Baptism by fire

On Friday, Andy (Highgear Mechanic) called and said my bike was built. It was raining when he called, so there wasn't going to be a chance to ride it then. That meant I might as well take it to Branched Oak and race on it for part of the 12 hours. Initial thoughts, I love that bike!!!!! Andy, you did an incredible job putting it together.

About the 12 hours, somebody forgot to tell weather this is Spring. WOW it was cold. What made it worse was that it was wet cold. So, we would do a lap / change into clothes that were cold and wet / shiver for two hours / change back into our wet riding clothes / and start the whole process again. Next time we do this the Goatheads will need to bring one of two items. A portable fire pit or an RV.

Even though we were cold and VERY TIRED, Team Goathead finished third in the team division

First Dirt!

Took my oldest son out to Tranquility yesterday.
We rode one lap and then three more times around the creek.
He had a lot of fun, said his legs were reeealllly tired afterwards.
He hung with on all the climbs, only had to walk one spot because of being in the wrong gear. After breaks, when I asked if he was ready, he just mounted up and shook his head yes.

We bumped into Dale working in the trees. He suggested ice cream post ride. I'm a sucker for ice cream.

Whoops

I'm not riding in the race this weekend, because I misunderstood what we'd be doing for 12 hours and didn't train right.

Entertainment options

If you're not doing the 12 hour MTB race at Branched Oak this weekend, you can always go see the new Trek movie, although you might be disappointed. I hear it's actually watchable.


Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'

Uhhhhh?????

Somebody brought this into the shop after they found it on a ride.

The anticipation is killing me

Must watch TV

We are living in the golden age of television programing.

Skillz

I wanna Know what love is...

As if we needed more proof that Guster is the best band on the planet.

I Wanna Know What Love Is from Dead Elm on Vimeo.

It's official

Team Goathead is sending a contingent to the 12 hour race on the 16th. My question is who wants to take us on!!!!!! Before you answer the challenge you should know some facts. At last years Dakota 50 four members of team Goathead finished within 4 hours of the winner. In three separate adventure races Team Goathead has finished in the top half of the field (One year we fielded two teams). In the local Psycowpath series, Goatheads have been known to finish in the top ten of the beginner or 1st timers field. Still want to take us on? We'll see you at Branched Oak.

No Drop

Sunday at 2:30
Group ride at Lewis & Clark
This will be a "No Drop Ride"



Which basically means that if you pass out, Jon will resuscitate you.

NEW FOR THE COMMUTE

Only you can rid the world of flying debris.

Morning Show Host Starts Charity To Rid World Of Flying Debris

Let's do it again

JC, JA and myself had a blast at Tranquility. We had so much fun we're doing another night ride on Friday. 9:00 / Swanson - who is in?

Up!

Join us

Several Goatheads are headed to Tranquility for a night ride tonight. (Wed.) Join us in the North Parking lot and we will head out about 9:00.

GH in training

Picked up a man-sized set of wheels this weekend for my oldest son.

I can't wait for him to be ready to come ride with us!

I can hear it now:

"Hello"

"Hey, is AB home?"

"Yeah, who's this?"

"It's Lumpy. Can he come out and ride today?"

"Um, yeah. Can I come too?"

"... Uh... Well... We were going to ride a trail that has real hills, and you're... kind of..."

"What are you trying to say?!?!"

"Nothing. It's just..."

"Just what?"

"Just drop him off at my house at 2:30. Bye."

Tranquility - 2009

Ride 1 complete.

Oh, and this makes me want a Harley Davidson:

Excellent Job!!!

In the last week I have been able to make a couple trips out to Jewell. Wow, that re-route at the beginning is great!!!!!!! Those two new switchbacks add some more difficulty to an already great trail. So what if I fell over trying to make the first switchback on my first attempt. Goathead world knows I'm not mr. bike-handling-expert. So THOR, way to go with that trail.
I do have one complaint about Jewell. Two Goatheads have busted a chain in the exact same spot. Maybe THOR could look into that and fix the problem with the trail

Swanson is also in great shape. I did notice a pretty big tree was missing by the corner of the fire-station. Hand of God or thor?

I'm calling it now, next Sunday (April 19th) we will have a Goathead group ride at Tranquility, 3:00. Or if weather permits, maybe there will be one this Sunday too (without me).

Offroad Powerboards

Shredding a trail near you...

Spring Headache

This weather makes my head hurt......................

Wet Weather Workout

Since it's raining out this weekend, we got together in Lumpy's backyard to get in shape for better weather.

Dirt Time

Well, the 2009 riding season is officially underway for me. JA, JC, Raf I enjoyed riding with you yesterday. It was also nice to see most of my HG buddies for a few seconds.
Below you will see the only recumbent that will not get you banned from the Goatheads for life. Andy does a good job of piloting this beast, while Eric does an admirable job as navigator.




New for 2009 - the official Goathead Jersey.

Beach volleyball makes me feel the same way

I had a couple of thoughts after watching this clip. First, the stereotype about local TV anchor men and women being teleprompter-reading-zombies is true. Once they go off script, they become bumbling idiots. And second, I never want to have a medical emergency when the fat guy on the left is around. As I bleed out and die, he would stand there slack-jawed and frozen.

Meat-Maddness

My NCAA brackets look pretty good right now with 14 of the sweet 16 left. The problem is that there were very few upsets, so most people's brackets looks pretty good. Here's a bracket that might provide a few more upsets. Your 4 number one seeds are Steak, Lobster, Chicken and Bacon, but there are plenty of up and coming meats that want to rise up and knock off one of the titans.

Let it begin.

Commence pedaling.
Swanson is Prime.
Dirt is good......


......Three and a half months till Crested Butte.

Sunday ride

Who's up for some gravel on Sunday? Let's talk.

What do I need to do?.......

Double D and I made a little promo video for the State Tournament. It didn't help much. We got bounced in the first round, but we had the biggest and rowdiest student section of the whole tourney.

(Some of you will recognize Tony Walters)



Basketball season is over. Riding season is on the clock.

Never seen anything like this before...

Kind of like trials, kind of not.

Edit: I don't know how to stop it from playing automatically, so here's a link.

Edit edit: No BRAKES!!

I'm torn

Despite several hours on the trainer and the occasional gravel or snow ride, I always pack on 10 - 15 pounds every winter. I've pretty much just given into the fact that it's going to happen and I realize it's all about my diet choices. This graph pretty much sums up where I'm at.



So that brings me to today. March is around the corner and my brain is telling me to start paying a little more attention to my diet............ Unfortunately, I just came across a recipe for "Chicken-Fried Bacon"




Am I going to pass this info onto my wife, and expect it on the dinner table sometime soon? Yes.
Am I going to regret it once the new "Team-Goathead" race uniforms come in? Yes......... And so will all those in attendance at area races.




Mr. Goodbody approves of our uniform, but not my diet.

An Extreme Sport?

This would change Adventure Races considerably.



Actually, considering my state of mind when I finished the Adventure Race, this would have been a very bad thing. Very bad. ;)

And the winner is......

# 1 Porcupine Rim - Moab, Utah

We've drawn this out as long as we possibly could, but it's time to put a bullet in the head of this little countdown.
The newest issue of Bike Mag rates North America's Best Trails - 11 trails and 22 runners up that represent the best mountain biking on the planet. Porcupine Rim won the # 1 spot for "best descent." All I can say is, "I concur."
If I go back to Moab, I'll try to ride some of the other trails in the area, but Porcupine will be a must ride every time.

Mark was actually a featured photographer in this issue.

Now we must move on. The list served its purpose, it got us through the dark days of winter. With spring around the corner, Team Goathead is fervently making plans for the next epic excursion. We are leaning toward the Salida or Crested Butte area. I hope to cross a few more trails off of my list. The top two right now would be the Monarch Crest trail and the 401. I also want to ride Zippity-do-da in Fruita at some point, but that may have to wait.
Are there any other trails that every mountain bike should experience?

Hate Crime

This is a funny story and a VERY expensive move.

Game Time: Nuclear Winter

Thanks to everyone that organized and hosted the Panama Adventure Race. We now know our way around Panama as if it were our own home town, and we know a shortcut if you need to get from the tennis courts to the water tower in hurry...Just ask, we'll tell you., there's no need to keep important info like that to ourselves.

The settings on my camera were all screwed up, so I decided to add a couple more effects to make them even more screwed up. I was going for a post-nuclear-apocalypse look.

Warm-Up Ride

 

#2 Dakota Ridge - Golden, CO

Anybody who reads our blog (all 3 of you) knew this trail was going to be high on our list. When the Goatheads travel to Denver this trail is ALWAYS our first stop. Why? Perhaps it is the lung busting climb 30 seconds into the ride. We have often arrived in Denver at lunch time only to be riding this trail two hours later. That is not a lot of time to adjust to the altitude. More than one Goathead has finished the first climb a little dizzy. Once on top it is a nice smooth ride. Actually the top is strewn with rocks and drop-offs. Eventually you make your way over to the Red Rocks area, after navigating some very hard switchbacks. After a VERY LONG climb in Red Rocks, the trail actually does get a little smoother on the ride back to the parking lot. So in review, climbs, downhills, switchbacks, and rocks – a perfect combo.
However, lots of trails have had those features. Dakota Ridge makes it into the #2 spot because of epicness (i.e. great Goathead moments). Could be: crashes, an amazing display of bike handling, good display of fitness, or just a group of guys really enjoying each other’s company.

Good times are comin...

I put a reminder on my desk.

Tough Guy Competition

On Sunday, 3 Goatheads will be competing in the the Panama Adventure Race. It looks like the weather will be a little chilly, but very manageable. This will be our third adventure race. If everything goes well, I think we should consider the Tough Guy Challenge

Billed as "the safest most dangerous taste of physical and mental endurance pain in the world", the Tough Guy Challenge took place yesterday, February 1st, on South Perton Farm, near Wolverhampton, England. Thousands of challengers (men and women) started the endurance race, with hundreds dropping out along the way due to exhaustion or injury - broken bones, dislocations, and over 600 cases of hypothermia.

Out and Back

Got out to Colorado this weekend for a day of skiing. Beautiful weather and perfect conditions for T-Rev to throw down.



Unfortunately, I didn't have a bike out there, which really sucked, cause Sunday morning was gorgeous. We decided to hike Dakota Ridge, which just made me more angry. Although when you walk it, you see lines you never noticed before. Plans for a Goathead trip this summer are still up in the air, but if our travels take us through Denver, we are definitely stopping for a quick lap........ I've got the bug.




........ Oh yeah, T-Rev has a girlfriend. She's real, I touched her..... and she's super cool.... Don't screw this up Trev, it's your last chance at happiness! JK

February?

55 degrees in February- you can't pass that up for a ride. The Professor and I headed out on the Keystone trail south from Harrison to the end in Bellevue and back. Wind was pretty good in our face on the way back but still a great ride and great to get out and put in some miles in Feb.

In Bellevue, as the Prof called it "the ghost of Walmart past"

Near Bellevue people on the trail kept telling us to look out for the snake...didn't see it the 1st time we went past heading into the wind but had no problem seeing/hearing the rattlesnake on the return trip. Wife wasn't too happy I got this close to take the pic.

Nice...

#3 Bear Creek/Methodist Mountain - Salida, CO

Alright, that's enough of this Youtube nonsense, it's time to get back to our regularly scheduled programming.

# 3 on the list of top Goathead trails, is Methodist Mountain trail in Salida, Colorado. I'm not sure if that's the correct name for it, I've heard it called a couple of different things. I'm pretty sure it's part of the Rainbow trail, which is a longer network of trails in the area. We actually had no idea where we were. In fact, when we woke up that morning we had no idea we would even be in the Salida area. It was raining hard in Denver and it looked like it was going to be a wash-out. We turned on the weather channel and saw on the radar that it wasn't raining to the south. We called a local bike shop in Salida (2 hours south) and asked for a weather report. He said it wasn't raining, but it looked like it could. We had two choices. Spend the rest of the day in T-Rev's apartment watching Gwar videos, or taking a chance on Salida.

We definitely made the right choice. The Weather turned out to be perfect and the trail was worth the drive.

Talking Goat says, Whaaaaaaaaat!

Q: What did the goat say when the professor left a message on his answering machine?

A: Whaaaaaaat!

Q: What did the goat say when the professor said this is a flat trail?

A: Whaaaaaaat!

Q: What did the goat say when Lumpy asked if he wanted gloves before he rode the rope swing?

A: Whaaaaaaat!

Bike Rack Rap

I used to be intimidated by bike racks on buses..... that is no longer the case. Thank you Mr. Theo

Street cred

Giraffes just moved up a few notches on my list of animals with street cred. These two giraffes are straight-up, thugs.

Off-season????

More pics from the last day in January.

Today is

Today is.......

Big-wheel back flip

I'm not impressed..... he didn't stick the landing.