The non smoking battle continues - but I'm calling it a win now. It's been nearly 6 months. I no longer crave it, and only miss it once in a while, sort of like an ex-girlfriend. I win, I won. I'll mark my quit date by years from here out. :peace:
IT'S LIKE THAT...
Out of Order...
As in.. not in a linear order.
I have a few journals to get out, but they're coming out backwards. There's a trip report regarding the Moab/Fruita trip, but I'm still finishing it off, hopefully, I'll get that out this week. LOTS of photos in that one.
"see ya later... going downhilling with no back brakes!".... Really.
But I wanted to get some stuff out while its fresh and relevant to the deviations I've posted recently... So here goes...
I had lots of grand ideas about how things would go once I moved out west. Oh yeah.. best intentions and all that. I can't say I regret the decisions I've made, though I admit I've f**d up more than a couple times, and am very lucky I have a few very, very tight friends that give a rats ass. Anyhow, this aint about bad things, just sayin'... Anyhow.. funny how one decision to stay in ABQ changed so many things down the line. I don't know what I was thinkin', lol... well, yes I do, and I'd make the same decision again were it placed in front of me now.
Hell, where was I going with all this... When I moved out here.. out this way, I had this sort of expectation great riding all the time, challenging trails, sick lines... blah blah. I can't say exactly what I thought it woul be like, I suppose it was sort of arbitrary, based on magazine photos and mtb videos.
In ABQ, I struggled to find such things. There were (are cool trails there), but the really insane (read "fun") stuff was hidden, and I was no longer in the inner circle of movers and shakers of the riding scene (was I ever?) (YES, I was :D ).... But I made do, and found my way around, and had a decent riding experience.
Finding my soul in ABQ... (gawd I miss those forks...)
Then, I moved to Durango. Known Previously as Mountain Bike Mecca. I say previously because places like Whistler and the North Shore are en vouge now, and on the surface Durango seems like a haven for spandex clad single track maniacs. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I've never been that kind of rider. The first summer, I rode all the local fare, and even some of the spread out trails, but never really made it out anyhwere really "cool" like Fruita, or up in to the high country. I was like a mountain bike shut in, lol...
I need to update this one...
This summer though.. has been off the hook. This Ohio homeboy has been living his bicycle dream with the trails and riding and bikes and... Yeah, it would have been cool to just jump right out here and be immediately immersed in the thick of it... But now, its all that much sweeter. I've been tipped off to keen lines, explored and found them on my own, and forged through and even created few (more in the works).
This last weekend was golden for sure. I was previously kind of bummed that Durango seemed to have lost some of its lustre in the mtb world - but really, that was my own minsconcption (and wow, funny how many of those I keep finding out about)... Whatever it seems like on the surface - hell man, whatever. That's great.
The last few lines we've found, we had to really sort of search out. Nothing obvious. No signs, no cairns', no maps, no nuthin' save for a fresh wet knobby imprint in a dished out puddle in knee high grass on the mountain top. hmmm.. follow it. keep going.. "okay, I"m going back ot get a bike".... that kind of stuff. People that need to know - they KNOW, or somehow they find out... or, they don't. There is no trail guidebook for this stuff - and thank goodness, because some people would be spending a lot of money getting airlifted out of these places after their whole world fell apart. hmmm.. this intro is getting really long and going nowhere, so, here - lets go...
Last weekend, Ben and myself set out to find a trail we had heard rumors of for a while now… Little did we know that we’d have to travel all the way to Texas to find it.
Well, not really to the state of Texas, but “a little slice of Texas” to be sure.
See, its hunting season here. Wabbit Season. Duck Season. It's Fiddler Crab Season, shoot me now.
In an area not too far from home, we found the trail we were looking for. But man, those hunters mean business. Because, from the looks of things, they sure didn’t mean hunting. I have not seen so many people dealing so personally with fluorescent colors since a Derek May/Rave back in Detroit.
These dudes/dudettes were buzzin all over the place in everything from dirt bikes, to four wheelers, to super heavy duty dually’s, and hell, we even saw a group just waiting in their SUV near a switchback in the road… Just sitting there... waiting... like a deer was actually going to walk right out of the woods and present himself as a prime target or something, maybe just climb in their with them (sights we'd like to see). Good thing they all had orange on though. jeezus.
Perhaps the best part was - as we were rounding our way up this mountain, we came across several vacant camps (”hunters” were busy - out buzzing around on their noisy vehicles spooking all the local fauna)… huge canvass tent-towns, complete with chimneys and all - it was like a set from the show M*A*S*H, except replace all the little Willys’ Jeeps with Ten-Ton-Hulking Canyoneros. Anyhow, the camp was empty except for a few deer that were just passin’ through, inspecting coolers and anything else that was open.
Really, it was like the scene from JAWS, where all the yahoos are zipping around in their boats trying to blow the shark out of the water with dynamite or shotguns, fueled by nothing but testosterone and alcohol... only this was on land. Just crazy. Hardly saw a Colorado license plate all day. Were it not so surreal, it would have been downright scary. Also, no shortage of "NObama" bumper stickers too.
Texas??? why would they come here. Nobody from Oklahoma, Kansas, AZ, CA, UT, OH, MI.... funny.
Anyhow, we ended up finding our trail, and ran in to some cats riding their bikes down it. These guys were the real deal… sponsored pro or semi-pro downhill riders that knew the trail well, and knew their bikes even better. We ended up shooting quite few images that day.
It's funny.. you see images in magazine, or watch a person take a line on a video... and they look pretty impressive. Of course they do, they become heroes and role models to thousands or millions of teenagers every year. But, as I learned at Red Bull four years ago... until you see some of this stuff in person, you just have no clue how "impressive" it really is.
Just the steep parts of the trail - were fairly intimidating. Not impossible, and I was actually figuring out my way of hitting them in my head. Sure, I can do these. Well. I was set up just before a short berm before the trail ducked in to a small area of trees. The run in was open air, twisty, steep and WET. Again, in my head, I had picked my way down the line - lol, I had it all figured out, and sort of expected these guys to attack it in a similar way.
Well, as the first guy came down, my jaw just dropped in to the mud. At first, I was not sure if he was just out of control, and I should run for cover in the trees, or, good god - was he actually in control? He was actually pedaling full force DOWN this "trail"?? Holy. Well, yes, that was indeed correct. I stayed in place, but didn't even try to take the photo as blew by me - I was too busy trying to study the line. Only, there was no study to it. Not to take anything away - as it does take some significant skill to navigate such a line at speed... but really, it was more about just having the cajones/minerals/balls/whatever to take that at speed like that.
We were in soft, loamy, wet forest dirt. When they came by, the ground shook like a cardiac arrest being routed through an 808/sub in somebody's fast n' furious Honda Civic trunk. These cats were hitting and hucking all comers man... They went BIG too, and really blew away some other misconceptions I had about what MY bike was capable of... One guy broke his rear brake 50 yards in to the first run of the day too... He kept riding. He ate it few times, but just damn.
JAWS comes to mind again. We're going to need bigger bikes....
I was all hip on my Giant Reign - over 6.5 inches of travel in the back... the Tora fork would do for now, but I could upgrade later. I used to sort of blow off the idea of ever riding anything like a Spec. Demo, or a Giant Glory, or whatever else is a big free ride thing these days. Not anymore. Funny... this of all things, is almsot enough to make me get a second job. lol... eating ramen half the week, nope - no incentive there...
And damn, I'm like 40 and shit. what am I thinking? Well, I either take advantage now - or hang it all up, because really, in ten years, I'll probably be lucky to be able to ride a bike ;)
Okay.. straying from the topic.
We ended up talking with these guys - I think they all race, are all students up at the college. They were out shooting video to send to their sponsors I think. We found out we had friends in common, and all that rider talk ensued... We hop-scotched down the trail with them, and they even gave us a shuttle back up the top when we were done. Cool.
Yeah, anyhow.. Durango. Funny place. I see people up here from out of state all the time, riding the Gulch of all places. I can't imagine coming up from like.. Ohio, riding the Gulch, and taking that back home as my Durango experience. But - I guess it's all about perspectives, right?
Ben had dislocated his shoulder last week during a fast ride down Kessel Run in Fruita, so I was the only one of riding stuff this day.. or "trying" to ride stuff I should say.
Shot on the left is me rolling in a nice rooty steep. The sad thing is that the other cats just launched from the top. the one on the right is me contemplating too long. ended up not dropping it, but I will next time. Its about a 5 foot drop with a nice downhill on the back side.. probably a 7 foot drop by the time you land. I need to get used to that going over blind edges stuff, cause now, I can't believe I didn't ride it. both Shots by Ben.
McCain will in town tomorrow. I hear tell that Colorado is a huge state in the election. Evidenced probalby pretty well by all the McCain/Palin ads I saw between here and Fruita last week. It was crazy, quite honestly. If I were still getting up with graf, I'd be jealous, those suckers are crushing it out here... That's all I'll say about politics right now, taking a break from all that hoo-ha.
I'm sure there's other stuff I'm forgetting, but I think I'll have it in the next journal...
Hope all is well, and thanks for lookin' :peace:
Perhaps the most photographed thing on the Portal Trail. Well, I guess with good reason. Once you start riding it, you're way too busy to look back and shoot, plus there's not a lot of off trail vantage points to shoot from either. That's been ignoring the suggestion, as we all did.... I dont' want to hear it either...
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