...have a long road ahead
not sure where it will lead.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Annadel redux
Dug up a couple more pics of Grady and I at Annadel 2 weeks ago. Great times, just hard to stop and take pics.
Last weekend was a blast too-Sunday was 50 miles the hard way-4000' feet of climbing. Rode with Retrotec Crew over to Sonoma via Carneros and did Trinity (12% grade for 3.5 miles) and then backside of Veeder (pretty much the same). Best part-I hung in there and actually felt really good on the harderst parts of Veeder.
riding helps life.
Grady mastering a rocky section.
Ahhhh, really narrow singletrack. Yum.
Random shot of ferry terminal in SF as I wait for my boat...
Last weekend was a blast too-Sunday was 50 miles the hard way-4000' feet of climbing. Rode with Retrotec Crew over to Sonoma via Carneros and did Trinity (12% grade for 3.5 miles) and then backside of Veeder (pretty much the same). Best part-I hung in there and actually felt really good on the harderst parts of Veeder.
riding helps life.
Grady mastering a rocky section.
Ahhhh, really narrow singletrack. Yum.
Random shot of ferry terminal in SF as I wait for my boat...
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Meow, meow
Found this video on youTube, remember seeing it about a year ago when I read about Alleycat races in Dirt Rag...
Irresponsibly freakin' crazy, but they sure can handle a bike!
Irresponsibly freakin' crazy, but they sure can handle a bike!
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
SS at Annadel
Quick post:
-Grady and I rode our single speeds at Annadel last Sunday-2.5 hours in perfect weather and perfect dirt.
Goal of the ride was to re-introduce Grady to mountain biking and help him rememeber the love he had for the mountain bike...
Pretty sure he found it.
Smiles for miles, great trails and good friends...
I'll add more pics later...
-Grady and I rode our single speeds at Annadel last Sunday-2.5 hours in perfect weather and perfect dirt.
Goal of the ride was to re-introduce Grady to mountain biking and help him rememeber the love he had for the mountain bike...
Pretty sure he found it.
Smiles for miles, great trails and good friends...I'll add more pics later...
Saturday, January 20, 2007
No Training wheels!
Today was a big day in the Prosser-Roughley household--today Jake rode consistently for the first time without training wheels!
Both Cari and I have been working gradually with him for the past couple of months and today he and I went out out to the softball fields at Kennedy Park to practice-little did I know he would do so well!
I was amazed at his balance and ability to turn-now we just need to practice "starts" as I have to help him with a balancing push to get moving.
A truly proud moment, I called Cari at home and had her come down to see for herself (thanks for the videos Cari). The best part, Jake wanted to keep riding and riding-all told we spent almost 1.5 hours on the field and then rode the river trail (with training wheels–for now) about 1.5 miles total to our car.
What an amazing 4 year old, I am so proud of my boy!
Check out the videos:
Both Cari and I have been working gradually with him for the past couple of months and today he and I went out out to the softball fields at Kennedy Park to practice-little did I know he would do so well!
I was amazed at his balance and ability to turn-now we just need to practice "starts" as I have to help him with a balancing push to get moving.
A truly proud moment, I called Cari at home and had her come down to see for herself (thanks for the videos Cari). The best part, Jake wanted to keep riding and riding-all told we spent almost 1.5 hours on the field and then rode the river trail (with training wheels–for now) about 1.5 miles total to our car.
What an amazing 4 year old, I am so proud of my boy!
Check out the videos:
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Dear Ass that sits on Mr. Ed...
Just got back from a sweet mountain bike ride this afternoon. It was cold, real cold---37 degrees at 9AM. I was into spending some quality time with Jake today seeing as I have been really busy last week (travelling to Denver/Cheyenne and working late)—so a later afternoon ride was in order.
I lubed up the singlespeed, layered up and headed out to Skyline. It was a beautiful day, really clear and the crisp air helped keep me moving. The trails were in less than perfect shape-a lot of mud, and where sun had not hit lots of ice and frost---even at 3:00PM! I was focused on spinning my 32x16 as best I could and was happy to reach the lake in 20 minutes (from the base of the hill). The trip down Lower Skyline was great, a little slower than normal given the trail conditions and my choice of tire, but awesome none-the-less.
Now normally my thoughts are pretty out there, looming from new ideas, to my personal life, to where a mountian lion might be waiting for me...But today I could not shake the thoughts, the drama, my friend Steve has been encountering in Redding with "horse people". One person in particular, a privilaged, upper middle class, stay at home house wife (my guess) went on and on about multiple use trails and how terrible they are--read this sweet excerpt before I lay into her:
"...The IMBA keeps telling everyone that the mountain bikes create so much revenue (more than $6 billion in 2005). Per the American Horse Council, the equestrians create $102 billion a year, and 70 percent of the horse owners are trail riders. We spend much more on our horses than a mountain bike. A good trail horse costs $2,500 to $5,000. We also need a truck and trailer to get to the trailheads -- used, about $25,000. Also there are horseshoeing costs, veterinarians, feed, tack, etc.
So you can see we keep a lot of people employed. If the trails are all made multiple use, you will lose most of the equestrian trail riders and put a lot of people out of work.
Joyce Pickering lives in Red Bluff...
Her whining had me like a race car at a red light and still does.
You see, I had the privilage to work at Chris King, helping organize a wildly successful Traildaze program that regularly drew over 100 people per event (4 a year) to do trail maintenance. This was in Santa Barbara and SLO, areas of much greater wealth than Redding and our crews did indeed have a pretty good mix of hikers, horse riders and predominantly mountain bikers. We all worked together to make trails usable for all and understanding was based on the rules of the trail (Bikes yield to everyone-hikers and horses). Now understand, SoCal is a hot bed of trail use issues. I knew it was only a matter of time that the situation reared it's ugly head in the "wild-west" of Redding. Since so much of the area is open space, there are so many trails and a lot smaller, less concentrated population than SoCal and the Bay Area—it has taken a bit longer for this type of confrontation to appear. But, as with everything, it has. The thing that bugs me the most is this woman's elitist attitude—that being, because she (horse people) spends so much money, they should have full rights to the outdoors, to hell with the rest of us. Real nice.
Her breakdown kept running though my mind:
..$2500-$5000 for a horse; pretty much what I have into each of my five bikes (Steve and Kirby you know you do too!)
...$25,000 for a truck to get to the trailhead; I won't even start on the 12-16 mpg her dually gets, the impact on the environment, etc. Besides being able to ride to most every trailhead in Redding sans a car,plenty of us have $25K (at least) into much more fuel efficient vehicles (25-40 mpg) when we do need to travel
...$xxx dollars for all the other BS that comes along with riding or the sport...
Lady-YOU made the choice, to ride horses, nobody made you. It is your PRIVILAGE not your RIGHT to do so. Just as I made the decision to drop a large portion of my income on cycling (Kirby can vouch for this). I embrace this privilage and know that in order to preserve it, I must be RESPONSIBLE. That responsibility comes in many forms; proper and safe trail use, doing trail maintenance (I, like many others am woefully behind in this), and helping promote these ideals with other riders.
Are there dipshit cyclists? You bet. A nice contingent of weekend DH warriors were regulary destroying our work in Santa Barabara all in the name of cutting a line straight down a hill. We workied with the BLM and Park Service, keep repairing the trails and tried to educate the DH'rs on why a trail can not go straight down-regardless of what they saw on Kranked IV.
The world is full of idiots, whether hiking, on a horse or riding. I for one choose to believe, and regularly see, a larger majority of non-idiots. In my 18+ years of riding, I have been involved with ONE (1) incident where I spooked a horse-my fault, I learned from it and have yet, to this day had it happen again.
I ride in a lot of places with a lot of people and have not had any negative encounter with horse lovers. Maybe a scowl or two from people like Mrs. Elite as myself or my riding group wait on the side of the trail for horse to pass, but more often than not, both parties say hello, we cyclists wait patiently for the horses to pass and everyone enjoys their day in the outdoors (again pretty much destroying Mrs. Elite's attitude that billions of dollars will be lost when horse trail riders stop riding and spending money---god she pisses me off).
Making trails single user is NOT the answer. Working together IS. There are so many things different groups can do to work it out, that they FAR outweight this woman's reactionary dribble. Establish trail maintenance days, clinics, etc. Open real,intelligent dialog amoung users. Hell, maybe it has to go so far as establishing times that trails are predominantly used by a specific group (this will need to be FAIR, embraced by all groups and enforced). Whatever it is, it CAN NOT be what Mrs. Pickering is alluding to or requesting.
Whew! That's the tip of the ice berg, but I had to get it off my chest. (I won't even start with the amount of horse crap I rode through today, the 6 inch deep hoof shaped post holes from riding on wet trails, and the crap...)
Go to my happy place, go to my happy place...here's some pics of that place...
Ice, Ice baby. It was all over the place, even up to 1/2 inch thick in small puddles and on the trail...
My faithful mascot. Picked this guy up off the trail in Redding like 6 years ago and it's been on my SS ever since. Grady calls it Umchookooroocharoo. He's a Bitch. I don't call it anything.
Tire choice was like bringing a knife to a gun fight. Maybe it's time to upgrade the hardpack tires I've had on here for 4 years to something new?
Lovely self portrait of my fat ass. I love this part of the trail though, really inspirational...
Mud condition tires? Nope. Had to watch the descent, especially corners. I was successful in staying upright though!
I lubed up the singlespeed, layered up and headed out to Skyline. It was a beautiful day, really clear and the crisp air helped keep me moving. The trails were in less than perfect shape-a lot of mud, and where sun had not hit lots of ice and frost---even at 3:00PM! I was focused on spinning my 32x16 as best I could and was happy to reach the lake in 20 minutes (from the base of the hill). The trip down Lower Skyline was great, a little slower than normal given the trail conditions and my choice of tire, but awesome none-the-less.
Now normally my thoughts are pretty out there, looming from new ideas, to my personal life, to where a mountian lion might be waiting for me...But today I could not shake the thoughts, the drama, my friend Steve has been encountering in Redding with "horse people". One person in particular, a privilaged, upper middle class, stay at home house wife (my guess) went on and on about multiple use trails and how terrible they are--read this sweet excerpt before I lay into her:
"...The IMBA keeps telling everyone that the mountain bikes create so much revenue (more than $6 billion in 2005). Per the American Horse Council, the equestrians create $102 billion a year, and 70 percent of the horse owners are trail riders. We spend much more on our horses than a mountain bike. A good trail horse costs $2,500 to $5,000. We also need a truck and trailer to get to the trailheads -- used, about $25,000. Also there are horseshoeing costs, veterinarians, feed, tack, etc.
So you can see we keep a lot of people employed. If the trails are all made multiple use, you will lose most of the equestrian trail riders and put a lot of people out of work.
Joyce Pickering lives in Red Bluff...
Her whining had me like a race car at a red light and still does.
You see, I had the privilage to work at Chris King, helping organize a wildly successful Traildaze program that regularly drew over 100 people per event (4 a year) to do trail maintenance. This was in Santa Barbara and SLO, areas of much greater wealth than Redding and our crews did indeed have a pretty good mix of hikers, horse riders and predominantly mountain bikers. We all worked together to make trails usable for all and understanding was based on the rules of the trail (Bikes yield to everyone-hikers and horses). Now understand, SoCal is a hot bed of trail use issues. I knew it was only a matter of time that the situation reared it's ugly head in the "wild-west" of Redding. Since so much of the area is open space, there are so many trails and a lot smaller, less concentrated population than SoCal and the Bay Area—it has taken a bit longer for this type of confrontation to appear. But, as with everything, it has. The thing that bugs me the most is this woman's elitist attitude—that being, because she (horse people) spends so much money, they should have full rights to the outdoors, to hell with the rest of us. Real nice.
Her breakdown kept running though my mind:
..$2500-$5000 for a horse; pretty much what I have into each of my five bikes (Steve and Kirby you know you do too!)
...$25,000 for a truck to get to the trailhead; I won't even start on the 12-16 mpg her dually gets, the impact on the environment, etc. Besides being able to ride to most every trailhead in Redding sans a car,plenty of us have $25K (at least) into much more fuel efficient vehicles (25-40 mpg) when we do need to travel
...$xxx dollars for all the other BS that comes along with riding or the sport...
Lady-YOU made the choice, to ride horses, nobody made you. It is your PRIVILAGE not your RIGHT to do so. Just as I made the decision to drop a large portion of my income on cycling (Kirby can vouch for this). I embrace this privilage and know that in order to preserve it, I must be RESPONSIBLE. That responsibility comes in many forms; proper and safe trail use, doing trail maintenance (I, like many others am woefully behind in this), and helping promote these ideals with other riders.
Are there dipshit cyclists? You bet. A nice contingent of weekend DH warriors were regulary destroying our work in Santa Barabara all in the name of cutting a line straight down a hill. We workied with the BLM and Park Service, keep repairing the trails and tried to educate the DH'rs on why a trail can not go straight down-regardless of what they saw on Kranked IV.
The world is full of idiots, whether hiking, on a horse or riding. I for one choose to believe, and regularly see, a larger majority of non-idiots. In my 18+ years of riding, I have been involved with ONE (1) incident where I spooked a horse-my fault, I learned from it and have yet, to this day had it happen again.
I ride in a lot of places with a lot of people and have not had any negative encounter with horse lovers. Maybe a scowl or two from people like Mrs. Elite as myself or my riding group wait on the side of the trail for horse to pass, but more often than not, both parties say hello, we cyclists wait patiently for the horses to pass and everyone enjoys their day in the outdoors (again pretty much destroying Mrs. Elite's attitude that billions of dollars will be lost when horse trail riders stop riding and spending money---god she pisses me off).
Making trails single user is NOT the answer. Working together IS. There are so many things different groups can do to work it out, that they FAR outweight this woman's reactionary dribble. Establish trail maintenance days, clinics, etc. Open real,intelligent dialog amoung users. Hell, maybe it has to go so far as establishing times that trails are predominantly used by a specific group (this will need to be FAIR, embraced by all groups and enforced). Whatever it is, it CAN NOT be what Mrs. Pickering is alluding to or requesting.
Whew! That's the tip of the ice berg, but I had to get it off my chest. (I won't even start with the amount of horse crap I rode through today, the 6 inch deep hoof shaped post holes from riding on wet trails, and the crap...)
Go to my happy place, go to my happy place...here's some pics of that place...
Ice, Ice baby. It was all over the place, even up to 1/2 inch thick in small puddles and on the trail...
My faithful mascot. Picked this guy up off the trail in Redding like 6 years ago and it's been on my SS ever since. Grady calls it Umchookooroocharoo. He's a Bitch. I don't call it anything.
Tire choice was like bringing a knife to a gun fight. Maybe it's time to upgrade the hardpack tires I've had on here for 4 years to something new?
Lovely self portrait of my fat ass. I love this part of the trail though, really inspirational...
Mud condition tires? Nope. Had to watch the descent, especially corners. I was successful in staying upright though!
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Oh 7
Happy New Year from Ken, Cari and Jake!Well it is now 2007 and what better way to kick off the new year than to head out a long mountain bike ride with some old friends? That's exactly what I did on 1.1.07
Struggling to wake up and be at Annadel by 9:00AM, I found a lot of frost on the ground and a slight headache from the Jameson and coke from the new years eve celebration the night before. But no matter, I was heading to my new favorite place to ride (Annadel) and actually riding with Johnoss, my good friend whom I haven't had the pleasure of riding with in, oh, probably more than a year.
The drive over Trinity was really nice, there was a lot of ice on the road and the morning was really looking nice-clear and even kinda warm. I telephoned Johnoss to verify our rendevous and see who else was riding. He had two friends coming from CVC and Scot Nichol (Chuck Ibis himself) planning to join us. I haven't had the opportunity to ride with Scot since the Gourmet Century we put on in Napa many moons ago, and I knew he knew Sonoma riding better than anyone, so it was sure to be a great day!
We decided to do about 4 miles on the road to "warm-up" before hitting Lawndale Rd and the sweet, sweet single-track of Annadel. What a perfect day-we kept gushing about how awesome was it, here we were in the middle of winter and out on our bikes, in the sun. Well our ride went here and there, thoughout Annadel and all being said and done we spent almost 4 hours riding. Sweet doesn't even begin to describe the place. Imagine a narrow, winding singletrack where you're in your big ring spinning as fast as you can. Now picture good friends and you're almost there. Needless to say, it never fails that leaving the place with a smile and anticipation for the next visit is always on the platter.
Did I mention 4 hours of mountain biking? That's almost the sum total of my mtn riding for 2006. Needless to say on climbs I was the caboose-Scot is a beast, leading us by a long-shot and definitely showing the goods-I look forward to more adventures with the crew (just need to get on my bike a bit more in 07).
I'm also including some remnants from our Michigan Christmas. Had a great time out there (see Cari's blahg for more pics)—ended up returning with 6 large suitcases/duffels of presents-Jake is a certified Star Wars and Lego nut now...
Happy new year to everyone!
Our little Snow Man!
Jake and His Snow Walrus...
Frontin' on the cell while chattin' with YaYa
Jake is bowled over by the amount of luggage we brought home
Rest stop I: The marsh at Annadel...Scot's telling us how far we are going to ride
Crispy mud
Scot heading up and over the oak stump
Johnoss version of body english-more like spasm
Heading into a sweet oak forest downhill
Scot heading through the clump grass and oak section of our ride
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