Cruise the Blues 08

Ok kids, its has been a long weekend and its a good thing that its a three day holiday cuz we are in shambles. This friday saw a surly flock of Jayhawks descend into Manhappenin. Andrew Slater, John Waller, and Josh Patterson, big Al and Myself wandered around the ville for a little while, musing over how aggieville is different than Mass St in Lawrence. I will be real honest. I do not think much of the Aggieville business district, just because the businesses do not keep things clean. I mean they could at least spray off the sidewalk in the mornings and clean up the image a little bit. Especially if they are gonna try to charge me a $6 dollar cover just too get into a place that is nonsmoking. Anyhow we wandered about for a bit and then went to the house so we could be up and on the road to Glen Elder early.
Upon arriving at the Palen Proving Grounds (Cruise the Blues Race course) we quickly asserted our dominance by finding a shady spot and rallying all the other past and present Manhattanites (which included Brady Irwin, Casey Stoddard, "T-Daddy" Whetstone, Aaron Apel, and James Stamper (No relation)). James, being the only real responsible adult brought a canopy so we could be shaded. Many thanks!
The race started prompty at 11 am, and quickly proved to be a race of attrition. Several mens solo favorites had mechanical problems early, and flat tires were a major concern. I passed Brady on the second lap as he was changing the first of his three flat tires on his cross bike on lap 2. It has been previously true that the CtB course is a prime area to race a cross bike, but that was not the case this year. Last Saturday NC KS got 4 inches of rainfall(see previous post to see storm building), which left the couse extremely rough and eroded. This contributed to a large number of pinch flats and fatigue throughout the race. After three laps on the 13+ mile course I realized that I had failed to hydrate enough early, as I was trying to do without a camelback at just rely on bottles. This proved to be a costly mistake, as I would lose two places during the last two laps rolling around on the ground screaming with debilitating leg cramps.
At this point I think I really had some folks worried cuz the EMS guy kept following me on the fourwheeler (kind of like how a buzzard circles a dying animal). Like I said, it was a race of attrition. I finished my 4th lap with 25 minutes before the cutoff, and thought to myself,
"Self, your gonna have to do another lap........"
Self responding back (in Star Trek Scotty accent) "Ah cant dooo it Captn ah need mohr powah"
Me to self "pull your self together! You have got another lap in you"
Self "Ok but your gonna regret this"
So I went back out for a last lap that probably took over an hour and a half. I am pretty sure that I was the last person out on the course. I did not regret it.

I still managed to finish 5th out of about 30, and even won a little money!
Big Al though, fought through cramps on her way to 2nd place with 4 laps in, and only finished 4 minutes behind Team 360 powerhouse Kathy Reidy. I think Al really blew some minds when she was passing folks on her singlespeed in the later laps. I was stoked and especially proud when I heard this. She was really in the money with a 2nd place finish!


Below you can see the devious duo of Patterson and Waller finishing 2nd in the Mens Team division. Cameron Chambers and dad Doug, were the champions. Big thanks to Doug and Golden Belt Cycles in Great Bend for being such a huge supporter of this event.

I also have to say a what a great event this is. Doug and Tracy Palen, Bud and all the volunteers that put this race together are the most passionate friendly people you will ever meet. This event rivals anything that is done in KC or MO. Once again, Many Thanks!

After a night of camping and blues music we headed south to Lucas, KS for some sustenance, and a little dose of weirdness. We went and toured the Garden of Eden and its pretty strange. I am talking like the Frank Zappa kinda strange.

After leaving lucas we continued our southerly trek to Wilson Lake to ride the trails there. We had a blast, but were were all still hurting from the grind the day before. If you think that things are flat in all of KS, you should go here. It definitely changed my perspective. After riding we headed over to meet up with our other compatriots (Melanie, Aaron, Tyler and Hillary) who were camping by the lake. We spent the rest of the afternoon basking in the sun, swimming, eating potato salad out of cardboard boxes, and just generally livin the dream. We had a spectacular time, and it was a great way to finish our trip.

Stay tuned for the next race report when we will hear Me say "Hey big man, lemme hold a dollar"

Living off the land

So now that school has started up the constraints on my time and wallet are great. Its hard for me to ride my bike back across town to eat lunch at home, and I lack the planning to actually make a lunch and take it with me. So I have been trying to survive with only skills honed by years of bush craft and and dirt baggery.
Lunch: 3 hotdogs and a bag of chips pilfered under the guise of jobs searching at a career fair. I then made small talk with a military recruiter to get at her bottled water. the taste of success is quite sweet.
around three oclock I was feeling like some call hall ice cream so I ghosted across campus to crash president Wefalds speech and ensuing ice cream social.
Tomorrow there will be a reception at the international center......I love ethnic food! And I am getting ready to roll out to the New alumni center for a reception for young alumni (of which I am neither). word on the street is there will be finger sandwiches and ice cream. I love sandwiches made with fingers.
Football season starts too.......that means its tailgate season......and we are all K-State fans....so how bout you hand me some of those wings over there.....
The Allman brothers may have been familiar with the high cost of low living, but I am perfecting the low cost of high living......I may start working the wedding scene too!

Your mom goes to college!.......er right. Big Al is back to school pounding out the prereq's for her to get a 2nd BS degree, this time in Nursing!

Saturday morning we drove to Glen Elder, KS to preride the cruise the blues course. It seems like every time we visit out there its sunny and 75 degrees. We stopped and talked to Doug and Tracy Palen, and they are looking forward to everybody showing up next weekend! Should be a blast. We were really surprised that no one else was there for the preride. I mean its only twice a year that they open things up to the public.


After leaving the Palen farm we drove up to Waconda lake and I had a quick swim to rinse off the funk from riding. You can see that there was a pretty big storm building behind us. We also went over to Cawker city to see the giant ball of twine, and have our pictures taken by a couple of extremely intoxicated individuals that were arguing over whether you could set the ball on fire. I suggested using kerosene. Alison quickly suggested that we leave.

As you can see in the picture above the previous sealant recipe that I used did a poor job of sealing punctures. So when we got home I let the old sealant drain out through the numerous puncture holes and mixed up a new batch using Slime in addition to latex mold builder and also scrapped the glitter....that was a pretty dumb idea to start with. The new stuff definitely sealed the punctures up much better than the previous recipe. Anyhow School starts tomorrow so I have to start getting my A+ game together. On a side note, I also found out that my brother and his bonny lass are getting flown out to Twin Falls, ID as the prospective youth minister for the FBC there. If that all comes together I may have to think about ID a lot harder as a possible relocation spot. hhhmmmmhhh.

So after our swim fest at redfish Lake and a restful night of sleep on decker Flats We decided to try our hand on the infamous slopes of Casino Creek. Casino Creek loop os described as "truly hardcore mountain biking" in the trail descriptions. and they were not kidding. We hiked a bike for about 4 miles of the 9 mile climb to the top of little Casino, and planned to descend down Big Casino. Well about 300 yards before we would have crested and made the turn to start descending it really started to thunder and lightning. We had not brought any rain gear and the temp dropped to 50 degrees in about 25 minutes. So we made the decision to turn around and start descending. Well big Al opened it up on the descent, and her front wheel washed out in some scree and took a big spill, cracking her helmet and sustaining some nasty abrasions.
So we ended up huddled on the low side of a brush pile waiting for the storm to blow over.
It was really "hard core".

This was the parking lot an hour after the storm. Sunny and 75 degrees. The weather is really crazy our there. Alison was not smiling a few minuts later when I took the soapy water to her abrasions.

Later that night after I ate 20 dollars worth of cheeseburgers at the Bridge St. Tavern in Stanley it started to rain again and continued to rain for 18 hours. I really like the aspect the that I can attach a tarp to the back of the truck rack and cook B-fast when its raining. We decided to pack it up and head to Driggs, ID to meet with Kaylan and Courtney Sisco.

Kaylan (the one that looks like Jesus) and I worked as guides for the adveture tripping company Cheerio Adventures. Kaylans wife now works for NOLS at the Teton Valley branch. We visit them every year when we travel to points west. Last year it was in Buelah, CO on our way back from CB, CO. Kaylan is the worlds biggest dirtbag, but he is a phenomenal climber.

Al and I were quite enchanted with the idea of having a yurt (staff housing at NOLS)

We were in the weststern side of the grand tetons (you can see the ta-ta's in the background) in driggs.

This was a picture of Big Al shredding it from Adams Gulch in Ketchum. It really reminded me of TR 401 in Crested Butte as there was lots of exposed slope riding. A must do if your in Ketchum.

After leaving ketchum we headed North towards Stanley. After coming down Galena Pass we decided to camp on Decker Flats Rd. Its right on the head waters of the salmon river. This is BLM land, and BLM ground is always available open for camping. I don't believe in paying to use campgrounds that consist of a pit toilets and grouchy campground host in a 40 ft RV that just wants your money. We only stayed in one campground that we had to pay for, and that was a private one in Twin Falls with a mineral Hotsprings.

The next Morning we got up and rode across the street to ride the Fisher Creek Loop. Its a 8 mile gravel road climb up to a pass and then about 11 miles of descending through an area that was severely burned the previous year. I am sure that Hershey could tell you the name of these flowers.

The Fisher Creek loop was Alison's favorite ride of the entire trip. lots of smooth fast singletrack.

We finished the day by driving ten miles North to Redfish Lake for a bathing and grooming experience. When your livin in the truck you need to jump in a creek and rinse off at least once every other day to control the funk. Redfish is a natural alpine lake that is open for boating and RV camping (ie. lots of rich people so we got some pretty sketchy looks).

To be continued

Our first stop was in Twin Falls , ID where I spent the mornining talking to the folks at JR Simplot about the role that they play in crop production in the Magic Valley region.

Alison spent the morning tooling around the gorge and checking out the town. Looks like there is plenty of paddling in this region.

This was our first top in Ketchum, ID about 70 miles north of twin falls. Most of the riding here was gulch riding. Meaning you had to ride up a gulch to a saddle then begin a descent. So you were either going up or down. I really wanted gears by the end of the trip.

Since we were living in the back of the truck the whole time we had to jump on every opportunity to wash our stuff out. Luckily it is incredibly dry in this part of the country.
How Dry you might ask?
Southern Idaho get about 8 inches of rainfall per year. Kansas City gets over 35 inches per year.

Stand By

Tomorrow the details of our Idaho dirtbag road show will be revealed........plan your day accordingly.