All Things Bikes and Tacos! (...and every vehicle imaginable)

I rarely wash my bikes but after a shortish fire road ride on my gravel bike in Santa Cruz this morning, a few hours after our overnight rain, I felt compelled to at least give it a quick rinse to remove a ton of redwood duff around the bottom bracket. After a few rains and the duff washes away and turns to mud I’ll get lazy again. Even just a quarter inch of rain here made last week’s dusty trails pretty perfect.

 

For anyone wondering, just put a Marzocchi Z1 Coil fork on my bike and am loving it! It’s about 500 grams heavier than my Lyrik, but bumps are so smooth and cornering traction is unreal. Still poppy enough to jump off anything. I was able to unlock some new gaps in my local trails, and landing in rock gardens is more confidence inspiring. Stoked for the price.

 

We completed the White Rim in a day! I loved it and will definitely be looking for more single day epics to plan!!!

We did it CW, starting from the top of the Mineral Bottom switchbacks. I think this was a good plan as we got the boring/sloggy mineral bottom climb out of the way in the dark while there were no cars to dust us. This also allowed us an easy water cache at about mile 20 (at the park entrance). We had chugged about 2L of water in that first 20 miles and the refilled with 4L for the rest of the day. I'm very curious to try it CCW now though as it was a bit rough hitting the hardscrabble climb at mile 84. Weather was perfect; 60 degrees and partly cloudy with some headwind in the afternoon and very minimal sand due to the recent storms. It took us 13 hours total with about 11 hours of moving time. We had started at 5am, so this got us back to camp just before sunset.

First light at the entrance of Canyonlands; LaSal mountains in the background.


The road ahead!!!


Shafer switchbacks!


Try to find the mountain goat! ***He's almost dead center of the picture on a big-ish rock.


Cold but happy the sun is coming up as we descend Shafer


Some of the random beautiful scenery. You see this type of thing around every corner!


Finally hitting the green river at Mile 75ish


Our final climb up the mineral bottom switchbacks. Our van was at the low point, left-center on the ridge.


Looking back down the mineral bottom switchbacks.

 

NICE! Kudos dude! that is some serious riding and a really good pace!

 

Yeti SB120LR playing in the fall.

 

PSA
Fall riding in Georgia can result in hitchhikers

 

time for a new bike. burn that one down

 

nope nope nope nope nope.

 

AMEN!

 

Haha…i would have ghost biked that off a cliff….then screamed the same way as this….

 

Note to self, no mountain biking in GA

 

Truck and bike on a recent road trip. Did some camping, played tourist, visited some family and friends, and I even got some mountain bike rides in. Photo taken near Bishop, California.

 

I like the fall colors this time of year.

 

What kind is that?

 

Looks like a Golden Orb Spider. We get some monsters down in Florida. You can look off trail at Santos and see some real face huggers.

 

photobombed by his tiny cousin top right

 

It’s a Joro. Another invasive species.

Harmless to humans, just creepy AF.

 

creepy AF is putting it mildly, I feel like. lol.

 

Don't look up while you are riding at night. They show up better with lights than during the day and it is amazing how many are over your head at all times. And creepy...

 

That is awesome! Nice work!!
Currently living vicariously through all of you while I heal from wrist surgery. Keep it coming...