And now we return to our regularly scheduled Daily Photo
Enough of this Tour de France silliness. I have a lot of photo shoots rattling around in my head and I need to get back to shooting. I was going to drive somewhere and scope out a shoot that I’ve been thinking about for a long time. Then I found that my car battery is dead, again. So I went to the park by my house and tried to make due with what I had to work with. This is what I came up with. I used 3 SB-26 flashes Strobist style. I’ve been more or less keeping up with my homework during Lighting 102 that is going on. I’m getting ready to do my first assignment ‘Cooking With Light’.
Daily Photo - Ned Trestle
I met up with a crew and did a pretty epic 7 hour Ned ride on Sunday. I didn’t even remember that it was the last day of the Tour. I guess that means that I’m over it. Here is Jason concentrating hard on a very high old tressel.
Cruiser Night Photos - Fisheye Fun
I got a Canon 15mm f2.8 Fisheye lens last Thursday. So I busted out the full-frame Canon 5D so I could have some extreme wide angle fun at Cruiser Night. I was also riding the “V-Swing” swing bike. Wow, swing bikes are just so much fun. Riding slowly in a straight line is even fun. I also rode the V-swing on the Denver cruise on Saturday, although I didn’t take any pictures. I have too many pictures to edit and I had to draw the line!
Extreme Sports on the Cruiser Ride
I already posted these photos as part of last week’s cruiser ride photo gallery. But I need to get some more new photos on the front page of the blog, so if you already saw them, here they are again! I got a new fisheye lens yesterday, so look for some more wide angle cruiser action coming soon.
Photo Gallery - Cruiser Ride Madness
OK so you might be waiting for the follow up to the whole ‘I have a dream’ thing. Well, I honestly don’t know what to say. Basically the whole group just met up and everything was back to status quo. On the other hand, we probably had less than 150 people and the ride was a blast. So I guess I’m just going to try to urge people to remember if (when) the ride starts getting huge again to split it up. Also I think it would be a bad idea to just go back to everyone meeting at one spot every week, because that is just asking for the ride to quickly become a big 400 person traffic jam again. The theme this week was apparently fishnets and duct tape. Check it out in the PHOTO GALLERY.
I have a dream, and it is called Boulder Cruiser Night
Photo Gallery from the 5th of July Cruiser Night
A few weeks ago, it was announced that the Boulder Cruiser Ride was disbanding. There would be no more semi-organized rides leaving from the Sports Garage. The group who has been active in the Happy Thursday Yahoo Group got tired of drunken mob shenanigans and decided to start meeting at roving secret locations. That much is fact, and is what is.
The Cruiser Ride grew to a point where it reached its maximum capacity, in its current form. The current format was everyone meets at one location, and everyone cruises the same route, and everyone stops and starts with everyone else. The crowds snarled the ride to a crawling parade, where drunken hooligans with a bad attitude could act like idiots and harass bystanders, hidden in the anonymity of a huge crowd . People bickered about stopping too much/not enough, riding too far/too little, too much booze and no booze. And most of all, the veteran cruisers wept nostalgic over the days when they flew through traffic circles under the radar with the breeze in their hair.
Boulder is a quintessential bike town. The ‘keep Boulder weird’ attitude has lured literally tens of thousands of people to experience and enjoy the Boulder Cruiser Ride over the years. That attitude will never die. It is here and it is in our blood. What we need is an even BETTER Cruiser Ride. Last year swelling crowds led us to move the start of the Cruiser Ride away from the Sports Garage for the first time ever. Cruiser Ride 2.0 started at Scott Carpenter Park, and allowed the group to swell to over 800 people, until finally the ride reached the limit of how many people could fit through one intersection at one time. Megaphones, Ride Rangers, and Rules were all used to try to keep the crowd within control. But who really wants all that? So I am going to use my little quasi-media outlet to promote and spread the world about the Cruiser Ride 3.0. But I am going to change the name.
I have a dream, and it is called Boulder Cruiser Night. Read more
Video Link: Rippin’ Corey Martinez Freestyle
Weird Trivia
I question the legitimacy of a few, but this is entertaining.
* A shrimp’s heart is in its head.
* The “sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick” is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.
* Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over a million descendants.
* Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.
* If the government has no knowledge of aliens, then why does Title 14,Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations, implemented on July 16 1969, make it illegal for U.S. citizens to have any contact with extraterrestrials or their vehicles?
* In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.
* A duck’s quack doesn’t echo, and no one knows why.
* 23% of all photocopier faults world-wide are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their butts.
* If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall. Read more
Video Link: Inventor BURNS salt water!
This is a pretty cool story and invention. John Kanzius is working on a machine that produces radio waves in hopes of curing cancer, which is is afflicted with. He accidentally discovered that the machine will burn salt water!
Now keep in mind that the news media is a bunch of sensationalist crap. They of course neglect to mention that the machine used to create the radio waves consumes more energy than is released from the salt water. Apparently they are currently at 76% of the theoretical maximum as discussed HERE. Nevertheless, it is a very cool invention and hopefully it will inspire others to develop power production methods that don’t rely on fossil fuels.
The 8:10 Ned bus is nice if I can get out of bed that early
I had a wedding to shoot saturday afternoon. I really wanted to get a ride in beforehand to test out the new 1 x 9 drivetrain on the On-one. So this meant using the evil alarm clock on the weekend to rally to the 8:10 bus. I usually am pretty whiny about getting up early on the weekends. It seems wrong in principle to get up earlier on the weekend than during the week. But the bank thermometer in Ned read 79 degrees at quarter to nine, so we were pretty happy to get up there before it was scorching hot. We rode Hobbit 3 then up the road to Super Circle then down School Bus for more Hobbits then the blue dots and down the road. I celebrated my first post-ride Boulder Creek swim of the year by jumping in with a front flip.
Oh yeah, the 1×9 thing. I couldn’t keep the chain on the Inbred as a singlespeed. Even with tight chain tension I could pop the chain off just with leg torque. I have a new Surly SS cog, a SRAM SS chain, and a new Salsa front ring. I don’t really understand why it kept derailing. You would think a 5 and a half pound steel frame would be able to handle my leg torque. Yeah, I’m a powerhouse and all, but seriously … anyway, I have to say that gears are pretty cool. My body was thinking me for not making it want to puke in the heat on the climb up towards Tennessee!
I’ve designed the best cruiser ever
Fellow Boulder Blogger Rob G likes my Ellsworth Cruiser. He wrote about is on his Rumblestrip Blog. He thinks its the best cruiser ever. Hey, who am I to disagree? But more notably, he also bashed the Cruiser Ride, saying, “it has become another bad example of Boulder Elitism”. What he wrongly did is accuse everyone in the whole group as being the same. What he rightly did is call out the attitude expressed by *some* people in that group.
Don’t flame him any more, he’s been straighted out, and encouraged to come out to the NEW cruiser ride. I am calling it, Boulder Cruiser Night. Everyone still cruises, just not in the same intersection at the same time. I am going to write more details to come. But in the meantime, know that cruising is not dead. It is just in a transition state. The old Cruiser Ride wasn’t working anymore. No one likes a drunken mob. Well, except the guttersnipes. And I’m not one of them.
We are cruising tonight. Meet at Scotts house then the Sports Garage, as always.
Golden Gate State Park Trail Review Ride Report, Part 1
One of the mistakes I’ve made in the past as a newly self employed individual was working through holidays. Life is too short to work on holidays, and I find that it makes me cranky anyway. So for the 4th of July our crew of 29ers headed out to Golden Gate Canyon State Park to check out the trails.
The night before I did my homework and read some online reviews of the trails. For mountain biking there are basically two loops. We parked at Kriley Pond and rode the western loop, which is best ridden counterclockwise. It consists of Blue Grouse to Mule Deer to Raccoon to Elk and back down Blue Grouse. According to the maps this loop is around 10 miles. The eastern loop is the Mountain Lion loop, and is a more advanced trail. Unfortunately the trails that connect the two loops are reportedly not too mountain bike friendly. So our plan was to ride the first loop, then assess whether we wanted to go for the second loop.
Blue Grouse is a very nice switchback climb with a few rocky technical sections. The Mule Deer trail varies between super technical rocky single track, loose rocky fire road, and loamy pine forest. It offered some challenging climbing on the single speed, but shouldn’t be all that difficult on geared bike. It is mostly all uphill, with one fast rocky road descent in the middle. Mule Deer tops out at one of the main park roads where it meets the Raccoon Trail. We took the longer stretch of Raccoon which provided us with a super fun twisty and fast descent. Raccoon then follows a smooth and wide track that climbs back up to the road. The final descent was on Elk. Elk starts out super fast through the woods. Watch out for the hard right hander before the bridge! I barely braked in time to make the corner, while both Rob and Ryan blasted straight off the trail. Unfortunately Ryan taco-ed his rear wheel, and had to hike to the road and wait to be picked up. He missed out on a beautuful singletrack descent through open fields and wildflowers that reminded me a bit of Crested Butte. This part of the descent was fast and smooth and not very technical. There is a small amount of climbing left before the final quick descent back to the car on Blue Grouse.
So overall this is a great ride and is highly recommended. I would estimate that it is about 70% singletrack. The longish drive to get there and the $5 park fee will probably keep it from becoming a regular ride, but it is definitely worth checking out. The best part of this ride was the lack of crowds, even on a holiday. We were on the trail for over two hours and we didn’t see a single other mountain biker! There were probably 6 or 7 groups of hikers. Luckily we had Ryan’s mechanical to use as an excuse not to ride the longer (13 miles) and more technical Mountain Lion Loop. I’ll be checking that one out for sure very soon!
Plunging Into The Poudre
Sunday was a big day. After the Ned Ride we headed up to Ft. Collins in search of the Poudre. The Poudre was flowing, but apparently it had dried up significantly since the week before. No one likes a dry Poudre! I thought the Poudre up there was easy, but it actually turned out to be quite a workout. I’m sore today from all the stroking and pumping involved with an adventure to which I’m not accustomed. Now I know that seeking out the Poudre is not something to be taken lightly; one needs to be prepared for the potential consequences. You might come out unscathed, or you might get scratched and bruised. You just never know. Fortunately we all had a great time on the Poudre. And the best part was we didn’t have to take turns; we all got to ride at the same time because Justin was prepared with enough inflatables for us all. He’s talking about talking Clear Creek next. I don’t know about that one, it looks intense!
Sweet Mountain Bike Ride - Forgot the Camera - Trail Openings and Closings
Wingnut and I hit the 10:10 bus to Ned on Saturday. Getting up in time to get downtown that early is always a bit of a stretch for my non-morning person type self. So I forgot my camera. And it was a shame, the wildflowers in the foothills are the best that I have seen after our wet spring.
We rode North up the Peak to Peak Highway to the Swiss Miss. I’m not sure if this locals name is actually the trail name, or the name of the loop, or what. We dropped off the highway and down to a sweet technical singletrack along a small stream, then climb up a burly old fire road to some local trails just south of Gold Hill Road. We switched to the north side of that road, up a climb, through the Aspens, and pop out on the Switzerland Trail. Then we dropped down to Wall Street in what looks like what is called Todd Gulch on the topo. That trail is a steep rocky forearm pump. It was a bit hot for 9000 feet, but we had a really nice ride. These trails are all legal as far as I know, and little known gems.
After a long slow coast on the singles down to 4 mile Canyon, we decided to check out what is up with the Church Trail. We came to some fresh, professionally done (read: expensive) no trespassing signs. “No bikes, hikers are welcome” was the message on the sign. Well that really burns me up. It would be one thing if the homeowner there was doing the standard possessive territorial thing. But discrimination really gets my goat. I hear the trails on Lower Arkansas are closed as well. Hopefully we can get some sustainable legal trails within riding distance of town up there.
Speaking of new trails, has anyone ridden Little Raven since the new work? I see they are still planning to build more bog-traversing bridges, but is it ready to ride now?
Sometimes life is like a knuckleball
Last week I was out of blogging commission; commissioned to shoot 36 hours of girls’ fast-pitch softball in three days. It was really tough, mentally and physically. Mentally it was tough to keep it together while knowing that at any time I could get a line drive into my head or even worse the L-glass. I jumped over 3, barely dodged one to the side, and got hit in the shin once. Physically it was hard because I’m just not trained to stand, walk around, jog from one side of the field to the other, or pretty much to anything for 36 hours other than sit at a computer or sleep. Shooting weddings is looking pretty damn cush right now.
>
