Hope for Bryden

Bryden is a special little boy that needs a lot of help. My wife and I are commiting to help raise money for medical treatment for this little guy. We haven't hashed out all the details but it will involve some bike rides. Watch for details.

Cheers,

Birthday Shopping Results

Hello,

The wife surprised me with a big ole gift card to Wheeler Dealer. So I got to go get more stuff for the ride in 10 days. What did I get? A helmet that is more for road biking, some shoes with the clips on the bottom, and and extra master link for my chain.

Shoes:

The shoes I bought were the Sonoma's by Specialized.

So right now I'm going up and down the hallways in my office falling of my bike with my feet stuck to the pedals.

Helmet:


Nothing fancy, but it is more of the road bike shape and supposed to "breathe" better. My other helmet is more for mountain biking. So I guess the mountain biking helmet is... well I guess can take a harder hit?

I've got a week and a half to get used to getting in and out of these pedals. This'll be fun! Lots of good bruises so it looks like I'm a serious dude!

Cheers,

Tracking Rides - 3rd week of April

I haven't posted my daily rides last week. So here is just an overall update.

Tuesday: Around Lake Hefner w/a buddy
Wednesday: Two Lakes - broke chain nearby Al's Bicycles (Thanks Al's for being open!)
Thursday: Pedalled to they gym, worked out, pedalled back.
Friday: Ran the Bluff Creek trail with a different buddy

It was a good week. My road bike ghost shifted a lot (shifted gears unintentionally) before breaking the chain master link. Hopefully fixing the chain will alleviate the problem.

Cheers,

Tracking rides

Just tracking what I've ridden recently. Last week had some beautiful weather. I took two days and went to the Bluff's (Tuesday and Wednesday). Thursday I did the Two Lakes route with a small edit. So, 8 miles of mountain biking and 20+ of road biking. I wish I could do that as a minimum every week.

Cheers,

There are some crazy people out there...

I ride at lunch. A two hour ride to me is a good long ride. I'd love to take longer ones but I just don't have the time. I was reading today about some longer races. We've all heard about the 'Tour de' something or other in a baquette eating country. What is in the US? I watched a couple of the events during the Tour of California. That looked really cool. It made me want to take off for a month and go peddle through a scenic state. I've found one crazy dang race out there, the Race Across America. It surprised me at first. "Who in their right mind...?!?!?" But then I got to thinking about it. It sounds like a great vacation for two months.

I wandered around the net for a bit longer and came across some records on the UMCA's website. There are records for going North to South and South to North in Oklahoma but no East to West or West to East. Why not? Who knows? Probably because North/South is 230 miles while East/West is over 300. Here is the route I would take if I was going to go East/West. (Panhandle excluded. I've been there. Don't wanna go back.)



Cheers,

Ran the Bluffs

Hello all,

I got out and ran the Bluff Creek trail today. (yes, I was on foot. This goes against the idea of the blog, but it's my blog. So blah!) It is fun to get out there at least once a week and see what all is changing on the trail. Just since I made it out there there has already been a large change on the trail. Another couple hundred yards of really good tree trails have been added. The parking lot is coming along. And I had some fun with co-workers at the section where the bridge will be crossing the dirt trail. The bridge is basically crossing a big ravine and creek bed. The trees have all been cut out where the bridge will be going in. Some BMX'ers have been out there and smoothed out a nice packed section of path where you can go up and down the ravine. It is fun on foot or wheel. Two of my buddies where pedaling and bottomed out on their front shock when they hit the bottom of the creek bed.

Good times!

Cheers,

Traveling Trophy

Here is the traveling trophy at my office. This trophy passes from one rider to another. How do you obtain this symbol of strength and dominance? Well, you have to crash. The person who crashed last or got hurt or wrecked their bike gets this trophy proudly displayed on their desk.

The trophy is made up of a sterling silver cup that I obtained from somewhere. Also various broken bike pieces have ended up wrapped around it or in the goblet. We have a rusted bike chain, flat tube, broken crank, and broken rear derailleur as a start. There also is a picture that was the original trophy. The picture is just a piece of paper, nothing fancy. The picture used to hang on the person's door of whomever crashed last.

Some ground rules to obtain trophy:
- The current trophy holder determines whether or not passing of the trophy is practical based on;
- Crash
- Any blood?
- Pain involved with riding that would be related to a slip, crash or goof-up (can receive trophy.
- other circumstances are welcomed.

A perfect example

Cheers,

Mountain Bike Crash - reason: tree roots

Here is an old picture from when I crashed sometime last fall on the Bluff Creek trail. The bike landed that way. I didn’t put it there like that intentionally. You are supposed to go up over the roots to the right of the tree. I hit one of the roots off balanced, I bounced of the tree with my hip and left elbow and rolled down the hill to the left. I crawled back up the hill for the photo. I then peddled back to the truck.



My captioning:


Cheers,

Lake Henfer -> Lake Overholser -> Wheeler Dealer

I got out today despite the 30 mph winds. I was going to my circaqueous route of going around Lake Hefner, Lake Overholser and back. Just south of Lake Overholser my rear derailer failed on me. It was ghost shifting like crazy and then slipped. My 27 speed turned into a 3 speed. I had all three gears on my front crank but only the hardest gear on the rear. I immediately headed back on 36th street back to Wheeler Dealer to fix me up.


courtesy of NOAA

Cheers,

3 Days of Bluffs and some construction

March 17th - 19th I was dragged kicking and screaming to Bluff Creek. It was rough. :)

The Bluffs look like they have some major work going on. I haven't checked any of the local forums recently. But it looks like a paved parking lot will be going in considerably closer to the trail than the original parking. If you look at the map, the parking lot seems to be going in at the East Double Track. Also, there looks like a bridge might go somewhat West Northwest from the parking lot to the other side of the trail. I've got all kinds of conspiracy theories from paved trail, to houses to martians. Seems like I need to check with some forums.

(after looking around)

Bluff Creek construction

Cheers,

Stillwater Library - Smart Cycling Class

The Stillwater Public Library put on a three day bicycle safety course. I think that it is awesome that some city organizations are doing things like this. Below is more information.

Details: "Smart Cycling" is a a three-day bicycle safety course taught by certified League of American Bicyclists Instructors and held at the Stillwater Public Library, 1107 S. Duck St., on Friday, March 20, Saturday, March 21, and Saturday, April 4.

Enroll by Monday, March 16 at the Stillwater Public Library or Cooper's Bicycle Center, 220 S. Main St. There is a $30 fee for materials. Limited to adults and teens over 13.

For more information, call (405) 372-3633, visit the web site at http://library.stillwater.org or e-mail askalibrarian@stillwater.org.

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