st. joe state park

Went over to St. Joe State Park yesterday for some riding action while Mason fished. No good map and no help from the rangers left me exploring. Ended up riding singletrack, double track, gravel road, fire road, atv trail, hare scramble trail, tailings dunes, and paved trail. Stupid steep climbs, and pucker factor downhills with some ripping stuff along the ridges. All in all it was fun. I rode for 3+ hours and never even got close to riding probably 25% of what is packed in that 8500 acres. The old mine areas are pretty cool too.

Here are some more "abstract water color paintings" for you to enjoy. Maybe someday I'll have a real camera, or at least a cell phone that takes ok pics.






peace and riding!!!

new stuff...

ordering up gears and a new fork for the plastic bike. hopefully it'll make me faster in long races/allow me to survive longer. xo twister shift, x9 derailluer, pg-970 11-34 cassette, new rear stan's wheel, and it's looking like a fox rlc 29r fork...mmmmmmmm.

thanks to bk for the hook-up through countless e-mails. he's the best shop sponsor a team can have. stupid good team deals and great communication. he's a nice dude too.

time to get to work so i can pay for all this shit...

peace and riding!!

meeting celebrities

...of cycling blogs. That's right folks, I Brett Shoffner, met Casey F. Ryback of Team Segal fame this evening and enjoyed a wonderful authentic Mexican meal in his presence. I was so awe struck by his wit that I barely said anything, plus we showed up a few minutes late, I had weed-eated all day, and was filling my face full of chips and wonderful steak chile verde cause I was starving.

and dude knows his movie quotes. This I am 100% serious about. Knew a Top Gun reference on the spot. Amazing.

be jealous.

The Manimal, Jesse G, and Nick V of Epic Cycling fame were also here. They all rode middlefork today and crashed at the OTA house last night. It was good to see some KC locals. The forest gets pretty lonely.

peace and riding!!!

one of the few times in my life...

...I wish I had a road bike. Although I did hit some nasty gravel in a few spots. 95% was pavement though, not the smoothest, but 2.2 mtb tires at 45 psi don't roll very fast.





Did this in about 2-2.5 hours with a gas station stop a little over halfway through for a $0.69 bottle of grape vess and a king sized peanut butter twix (aka saturday bunch). not bad for a SS mtb geared 34-20 with aforementioned tires and PSI. Road bike would kick ass around here though, I'm not gonna lie. Here's some more craptastic cell phone pics for you to enjoy...saw some pretty cool shit today, including 4-5 mine tailings lakes...one was damn near glowing green...weird!


potosi correctional center...this is where the state of missouri used to kill people...literally.


mineral point, mo...population 384.


this road was paved...but about as smooth as gravel.


downtown potosi.


potosi prison entrance, probably can't see the 4 foot of razor wire on top of the fences.


yep, sickness.

peace and riding!!!

off road season...

Looks like I might actually start racing before too long...only real thing I've done this year is Dirty Kanza and local gravel grinders. Hopefully the $$$ works out and I can do most of these. Most def hitting Spoke Pony, Cruise the Blues, RIM, Burning at the Bluff, Berryman, Boss CX series, 360/Boulevard Cups, DeStad Cups, and the Halcyon Holiday. I would really like to hit either jingle cross to chicago cross too, we'll see how broke I am by then.

July 9 Castlewood 3 hour
July 17 Brommelseik Challenge 3 hour
July 23 Courtois Challenge
August 13 Spoke Pony Showdown 6 hour
August 20 Earthriders Spiderfest @ Smithville Lake
August 27 Cruise the Blues 5 hour
September 3 Slaughter Pen Jam
September 10 Sac River 12 hour
September 17 Hermann CX
September 18 Hermann CX
September 21 Gateway Cross Cup
September 24 Rapture in Misery 12 hour
October 1 Boss CX 1
October 2 Boss CX 2
October 8 Burning at the Bluff 12 hour
October 15 ROANOKE PARK BIG WORK DAY
October 16 Lawrence CX
October 22 Berryman Epic
October 30 Boss CX 3
November 5 360 Cup
November 6 Boulevard Cup
November 12 Louisville USGP CX
November 13 Louisville USGP CX
November 19 DeStad Cup
November 20 DeStad Cup
November 25 Jingle Cross
November 26 Jingle Cross
November 27 Jingle Cross
December 3 Boss CX 4
December 10 Capitol Cup
December 11 Capitol Cup
December 17 Halcyon Holiday Gravel Grinder
December 31 Chicago CX
January 1 Chicago CX
January 6-8 USAC Nationals-Wisconsin

peace and riding!!!

around potosi...

check this out: http://mtbkc.blogspot.com/2011/06/courtois-challenge.html

only crappy cell phone pics today from some fire road/gravel grinding around potosi. Glad I have a 34-20 on for those brutal ass climbs! I bet one yesterday I accessed to do work was at least 2 miles up at 15-25% the whole time.








peace and riding!!!

trail berries...

found these blackberries in full glory today...



tons of them down here...blueberries too!!! Nothing like extremely natural berries for a quick pick me up while trimming the bush.

since there's no right click on this mouse I had to print screen and crop this pic, probably horrendous quality. I might end up doing it with the few other potosi shots I have just to get them up and out of my inbox.

and it's looking like I'll be here all summer. Don't know what is up with the grant I got this summer, still hasn't paid out and it's 3 weeks late...Hopefully I can come home for the fourth at least and watch some Tour of Lawrence, aka birth place of colavita lovin!

peace and riding!!!

middlefork!

Everything you've ever heard about middlefork, it's true. Definitely one of the most badass places I've ever ridden.

Most of our camp/ride weekend ended up being a wash-out :/

Thursday night we had a little shower move through, nothing too bad, just a few sprinkles. We arose at 6:30 am Friday morning, ughhh, and chilled around and made some breakfast for a couple hours. By 9:00 am we were off to ride from the Council Bluffs campground to Barton's Fen along the Middlefork section of the Ozark Trail.

The small section of the Council Bluffs trail we did get to ride was sweet! Single speeds only on this badboy, its ripping contour trail the whole time. unfortunately, the entire lake loop was never completed due to stormage, and the lake loop was also pretty overgrown...tons of ticks and chiggers this weekend :/

So we took the part of the Lake trail to the Ozark connection, then hopped on trace creek going south, until the middlefork split. Went straight for the gold and middleforked it for another 1/2 mile or so, then the climbing began. Ridge, then descent. Then climb, ridge, then descent. Climb, ridge, descent, repeat about 10-12 times, literally. We got to the HWY 49 before Andy Mac started feeling it pretty good, so we took some gravel/pavement back a bit to DD thinking it would be less climbing, wrong. Same climbing, now just no switchbacks. Thankfully from DD back to the Lake there is only 1 climb, then it is basically flat/downhill the whole way along the creek bottoms. We ended up riding about 26-27 miles total, over 5 hours, with two long snack breaks, and lunch thrown in as well. Definitely not the fastest/hardest ride I've ever done, but it was for Andy Mac, he was toast when we got back to camp. I think he passed out around 8:30 and stayed asleep the whole night until 7 am the next day, when the huge storm rolled in. Oh, got a couple pics too but am waiting on an e-mail so I can get them up...good stuff!

Saturday morning had me waking up to rain drops coming through the tent, I scrambled blind and half dressed to get the rain fly back on and thankfully did just was it opened up hard. About 2 inches of rain over 2-3 hours...lame. We decided to say f it cause everything we had was soaked and we knew the overgrowth on the lake loop would not be fun all wet. plus no dry wood = no campfire = no breakfast. Kind of hard to ride without fuel. Came back to Potosi and made some eggs and B&g's...absolutely amazing shit when you've been out for a couple days, went through a couple rains and stink beyond civilized acceptability. Hot showers are really awesome too.

After that we "ruraled" around Potosi. There are actually some pretty sweet ass drops, skinnies, walls, etc to hit in this broken down lead town. plus every other road is gravel, so that's not bad :) Andy Mac headed out and I was again alone here in the OTA house. Boring to say the least when there is only a computer and you have $0 left. Of course it rained another inch last night, really don't feel like weedeating through moist shit all day...

Nature Valley is on live though in about 2 hours...thankfully something halfway fun to watch...too bad it's not mtb racing.

peace and riding!!!

council bluffs lake

going to cbl tomorrow (later today I guess, shit I need to go sleep) after trimming some coutois section of the ozark trail. Gonna do the lake shore loop, trace creek, and john roth/middle fork.

hopefully andy mac brings a camera. I'm fucking psyched to ride and take a good couple days off after 48.5 hours the past 5 days and probably another 6-8 trimming tomorrow. good news is the bench cutting muscles are back up to par :)

peace and riding!!!

ozark trail

So, everything came together extremely last minute last Friday and I have been and will be in/around Potosi, Missouri for the rest of this month. Anyone who knows the area knows that Potosi is home to the Ozark Trail Association and the Berryman National Recreation Trail. I am down here doing work--sustainable re-routing and yearly trimming. 17 more days left :/

I have my bike so that's not terrible, although I've only been out on "urban" rides (as urban as Potosi gets) and one pavement/gravel ride that was interesting, to say the least. Got some crappy cell phone pics, but they'll have to wait b/c this computer's mouse has no right click function (extremely annoying). Andy Mac is coming in from the Lou this weekend too so we can rip it...haven't totally decided on Council Bluffs Lake or the Berryman Loop..I wanna do CBL, I've heard it's badass, plus it connects into the Ozark Trail-John Roth/Middlefork and Trace Creek sections. We'll see.

So like SC, I am on a bit of a "hiatus"...not really, but I probably won't post much for the rest of the month...especially since I can't get pics uploaded. No TV here, but thankfully there is a computer so I can halfway kill my brain after working 10 hours/day. Watching the Tulsa Tough live feeds was pretty sweet Friday and Saturday nights. Too bad MTB racing isn't broadcast as often as I'd like.

If you wanna tour some Ozark Trail or come mine some lead, hit me up, I'll be around.

Peace and riding!!!

dirty kanza recap

well not much to say, we only made it about 90 miles before I pulled out like a bitch. The heat stroke from a few weeks ago obviously was lingering around a bit...

So Clay and I head down to Emporia at about 5:45 Friday night, roll into the Granada Theatre, Emporia around 7:30, get our packets, grab some jimmy johns, attend rider meeting, go to the hotel. Get our shit unpacked and ready for the morning and I head to Braums for a bacon cheeseburger and milkshake. Anyone who has followed this blog for awhile or knows me well, or traveled with me to Arkansas, Oklahoma, or Texas, knows that I am a braums freak. That shit is amazing, and of course, it didn't disappoint.

Clay and I set 3 alarms and finally get to bed around 12:30ish. not good when the race starts at 6:00 am and our alarms go off at 5:00. Of course you can imagine what happens next...

I wake up and clay is yelling fuck dude wake up, we have 15 minutes to be to the race. Look at the clock, 5:43, really not good. Clay is supposed to do the first leg, and he's had no breakfast and no morning shit. I am expecting a call anytime during the next 3-4 hours, but it never happens, awesome! Anyway, Clay is the very last person to roll out, literally, sprinting to catch up with the huge pack leaving town. I get back to the hotel, get out shit and head for cassody. I feel like shit cause I had horrible sleep, and am not feeling any food, but manage to stuff 2 mini powdered doughnuts down from the continental breakfast. Get to cassody and the gas station can be best describes as a circus. unfortunately this circus had one bathroom for EVERYONE. men and women. I felt bad for the ladies there, it was not pretty. So I find Tim Greene and Cliff Straub, set up camp with them and we wait for people to start coming in. We take guesses as to when the first will be there and I say 9:15. Happens to be Gunnar Shogrens on a single speed. I find out later this dude is 49 years old, running a 45x19!!!!!!!!!!! gearing (that is stupid), and is a former masters mtb and cx national champ. Well it showed. Mark Cole rolls in second 4 minutes behind and says that Gunnar is absolutely throwing it down, as in like dropping the dudes with gears. Cornbread, Joe Fox, and a few others roll in and say the same thing about shogren and that the pace is way too hot to start. His wife Betsy rolls in at 6th overall at the first checkpoint (and she finised 9th overall on the day!, 1st woman obviously), before eventual winner Dan Hughes who had a nasty sidewall tear on a brand new $100 tire. Absolutely amazing display of cycling by these west virginia folk.

so on with the story, Clay gets in right before 10 am and I take off on leg 2, which is 44 miles heading damn near straight west and into the wind. For some reason, my dumbass starts hammering it hard passing probably 60+ riders and eventually catching Tim and Cliff about 20 miles in (they had left about 30 min before me at the last checkpoint). When I caught Tim and Cliff they had made a wrong turn with a huge group and we were about 5 miles off course. Ugggghhhh! turn around and head back to the right road: minimum maintenance! a true dk road, finally! and it lived up to the hype. The creek bottoms came, and came, and came some more, then the south facing climbs started. Power from my legs started getting drained real quick, and the clif electrolite drinks I had were disappearing just as quick. 4 full bottles and 38-40 miles later I was completely out of liquid, and still 10+ miles from the next checkpoint. found a shade tree and called clay. Secured a ride and officially pulled out of the dk. I then proceeded to vomit up probably 2.5 bottles of liquid that was just sitting in my stomach while waiting for clay to get there. He did and we supplied water/gatorade to probably 10 other guys who were in my same situation. It was crazy how many people were completely out of liquids and/or laying down on the side of the roads. It was stupidly, stupidly hot and the 20+ mph wind didn't help. I'd venture to say that second leg from 10 am-1 pm when I was out was 94-99* with 15-25 mph south winds and 40+ gusts. not good when I'd had a heat stroke less than a month ago. oh well.

if this race was held in cooler weather or even later in the summer (so we could acclimate to the heat for a couple few weeks) I think i and a lot of other people would have been a lot better off. Early june is a crap shoot with Kansas weather, it can either be mid 80s and gorgeous or pushing 100* after having been literally cool spring weather the week before. The heat did a lot of people in and rightly so, it was nasty out there.

so dk is over. I may try tackling it again someday, but probably not. I'm thinking more like metric century/6-8 hour stuff is my calling. 3 hours is too intense, 12 is too long. Stuff like the Berryman Epic, Ouachita Challenge, Syllamo's Revenge, Farmhouse Classic, RIM, Spoke Pony, etc. And I miss me some CX racing. I really do love that shit! Mainly just because of the scene, but the racing is badass too.

I am ready to finally concentrate on mtb stuff for awhile. Singletrack has been yelling my name for 2 months now and trail can't build itself. gravel will be off the radar until farmohuse classic and/or unless it downpours for a week straight. I love it, but it's still a road and not a trail :)

peace and riding!

dirty kanza...

...epic fail. I'm in the loft in KC and the leaders are probably 2-3 hours from finishing still. you do the math.

more to come later.

peace and riding!

leaving for dk...

...in about 15 minutes. no camera, so look for a write-up soon, maybe some crappy cell phone pics if anything really pops out at me.

swope phase 4 opening tomorrow. details on the swope blog.

landahl race next week.

peace and riding!

new swopeage...

Official map is on the blog now...here's a few extras for your pleasure.

peace and riding!!!

swope phase 4 opening!!!

The Swope Dirt crew will be having a phase 4 ribbon cutting ceremony at 9 am Saturday June 4 with City leaders. This will be the official opening of Swope Phase 4, it will complete the Rancho D-Lux loop, and add an additional 2.6 miles of sweet ripping singletrack at camp Lake of the Woods for ~10 miles of trail now!!! Come on out and join the trail hermits (Scott/Craig/Travis) for some good times and ripping new Kansas City trail!

I don't know much more than that, but look for an announcement on the trail blog and/or from the trail hermits.

peace and riding!!!