). I ran out of water about halfway down and an hour from the end.

Near the end we hit a Y in the trail and I thought it was right. After going UPHILL a bunch more I realized I went the wrong way, and boy was I pissed! We met another biker who said if we kept going up another half mile, we had a really good downhill section all the way back to the car. We toughed it out and grunted up it, and were rewarded with a good flowy smooth section through the sagebrush all the way down.

Amazingly we made it to the bottom with no mechanicals. Bails are listed here:
Me: running off trail into a tree due to excessive corner entry speed
Jeff: High speed Faceplant to sagebrush-slide. Also mid-creek tipover due to too tight cleats!?!?
Dan: over the bars runout. nice save. also a too fast for corner bail.
Ben: no crash! he must not be going fast enough.....

After loading up the bikes we hit the Half-Moon Saloon for recovery drinks: $1 happy hour PBRs! and many cups of water. Satisfied, we headed back up to Portal Creek to get the other car, and then drove home.

Mission accomplished. Another day in beautiful Southwest Montana. Cheers!

Rainy Lake Trip Part 2

2008-08-31T14:18:00.001-07:00

Steph is exuberant upon stepping onto the dock at her cabin! We unloaded the boat, put everything in the cabin, and then got right down to business...The shot below illustrated the Maine-ness of the area. It was quite comforting for me.

After a good round of swimming and sunning on the dock, we geared up and hopped in the boat for a trip to Sha-Sha Resort, which was about 20 min. away. Sha-Sha is pronounced SHAY-SHAY by the way. It was a funny touristy place with a bar and food and huge decks on the waterfront. It was fun pulling up in the boat for dinner! We met up with a whole tableful of Stephs girlfriends who were all having a pretty good time already. I wasn't too talkative as I was pretty tired from travelling still. After lots of trading of stories and a huge burger and some locally important potent drink called a "tea" we got back in the boat and cruised home as the sun was setting.
Going to sleep was wonderful, with almost total silence apart from the lapping of the water at the shore. ...

Rainy Lake Trip Part 1

2008-08-25T18:22:00.001-07:00

Thought from Wednesday the 13th at the office:
"Ahh! I can't take it anymore! Must leave work NOW and hit the road! I wish my boss would stop calling me! I gotta get out of here!"

At 1pm I had to leave even though I was supposed to stay till 3. Once home, there were a few last minute calls from the boss and finally it was done. Steph arrived at 330pm and we loaded my stuff into the trunk and both our road bikes into the back seat of the Sunfire, which I quickly dubbed Funfire for the trip. At 410pm we were rolling out of Bozangeles, a mere 10 min. behind schedule!

In the gold Funfire we blasted east on I-90 at 80mph with AC cranked and the tunes cranked from the ipod and ye olde I-trip. The plan was to get to Bismarck ND before midnight and sleep in our reserved hotel room and then hit International Falls, MN the next day around 2pm. I suggested 2 hour shifts at the wheel to break the monotony of Eastern Montana and NoDak interstate droning. It worked well and was a very tolerable interval.

After about 8 hours we made it to Bismarck around midnight and promptly drove right through it past all two exits!!! I thought it was bigger and we were a bit tired and confused. After a quick recon of the mornings route about 15 miles down the highway, we turned around in the Authorized Vehicle Only turnout and went back, found the hotel, and went to bed.

Now, imagine flashing strobe lights and an insanely loud siren. Okay. Next, imagine almost going into cardiac arrest as these two phenomenon erupted simultaneously from the fire alarm on the wall above your bed at 3 am causing you to sit bolt upright believing that the world was ending! This is what happened to us in the middle of "i am really tired from driving for 8 hours" type of sleep.

It was bad.

After a few minutes of this sensory armageddon, someone turned it off and apparently it was a false alarm. Probably some idiot smoking in their room or something....

Back to sleep a bit shaken up. I got up at 6ish and began preparing for leg two of the journey. We were on the road again I think around 7 after loading up plates of free breakfast goodies in the hotel lobby. Just keep the car moving when you can is my philosophy. So over english muffins and peanut butter we continued East in the trusty Funfire.

After navigating through NoDak to Fargo, we crossed into Minnesota which was exciting as it was our Destination State. We still had a lot of hours left though. We headed northeast towards Bemidji and finally there were trees and little hills and lots of lakes and ponds. It actually looked a lot like parts of Maine, and I got excited with the similarity. We were also off the interstate which yielded much more interesting driving.

In Bemidji we found a Village Foods supermarket, and stumbled upon perhaps the best grocery store deli section I have ever seen! We were trying to eat well on the road, with a Subway stop for dinner the night before. After finding good wraps and some other tasty treats the Funfire was steered northward for the last leg of the driving. Bemidji to Int'l Falls was almost totally straight through flat terrain with lots of fields and forests. All young forests mind you, most trees being pretty small around on average. There was evidence of major logging in the past and minor logging at present, with pulp trucks and sawmills every now and then.

Finally at around 2 or 3pm we hit IF with great joy! The funfire stopped at the liquor store (no alcohol sold elsewhere) for some beverages. Steph had told me she knew everyone in town, and after both young men at counter said "Hey Steph!" I realized she was serious! We headed straight for Rainy Lake at this point, driving through International Falls which was very much small town America. Older stores, a Main Street area of a few blocks, and the gigantic Boise Cascade paper mill looming behind it. I think the mill is as big as the town! We drove out of town and down the road to the lake. After a turn down small road, I was reminded intensely of backwoods Maine. Small little roads, trees right to the edge, it was really great. We rolled up to a funny old yellow log cabin type house on the lakeshore, with a houseboat parked nearby, a few cars in the grass, and a dock setup for about a dozen boats. "We're here!" proclaimed Steph with a big smile. We unloaded the car into a Gardenway cart and wheeled it down the dock to the SS Johnson, a 16' Lund Adventurer with a shiny new Suzuki outboard, a trolling motor on the bow and 3 swivel chairs down the middle. There were similar boats docked nearby.

Steph was just about bursting with excitement by this point, running around all smiles and cheery comments about the lake and the whole situation, as she stowed everything on board and got us ready to cast off. She fired up the motor, and we untied and I hopped in. Pulling away from the dock area we came out of a small cove surrounded by rock ledge rolling into the water topped with spiky pine and fir trees. It looked so much like Maine coastline and Maine lakeshores I was astonished. Steph soon cracked the throttle and we zoomed out into the lake along some big islands. There were lake houses along the shore, and other boats here and there. All the other boaters waved, and we waved back as we passed, the same as motorcyclists often do. It was 80 degrees, clear skies, light breeze, and us cruising along the water going what I felt was really fast! I was super happy already. After a few minutes, we came around another island and turned in towards a cove with a long weathered dock and little red house type building on the dock. There was a long low red building hiding in the trees up from the water's edge. This was it! The Amidon family cabin on Stop Island in Rainy Lake Minnesota. And it was ours for the next 3 wonderful days!

Bangtail Divide

2008-07-23T17:01:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday I went and rode the Bangtail Divide trail on my mountain bike. 33miles total, with around 25 on singletrack and trail. Badass! It took me 4.5 hours and involved 4600 feet of climbing.

Crazy Ride back in June

2008-07-22T08:54:00.000-07:00

Moto Adventure

On Sunday back in June, my buddy Paul and I fired up the KLR 650's and heading for the mountains again. It was a clear sunny day with a few high clouds, but everything was green and lush and it was truly springtime in the Rockies. Up Corbly Gulch we went, up up up on a big wide trail. All of a sudden we were going up a really steep narrow trail, with no turning back! Big rocks and steepness conspired to throw my moto down on top of my leg. Paul was ahead of me and came down to find me dazed sitting next to my bike.

He had fallen off as well higher up. We got me back on my moto and headed down. Going down a steep trail with ruts and rocks on a KLR that can't stop is repeatedly the scariest thing I ever do. You are skidding, and accelerating, and trying to steer and avoid trees, rocks, etc. I hate it. We made it down okay and despite being pretty banged up, decided to go ride Flathead Pass! That was easier than Corbly's top section, but also really knobby trail. We encountered snow at the top.

On the way out the East side I came upon what I thought was a log in the road until I got closer and saw that it was metal. Paul came back from up ahead wondering where his muffler was! Quick ranch repair and off home we went.

Sunday Ride, Montana Style

2008-07-14T21:36:00.000-07:00

On Sunday my fellow KLR owner Paul and myself took an afternoon ride. First stop: Ross Pass in the Bridger Range. A pretty knobby doubletrack ending in a real steep section brought us there without incedent. After taking in the view, we came back down and decided to head to Livingston via Brackett Creek Road, which is a great dirt road, wide and smooth through a lush green farming valley. In Livingston we stopped for refreshment at the Slack Knuckle, which included IPA's, nachos and a pork sandwich. Then back over the pass on the frontage road to home.

Blogslack

2008-05-08T15:36:00.000-07:00

Haven't had time to post lately. Too busy with work and fun and every other damn thing....
Brief Recap of Recent Events:

Raced the bike leg of the Peaks to Prarie Triathlon.
Super fun. Basically a long slightly downhill time trial.

Rode mtn bikes out in Three Forks with Ciaran and Mike H. Went 38 MPH on the downhill singletrack at one point. Sweet!

Raced my first Tuesday Night Training Series road bike race and got killed.
Ouch. Old men and fast women passed me. Raced from near town to up past Bridger Bowl. Cool to race with a group, or at least for the 20 minutes I stuck with the pack.

Going to race this weekend near Great Falls at the Belt Creek Omnium.
Probably gonna get killed again.

Later,
L train

Employee Ski Day

2008-03-27T14:07:00.000-07:00

The boss at work decided that he would take everyone skiing at Bridger Bowl yesterday. I had a great day, and rode more laps that I have in a long time at the hill. I rode from 9 when the lifts opened until 330 I think. One hour break for lunch and the rest was riding time. It was really fun. I spent most of the day with Mark and Miles who I work with. We pretty much stuck to Pierre's Knob and did a lot of cruising in the trees. Pretty mellow and fun. I brought the GPS and got a lot of paths out of it.

Data:
Time: 5:45
Max Speed: 41.9
Total Ascent/Descent: 26197 ft
Distance: 34.25 miles.

No wonder I fell asleep at 7:30!

The Ringing Rocks

2008-03-23T19:13:00.000-07:00

For my Easter I went mountain biking. What a surprise! I went solo as all my riding friends were otherwise occupied. I just really needed to get outside for a while, and very often my Sunday routine is a solo pursuit of some sort. It is good to have a break from people and town and just be out in nature for a while. I think it recalibrates my spririt from the hectic workweek down to a more natural relaxed state. The slow rhythms of the wind and the sky and the sun. . .
I cruised around in a new area near Pipestone and explored the whole lower area and ended up at the Ringing Rocks. I didn't ring them but apparently they make a neat sound when you whack them. It was a big pile of red boulders and looked totally manmade but is totally natural.

Ride Data courtesy my Garmin 305. I can export the data to Google Earth, as you can see above. Pretty sweet!

Time: 1:41
Distance: 12.47 miles
Avg HR: 147
Max HR: 173
Total Ascent/Descent: 2268 ft

Athletic Fact of the Day

2008-03-20T15:31:00.001-07:00

Miguel Indurain, a cyclist and five times Tour de France winner, had a resting heart rate of 28 beats per minute, one of the lowest ever recorded in a healthy human.

Datafest

2008-03-18T21:11:00.000-07:00

I got home today from work and there was a box waiting for me patiently by the front door. I opened it when I got inside and there sat my new Garmin GPS unit. I had to charge it before using it so I plugged it into the wall and then went to pick up my KLR at the motorcycle shop after it's spring service. I got new handlebars to replace the my bent old ones, and Progressive fork springs. Holy crap do those springs make a difference! At the first stop I immediately noticed how I didn't have a ton of fork dive when I used the front brake. The bike for the first time felt balanced front and rear, somewhat firm at each end, instead of being excessively mushy in front. It just stabilized the whole ride, no rocking back and forth, it just felt way more solid on the road. It was cold and windy but I had to go rally around the dirt roads for a bit before going home. For about 100 bucks I don't think there is a better upgrade for that bike.

I got the GPS running and then got myself running, literally, to test it out. A half hour later I plugged the thing into my computer, and got the data into the Garmin program, and saw all kinds of neat stuff: graphs, numbers, little maps, oh boy!! Data: 2.5 miles, Avg heart rate 152, Max HR 178 (I sprinted for a bit to see what would happen), and a cool map of my route. I found an option to export data to Google Earth, but that will have to wait till tomorrow, as I have to go to bed. The damn thing seems to work though!

March 9, Pipestone

2008-03-16T10:33:00.000-07:00

The first team mtn bike ride of the season took place last weekend on Sunday. We loaded up the van and headed west to Pipestone. It was super wet but we had a good time anyway especially with our post-ride soak in the Jefferson River hot spring. The whole day made me feel like summer-happy just cruising around in the sun and having a good time. It was also the first day of the time change so we were just hitting sunset around 7:30 in the hot springs. Totally great day. Here are some photos.

Geek Toys

2008-03-15T13:39:00.001-07:00

For a long time I have kept records of my activities of all sorts. I have a notebook for weight training, I always write my excercise down on the calendar, and I keep a bike log. I like recording information I guess. So in pursuit of recording information about excercise I just ordered a Garmin Forerunner 305.

I think things are going to go to the next level. I will now have distance, speed, a map of my route, heart rate, and a bunch of other data. Should be pretty fun.

Too Busy

2008-03-13T21:12:00.000-07:00

Sorry no posts for a few days. Too busy with a full weekend of riding road, snowboarding, and mtn biking. And this week a lot of work. I'll try and get updates this weekend.

Up at 4:30 am

2008-03-06T05:00:00.000-08:00

I woke up at around 4 and couldn't sleep any more for some reason. So I got out of bed and fired up the computer and started importing some cd's to Itunes. I just migrated my entire library from my mac harddrive to my PC (since my mac died). There are a number of discs that I haven't put on there yet so I did some catching up. I had an idea last night that I would get up early and put a batch of chili into the crock pot before I went to work so after some importing I went to the kitchen. Vegetarian chili was prepared and put into the crockpot on high. I will turn it to low before I go to work, and by tonight we will have some tasty business!
My Team Muleterro buddies and I had a meeting with the Gallatin Valley Bike Club last night. We are going to handle PR and advertising for their main fund raising event: The Spring Bike Swap. We just got added as a team to their umbrella nonprofit status so we have to do some work with them. I am heading this up as I did a bunch of event promotion when I was doing movies with my buddy Erik at Stormshadow Productions a few years back.

I love Itunes

2008-03-03T21:28:00.000-08:00

Man do I love Itunes! I just rescued my music library from my external hard drive that used to run on my Mac, which crapped out on me two months ago. I found a utility to let me mount the drive on my PC which I did, and copied my itunes library on to my PC. So after a good two or three months of no itunes I am back in business! I also just put some new stereo stuff into my truck which made it about 100 times better to listen to music in. So my daily commute is much more enjoyable. And, after having Itunes since it came out years and years ago, I just figured out how to make smart playlists! What is wrong with me that I didn't know that before!!!! I have been manually adding music to all the playlists I make and it always pissed me off! Now I can easily make a playlist for all one genre, or artist, or whatever and it autofills for me. Wow. I must be getting old that I don't know how to use the features of a computer program that are very basic. hmph.

Last played artists:
Miles Davis
Sebadoh
Folk Implosion
Lou Barlow
DJ Krush
Darkest Hour

In the Dark

2008-03-03T20:12:00.001-08:00

Sunset ride tonight out Gooch Hill and back. I didn't get on the road until 5:45 so I put my blinky light on my camelback so I wouldn't get run over when it got dark. I am trying to ride really slow and aerobically the whole time which I gather is known as Base Miles in the proper roadie lingo. Riding road is so different from mountain biking! All I think about the whole time is my pedaling and how it sucks and I want it to be smoother and more even around the stroke.
I have noticed improvement even in the ten hours I have been out this past month. (Lifetime road bike total: 20 hours) I think I had my seat too high as well until yesterday when I lowered it about a half-inch. I was starting to bounce a bit when my cadence got up. It is better after changing the seat height. Now I think I need to either shift the saddle forward more, or tilt it up in the front because I am sliding forward too much and having to really push with my arms to get my butt to the right spot. I will adjust before the next ride.
Looks like big snow on the docket for tomorrow with a winter storm warning for the area. 6-12 inches in the mountains though so I may get to skip work on Wednesday and go ride Bridger and hike the ridge a few times. I would like a few good days on the board yet this winter.

Dogde the Snow Cloud

2008-03-02T13:48:00.000-08:00

Today's Road Ride:

Time: 45 min.
Distance: 11.3 miles
Temp: 37
Wind: 10mph

Had to cut today short due to being surrounded by snow clouds in all directions. I was going to drive west of town to ride where it is usually warmer but after I got in the car and started driving I could see it was snowing out there. At my house it was an island of sun, so I came back and rode out from the house. The Gallatin Range to the south was topped with clouds dropping snow and the same with the Bridgers to the north. So I could see a wall of snow creeping out of Gallatin Canyon and I knew my ride may need to get cut short. And it did. I got about 35 minutes out and could see the weather closing in. I got caught in the fall in a total blizzard and do not want to repeat that so I turned around and headed back.
I have been riding on these roads lately that got chip sealed late in the fall and they are extremely rough. I didn't realize how rough until I rode out Stuckey today and it was chip seal halfway, and then turned to good smooth normal pavement, and I started to go WAY faster. It was a big difference.

A short essay on animals and cyclists

2008-03-01T09:12:00.000-08:00

This morning I woke up and hit the road on the bicycle for an hour and a half. Same loop I have been doing out Gooch Hill road and coming back on Cottonwood. 20 miles plus or minus depending on how you connect the two roads. Today I was cruising along in ipod-land and was shaken out of my reverie by a barking dog blasting towards me at high speed from a mobile home next to the road. I started yelling at it and pedaling like mad and fortunately he stopped chasing me in short order. Very stimulating though... Then two more ranch dogs were charging across a pasture at me not too far down the road, but a good "NO! GO HOME!" got them squared away. Ranch dogs are trained to herd things, and I am sure they think I am some wierd type of cow moving quickly down the road, obviously escaped from the fence. Livestock also get confused by the me on a bike. One day a herd of cattle started running towards the road as I went by. I don't know what they thought, maybe I had food or something. Then in the same pasture a different day there were yearling cows, younger, and they all ran away when they saw me. Wierd. Today some horses got startled and started running away, until I spoke to them whereby they stopped, realizing I was a human being.