Parkside Terrace Dumpster Fire-Durango, CO

The Dumpster Arsonist strikes again! This time I filmed it.

Yellowstone Bike Tour

The Bike tour route 337 miles in about 5 days with Bob trailers is doable?

I have been thinking about doing a bike tour for many years now. With school and racing and work it has been a non-realistic idea. Now that school is done with I have the opportunity to do a bike tour and I want to go back to Yellowstone. I lived in Yellowstone with my father and brother when I was a youngster during the summers. My father worked for the park service and we left after the fires of 88' and I haven't been back since. Even living in Jackson only a short trip away, I was just busy racing and riding around that area. Well I am ready to get back to my roots and see the place I once new pretty well.

The plan is to start from my fathers house in Victor, Idaho and travel up to West Yellowstone back to Mammoth Hot Springs were we lived. Cruise down to Gardiner, Montana, hit the boiling river, an incredible hot spring that we always went to, and then continue on through Yellowstone down through Grand Teton National park and to Jackson were I was born. From there we will finish with a climb up over Teton Pass much slower than the record pace that I set a few years ago (Bragging!) and finish at the house. Pretty freaking sweet!

We are going to do this a week or so after US Pro road nats in September unless my schedule and commitments change with the team. Still waiting on Tour of Missouri and don't know if we are doing that race or not. I am going to be riding with my brother and so far it is just the two of us and will probably stay that way to make good time and make it easy to travel. I will probably use a bob trailer, but panier's are not out of the question and a mountain bike with slicks.

It should be a blast. I have never done this before so any tips you have for me, throw them my way. I felt a little tired today after the past weekend. I took a little rest and am ready to get back to it. There is a Mountain Bike race here this weekend, an old classic that has been brought back and the course goes up the Hermosa Creek trail. I think I will give it a try and see how it goes. Will be good training for the crits coming up as it will be hard from the start. Off to pint night, $2 pints.. just a couple as the season is still underway.

Velo De Animas Century

Corey "Big time" Collier at the helm in the Westy!
The Sangre De Cristo Moutain range
The collegiate peaks from our campsite outside Salida @ 6 a.m.
We were looking for coffee and found this Synchro Westy, so sweet!
Pre race, Westy was a mess, slept awesome and she got us there and back

Mike Carrol and my bro Zach cruising. we lost Mike to a flat. 50 miles back solo, ouch!

My bro was so worked after the ride that he just left his skiddy on!

Not much to report about Salida race. The course was awesome, the field was stacked, and the legs actually felt o.k. for not doing any hard efforts since the Tour de Delta. I just didn't have the mental focus to suffer and wasn't really into the race. It was pretty negative all around, a break went, I attacked a bunch, RMCF covered every attack with a few guys, I blew myself up along with most of the fudge guys, then threw in the towel and rode back to town. I liked the course, and Salida was a cool town and nice area, just when you race all the time, it is tough to pin the numbers on anymore this late in the season.

The Camping in the Westfalia van was awesome. I slept like a baby and felt nice and refreshed. I could have done without the race and just did a sweet camp and fishing trip up there as the Arkansas river is supposed to be some really good fishing.

After not dong so well yesterday and getting the legs opened back up I decided to do another good day of training. My brother really wanted to do the Durango Century ride from Durango to Farmington. It started about 300 yards from my house so I rolled out of bed late, grabbed a quick bit and some coffee and just made it at 6:55 to registration. There was just enough time to have my bro pin on my number and we were off at 7:00.

I had a blast riding with all those people and they were stoked that I came out to attend. The entry goes to a good cause and it is a great training ride. Some people took it pretty serious and it was definitely a bit sketchy at times. There was more chopping going on before the dirt road than at a Ginsu Knife convention. Some guy with a sweet rat tail mullet chopped my brother and almost crashed him out! Karma got him as he soon flatted and was forced to abandon the ride but not without using every cussword known to man. Relax dude, it is a fun tour!

I had no plans of riding this tour as a race and considered it would be pretty lame for a pro to crush the weekend warriors. Well some people had other plans and as I just followed wheels soon it was a group of three and then my bro and I. We rode for about 30 miles swapping off to the finish. I waited for him at the end because I didn't want to be the first guy in. We ended up finishing within about 45 seconds of the record time from last year of 3:51:oo or something like that. Whatever, it was fun and awesome to be out with my brother.

Best part was after the ride my brother was so worked and starving he looked for the post ride feed put on by the tour. Well he went to the first picnic tables that he saw with food. It turned out not to be the actual tour feed, but a church party on Sunday afternoon. He jumped in the food line and filled his plate and stuffed his face. He said "people kept looking at me all funny, and I finally noticed that there were no other riders there". He finished his meal and came over to the real post race feed, ate some more. Awesome! Nice work Zach, it was good to ride with you.

Rest day tomorrow! Sweet, Contador won the Tour de France, whatever?

Westy Trip to Salida

I am heading over to Salida, Colorado today to do the Colorado State Championship road race tomorrow. I decided to go at the last minute because I am not motivated enough to go out and make myself suffer on my own. It is supposed to be a tough race with a three mile climb per lap.

I am traveling over there with Corey Collier from Durango and we are taking his Westfalia van. It is always a gamble going over mountain passes in a Westy. Who knows if we will make it to the race? At least we can just pull over and camp where ever if the thing dies on us. I have faith in the westy. Check out www.gowesty.com for some cool Westy's.

Wish me luck and be on the lookout for a new Matt Shriver.com soon!

Le Tour de Dope!

A cool old tree with Ute Mountain in the Background
Mesa Verde: Balcony House
The Clif Palace Panorama, Mesa Verde National Park

What can I say about the state of cycling? It is awesome to see the dopers getting caught. I can't say I was a bit surprised about Alexander Vinokourof. He always seemed a bit shady. As for Rasmusen being let go from Rabobank for missing tests and lying saying he was in Mexico, well, that is pretty shady. I think there is a deeper issue that isn't being talked about and I think it will come out sooner or later that he failed a test. Although it is killing our sport now, it will be much better for the future of cycling. Cleaning house of the big names that are on the gear is a good start. It is just a shame that cycling gets only the bad press when other sports like football and baseball have much worse doping problems that get overlooked. Things have to be bad before they can get better i guess.

I returned from Canada on Monday back to Durango. The flights were very bumpy because of the storms and monsoon season. I left Seattle at 12:00 and got home at 10:00. It could be worse, I made it home!

My mother has come down to Durango for a bit of a visit. We went over to Mesa Verde National Park, just a short 35 miles from Durango. I have lived here for seven years and never been there. It is incredible and was well worth the trip over. The ruins were super cool. It is also an awesome ride from Durango, over a hundred miles with good climbing. Anyway, I need to take a nap. I am still in recovery mode from BC. More later........

Tour de Delta Warped up: 3rd in Road Race!

The break with the peleton 3 minutes behind us.
Rotating ont the flats for ever!
It was close but I was out gunned in the sprint and tired from working, that is me in the back.
A funny looking podium!

Photos :Greg Descantes

Quick update before I have to hit the road. I had an awesome ride today. Got in a break at 5k into the 140K race and it stuck! Four of us rotated and I ended up getting 3rd. It was so hard at the end and staying away for 135k was insane! Anyway, I am super stoked and so are the rest of the guys. It was close. At one point we had 4 minutes, then by the last lap it was down to under one minute. With all the cat and mouseing at the end you could see the mainfield bearing down on us, it made me nervous and I hit out a bit to early and got gunned by Andrew Pinfold and Doug Olerenshal from Healthnet. The field crossed the line about 10 seconds behind us. It was awesome! Back to Durango tomorrow. More later.

Coming back around: Delta hillclimb

Matched up with Kyle Wamsley from Navigators, The last 10% pitch of the climb hurt, badly!

Photos: Greg Descantes www.descantes.com

My teammate Austin and I got held up at the start of Gastown by this hack!

The racing has been flying by here in B.C. I have two races and after tomorrow I head out to Durango on Monday morning. I have raced three times since my last update and I am no longer in the city thankfully. I couldn't do it for much longer. It reminded me of being in New York City were you are constantly dodging people on the sidewalk.

The Giro de Burnaby went much better for me. My legs felt a bit better. David has been keeping the team together with some good finishes. He ended up getting into the early break that ended up being the winning move. We were a bit surprised to see it go so early and could have used one more guy in there. He came in fourth which is awesome after being out numbered.

The hill climb last night marked the beginning of the Tour de Delta. The weather is pretty much the same each day, cold and rainy. I am getting a bit tired of it. The climb last night was short and not really steep enough to be called a hill climb. I gave it all I had but started out a bit slow and by the finish I was coming apart. I think I may have snuck in the top 10 but they still don't have the results posted. I hope that one of us got in the points last night. The hill climbs are fun, but it is allot of build up for a 69 second drag race effort.

My teammate Austin King and I are in a nice host house with a fully finished basement apartment all to ourselves. The couple we are staying with have two kids, aged 5 and 15 months. The kids are a blast and I have already played Legos, NHL hockey, and Battleship a few times. If I win at any of the games there is hell to pay and somehow the actual rules to the games get lost and the 5 year old makes up the rules as he goes so that he always wins. Hmmmm! That sounds fair. It actually reminds me of when I was a kid, bending the rules. He even whines like I used to and procrastinates doing his chores all day. It is pretty funny.

Not much else to write about. It has started raining again and we have a crit later tonight for the second stage of the Tour de Delta. We are going for stage wins now and primes, not so much the overall. I look foreword to heading back home soon to the dry mountains in Colorado.

Tour de Gastown: NOt good folks!

Cycling is a mystery. One day you are flying, super confident, killing it, tearing the legs off everyone. The next day, your legs are being torn off, hanging on by a thread in the back of the group.

I don't know what just happened out there. I got all pumped up to race in the rain, was totally fine with the ice skating around corners. Most of the riders were going through safely. I just didn't have the legs tonight, that is my excuse. No excuse really just didn't have it. It sucked.

Poor start with an amateur missing his pedal. I was slow to get going toward the front and just couldn't go hard. Kinger moved up in front of me on the 3rd lap, I followed about 3 bikes behind him and then some idiot dumped it right in front of me. Race over! I should have gone to the pit and taken a free lap. It was so early in the race I thought I could get back on. Got back on and started to feel a bit better. Then another amateur dumped it in the corner in front of me. I went sideways, that was it. Race over.

I am actually a bit pissed off with myself. I have good form and I didn't capitalize. This would have been a good opportunity and I blew it. Tomorrow I will be in the mix for sure. I have to catch some grub with the teammates.

The good news is I won the Saeco Espresso machine in the raffle. Sweet! It isn't the top of the line one, but it is nice and I am sure I can put it to good use. Yeah!

Check out the Jittery Joe's website for the race report from White Rock, it is a long one. www.thebeanteam.com

Pouring rain now-2.5 hours to start

Only 2.5 hours to the start of Tour de Gastown. It has been pouring rain all day and there is no sign of it letting up. I am having some difficulty getting pumped up to go race a Big money crit in the rain. I know I am not the only one out there cursing this weather. I knew I would do at least one race up here in the wet nasty rain.

Just checked again, still raining...............

White Rock to Vancouver

White Rock was about the best climate and most beautiful area you could as for!
Some totem poles down by the beach in White Rock
We went from White Rock, to this only 50K from white rock Vancouver, B.C.
I took this photo on the way in. We ended up going to the top of that Space Needle thing.
On Monday we went for a bit of a rest and played nine holes, Hoppy ripping into a drive.
Look at that form. All those golf games with my Grandma, I still have it and even Pared a few holes.

True Canadian Geese in Canada!

I can't say enough about the city of White Rock. I really enjoyed my stay there and the racing. The ocean is so different for me having grown up in Potato land of Idaho and the Tetons in Wyoming. You get a bit of both here, with mountains and the ocean, nice temperatures and some good mountains.

We went from White Rock, a city of probably 20,000 people or so to Vancouver, B.C. which I am estimating about 3 million people and the cities are only 50 k (32 Miles) apart. The accommodations with a nice quite town and ocean views with no traffic has been replaced with a high rise hotel room with beds facing each other. My ocean view has been replaced with a view of air conditioners on rooftops and a 7-Eleven convenience store. Although Vancouver is a beautiful city I must say, if I had the choice I would call the Martin family back up in White Rock and continue my stay there.

Next up for the team is the Tour de Gastown tonight. A twilight style criterium in the Gastown area of Vancouver. Hoppy has done well here before and hopefully he and Evan can give it a go in the end tonight. The forecast is calling for rain which is always a huge factor in how the race will play out. I am feeling rested and ready to give it another go, although the legs feel a bit strange. We did a ride sweet ride from our hotel down to the ocean along the beach through Stanley Park. It was an amazingly scenic ride along the ocean. There is allot going on here and the mountains that tower above the city are pretty nice. Still, I don't think I could live in a place like this because of the amount of people and rain. It rained on us the entire ride. I don't mind riding in the rain, but every day would be a bit demoralizing. Props to the people that can handle it all the time. Maybe I just need to harden up a bit?

Well, I have to head over to the 7-Eleven on he corner for something to drink. I will try to post some results a bit later on the site tonight. Keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't rain. It will be a mess if it does. I also wanted to say thanks to everyone for all of the support. I have received a ton of emails, comments and phone calls from friends after the White Rock races. Thanks to everyone. I wouldn't be here without all of you in my corner and helping me throughout my career as a cyclist and just life in general. Alright, enough of that, thanks everyone for the support. More later, hopefully good news.

Tour De White Rock Overall Win!: 9th in road race.

Power was out, so we had to sit down to a nice romantic team dinner. Hoppy was elated! Hoppy enjoying a stage celebration brew

Out for a ride before the crit The flat land tricksters were out. Sweet tricks, not so sweet pants!
Evan enjoys himself and a few brews ( I had none!) on the wagon.
I wouldn't eat any food smiling back at me, David ordered the burger.
Moby Dick's Fish' n Chips: The best fish and chips ever!

I cracked like an egg today under the pressure of the Symetrics Army. I felt pretty good on the climbs but when you are wearing the leaders jersey everyone attacks you. I think I even got attacked during my warm up today. Anyway, he race was a tough fast circuit. About 80+ miles with 12,000 feet of climbing. I felt good, but the attacks from Cam Evens the Canadian National Champ were unbelievable.

The team race awesome. Austin was in moves, covering moves, and riding tempo on the front toward the end to keep people from attacking me. David is a monster and was on the front as well. He even attacked me one toward the end. I don't know what he was doing, but whatever, I didn't have a radio to yell at him to sit up. On the 3 small circuits at the end I came unglued when I tried to cover an attack from one of the threats to my lead. I covered it only to be attacked by the two guys I was most worried about. That was the dagger. Then the rest of the 4 remaining riders continued to attack me and I came in 9th in the road race. I was shooting for a top 10 again and the overall win. It worked out pretty well.

I am off to grab some lunch at Moby Dick's Seafood Shop. Some of the stores in the town of White Rock have adopted riders. The owner Ralph has adopted me and is gong to hook us up with the best fish and chips. Anyway, more later and some photos.

Hanging on to the lead in Tour de WhiteRock

Threw down pretty good tonight in the criterium. The course was a good one for me with a nice good 400 meter climb at about 6%. I followed the Symetrics guys all day that were a threat to the overall. Cam Evans attacked a bunch and I just tried to follow him and Andrew Pinfold. Both strong dudes. I felt pretty good and was running on pure suffer, motivation and just excited. I attacked a bunch and eventually ended up in the lead break. Stoked! I ended up in there with 3 Symetrics guys, two Navigators (Kyle Wamsley, and Chistian Powers i think?) and one Harley Davidson guy, Ken Johnson. Anyway, I felt pretty good and with two laps to go it was just about to come back together. I hit out to early at the bottom of the climb and the guys just jumped on. Rookie move,Shit! So I ended up cracking myself before the sprint and ended up coming in 4th place. I am super happy with that and was just shooting for a top 10 to maintain the overall leaders jersey. I have a pretty good lead in the overall but have to run a top 10 tomorrow to win it. Omnium is difficult. I think I would have a pretty good lead if it were by time.

So tomorrow I will have to just watch the Symetrics Army again. There are only 8 guys, but it seems like there are a hundred in the race. Every time there is a move, there are at least two Symetrics guys in it. It is impressive and they are all very good riders. It will be tough to hang on to it again. But the course suits me with some good climbing and the legs are strong right now. I am tired sure, but so is everyone else. Except maybe Swain Tuft.

It feels good to be riding well finally. Hope tomorrow I can just keep it together and not crack. The teammates rode awesome today. David covered a thousand moves as well as Kinger. Evan cleaned up the field sprint for double omnium points. Nice work guys! One more tough day to wrap it up. Wish us luck. 8 am start tomorrow. Good night.

Stage Win and Leaders Jersey!

I look a little comfortable in this photo, don't be fooled, I was ripping into it and hurting

David giving it a dig on the climb for 9th place.

Podium! (photos: Greg Descartes-www.descartes.com)

I am off to a good start here in British Colombia. Actually a surprisingly good start. I won the stage and am in the leaders jersey tomorrow. It wasn't an easy stage to win. Obviously I felt pretty good. My typical race routine, "I don't think my legs feel good", turned into lighting it up. The course was a steep climb with 18% grades in spots and seven hundred meters. The format was a two up drag race for the first heat up the climb but it was timed. You could definitely go to hard to soon and blow up before you reached the top. I tried to take it easy for the first 100 meters and not go to hard, then hit it for the rest. The riders that post the 5 fastest times of the day up the climb have to do it again in a 5 up sprint. The firs time up my arms were numb, legs numb and loaded with lactate, and totally cross eyed out of breath. My time was good enough for the 3rd fastest time.

In the finale it ended up being Canada vs. Shriver. I went up against 4 other Canadians, 3 of them being strong Symetrics riders. Recently crowned National Champion Cam Evans and Andrew Pinfold were the two guys I was most worried about. I started out the climb and was at the front most of the way up sticking to the right side of the road. The finale wasn't as hard until the end and was much more tactical. I had to watch each guy and try to keep in good position. In the last pitch with about 300 meters to go Cam Evans took off. I jumped on his wheel and looked back, it was just the two of us. The crowd was awesome and as we went over the climb the road split into two, I went right and Cam went left. With about 100 meters to go we were both totally cracking ( I was for sure anyway!) and sprinting in the hoods. I went for the drops, weaving and gasping for air. After hitting the drops it was much easier to give a good dig for the win.

It was exciting. The Symetrics guys are tough and will be out for blood all week. It will be tough to hang on to the jersey because this is an omnium and means I have to be in the top 10 of each stage. Who knows what will happen? The legs feel good, I am positive, and happy! I think that will be enough to do well this weekend. Tomorrow is the crit. There should be some good photos soon. Thanks for stopping by!

Comments Open!

I opened the comments section for everyone. You no longer have to be a subscribed blogger to place a comment. Feel free to leave a comment, just be aware that it is still moderated. Thanks for stopping in!

The rest of the story from Seattle

And now....the rest of the story. Johny Sundt grew up in the Seattle area and took us by Kurt Cobain's house on the ride. If you don't know who Cobain is, then I don't know what to tell you. He was the lead singer of Nirvana and the creator of Alternative grunge rock music is the way I remember it. Anyway, this is the house were he and Courtney Love lived when he committed suicide in this house.

So of course we decided to stop and take a picture real quick on the way back toward the end of the ride. It was funny because Johny said, "oh the gate is open, it is never open, quick take the picture before it closes". I busted out the camera and took a couple shots, and as I did the owner I am assuming in the silver Tacoma came out the driveway. Well the owner flipped out! This is the conversation as I remember it and maybe Austin can add in any commentary if he remembers it differently.

Owner: "Did you just take my picture?"
Me: "No I just took one of the house."
Owner: "Yeah, but I am in it!"
Me: "Sorry man".
Owner: "Why are you taking pictures of us You just took a picture of me and my niece, why?"
Me: " I was taking pictures of the house, it's a nice house." Not the real reason, but it was a nice house.
At this point the guy in the truck was very unnerved and I couldn't tell if you was scared of me in my orange cycling spandex or if he was angry. His voice was kind of shaky and there was a large amount of tension. The conversation continued.
Owner: "You need to erase those photos!"
Me: "Sure sorry, no problem, I was just taking a picture of the house. Is it o.k. if I take a picture?"
Owner: Very agitated and shaken said "No, it's not really o.k."

Austin looks at me and says under his breath, "dude, don't erase it. Lets go" . I said sorry and we started to ride away. As we were riding away the owner of the house threw it in reverse and quickly went back up the driveway to the house. I don't know if he was going back to get a gun, call the police, or just forgot something. Either way, were didn't stick around to find out.

I am sure he knows that the house he is living in is a part of music history and is probably bombarded with people taking photos all time. I felt kind of bad and can understand if he doesn't want to be in the photo. But seriously, I was on a public sidewalk and obviously I am not the Paparazzi. It was a bit strange and the guy kind of freaked me out. Putting myself in his shoes, I would definitely be over people taking pictures of the house all the time, but dude, get used to it. YOU ARE LIVING IN A DEAD MUSIC LEGENDS HOUSE!

That's the rest of the story!

Another quick note. Checked out the Time trial hill climb course today. It is steep, and about 1Kilometer long. We race two at a time up the thing. I felt o.k. on the ride today. Hopefully the Shriver Surge is there today. We will see. Hope the weather holds as it is looking like rain. More tonight after the TT.

White Rock, British Columbia

Kurt Cobain's House: The guy in the truck completely lost it for taking this picture.
A westy in great shape, just like my brother's. I think I might try to get a Westy someday.
The Seattle Skyline cruising on the ride.
Jeff Hopkins eying the cupcakes.
The mates and a former Jittery rider Johny Sundt
Sundt laid an attack! The climbs in Seattle were steep like San Fransisco
A panoramic view from the place we are staying in White Rock looking over the ocean.

Kickin me while I am down

Yesterday got worse before it got better. I pulled a major amateur move at the airport. I showed up an hour early ready to go and upon check in noticed that I had left my ID in the copy machine at the bike shop. I had to make a bunch of copies of it for my Birth Certificate and left it there. After my mental breakdown at the counter from having a hell of a day that just kept getting worse and worse, I called MBS and Mike drove all the way out to the airport to give me my ID. I ran back into the airport with 10 minutes to spare. Apparently though when you forget your ID you automatically are considered part of the Axis of Evil. The TSA people pulled my bags of the plane to research them again. They rifled through all of my stuff, and I got the "Hands on" blue latex glove search. All my bags were torn open with less than 5 minutes till take off. They opened everything, my laptop (yep just a laptop) and even opened my books to make sure that nothing was hidden in the pages. What could you store between the pages of a book?

I am all about the security and don't really mind. It is for our safety right? It almost seems like it is a bit of a power trip or a control thing?? Whatever, I made it onto the plane and it was the Jet from Durango to Denver so the flight was only 35 minutes instead of 60.

The day started to turn around when the lady at the counter didn't charge me the $80 for my bike (saved some coin for the team), and then on the plane the movie was "Blades of Glory" with Will Ferrel. It was awesome even on a 4 inch screen.

We made it into Seattle late last night, everyone got in including the Quebexican De ja Vu (David). All his bags are missing still though. Johny Sundt took us on a sweet down by the water on Lake Washington Blvd. Nice ride and it is very nice here when it isn't raining which apparently is only July -September.

My birth certificate showed up from UPS. Those Wyoming cowboys are on it up there so now I won't have to wait in customs all day to get to the races. I thought I was going to have to hike through the weeds and meet the teammates on the other side. Nope, I am all good now. More later, weird experience on the ride and I need the photos to tell the story. I am not on my computer so I can't download. More from Canada...

The Canada Predicament

I am off to Canada today for BC Superweek. I am leaving Durango in a couple of hours, taking the late night flight into Seattle, meeting the rest of the teammates and driving into Canada tomorrow.

I have been to Canada before when I was 18. Back then you didn't need a passport, just your drivers license or state issued ID. Well it's different now that old G.W. considers everyone in the world part of the axis of evil. I applied along time ago for the passport and still have not recieved it becasue it is all backed up due to everyone getting passports. No biggie, just print out the nifty little proof of application, present your ID at the border and you are golden right? Nope! I recieved a letter saying that they got my application, but I tried to print out the proof of application and there is no record. Sweet! I call the passport people and explain my situation. Thier answer is that you just need to provide a birth certificate along with your ID and you can get in and out of the country. O.K., something that should have been brought to my attention much earlier. I sent my birth certificate in with my passport application as it is required. Thanks people! I wouldn't have even paid the $250 to get the damned passport if I knew I could just use my birth certificate! Now I have neither.

So hopefully I can get into Canada tomorrow. What a junk show this has been today? I called the US Embassy in Canada hoping to get some help, forget it. Finally I got an emergency brith certificate overnighted to Seattle which won't show up before I leave for Canada so I am screwed. I might just be heading to Seattle for a bit the way things are looking. Shit.

Enough wining! Did the worlds ride last night. It was like the old days, Danielson, Wells, Ned and other guns. Tried not to go to hard, but it was fun to be out there throwing it down with the guns. They were all flying. I felt o.k. myself. Anyway, more from Canada hopefully and some photos as well.

Good times in 'Merica

George W. has changed the way we say America with his Texas accent. It is no longer America, just "Merica". From now on , Merica, land of the free!An hour into the ride and my bro looks angry in this photo, only 4 hours left to go, cheer up!

A look ahead: only another hour of climbing from here and we are at the top of Kenebec pass.
A quick refill of the camelbacks at the campground becasue it was roasting out even in the high country.
It was a mob scene at the top of the pass. All these people paid $50 for a 2 hour jeep ride to the top. We rode from town for free and made it to the top only a few minutes behind them. Suckers!
A quick look out over the Needles in the San Juans. Hard to beat that view!

Roosting the single track at 11,000 feet in the wild flowers.
The flowers were going off. I don't care who you are, you have to appreciate the flowers in the mountains!
After 5 hours of riding, 2 flat tires, 150 ounces of water, 53 miles and 7,500 feet of climbing, I had to finish the Annual Kenebec Pass ride with a BBQ at my place with friends and family. I made some killer homemade chicken kabobs. A good barbie that even the Aussies couldn't rival.

Neighbor Randy digs into the great food that everyone provided. It as kind of a pot luck style BBQ. All who came threw down on some wholesome goodness, Margs and brews, tater salad, cake, ice cream, fresh berries, salad, Portabella burgers, amazing mozzerella with fresh basil and tomatoes, and did I mention the Margaritas!
Corey couldn't get enough of the whipped cream. Whip it, whip it good! How pro is that whip cream dispenser? Co2 cartridge is not included.
The copper showed up to break up the party, instead he just helped himself to the cake and ice cream, a chicken kabob, told us to keep it down, and went on his way next door to bust the 6 year olds making to much noise with the Snap and Pop poppers. Sean is just a hard ass when it comes to breaking the law, he will not hesitate to lock you up!
Mary and Corey! These two provided the necessary skills for making a mean Margarita! Ouch the next morning.
And of course, the Fireworks were going off downtown. It was a great 4th, definitely one of my better ones that I have enjoyed with friends and my bro. Until next time.