King on Caley: Mar 20, 2011

The first ride of season this was not but my youngest son has been bugging me all weekend to go on a bike ride. Here in Colorado it has been a deceptively mild week. The temp got up into the high fifties. I had two problems though every time I thought of getting the bike down. One, I would run out of day light. Two, I usually had to wait till the afternoon to go out because of various domestic jobs, and by the time I was free to leave the weather would be turning against me or threatening a change. I am a fair weather rider. I am not ashamed to admit it. Later in life, I can become a hardcore biking freak you'll see in a snow storm biking to work. Now, I am not going out if the weather even looks wet. Today, I didn't have any excuse so even though it was nearly four in the afternoon my son wanted to ride.

My son choose the destination for this trip. He wanted to go to the "Bumps." In a previous blog(link), I referred to them as the "dirt jumps." My son calls them the Bumps. I didn't think that we would actually make it to the Bumps since it is a bit of a ride. I didn't know the condition of the trail, but I was certain we would be facing some muddy sections. As we started out on the Lee Gulch Trail it was dry most of the way. We passed kids walking home and adults walking their dogs. I immediately began experiencing a horrible squealing sound coming from the my rear tire. I had the issue earlier after I took my bike into the shop to have it's annual tune up. They adjusted the brakes so the back brake was rubbing the disc. I tried to fix it but without good enough weather to really take the bike out I hadn't been able to test it. I let it go since I knew there wasn't much danger of that much damage being done on this short ride.

My son was walking his bike pretty soon after we got to the first hill. I took the chance to practice turning around and going back to him. I wanted to see how it felt since I also had the bike shop install SRAM X-5 grip shifters on my bike while they were tuning it up. They messed up the cables so I had to take it back once to get it fixed. Now I wanted to see if the new shifters would make turning feel any different. There was a couple of times I need to adjust my grip but other than that I loved the grip shifters.

Even though my son was walking his bike every time, I'd ask him if he wanted to head back to the house. He kept telling me he was good. He'd jump on his bike and take off. We rode a little further he slowed down then next thing I know he's sitting down at a bench by the side of the trail. I go back to check on him, but again he's ready to go when I get to him. My son jumped on his bike and off he'd go. We traveled this way the whole time. Near the end of our journey we encountered a closure sign on the trail. I'm not sure why but my theory is that one of the bridges over the tiny creek we were following was not passable. Could be that there was a large muddy section the parks department didn't want everyone going through. We followed the detour signs through neighborhood as best we could but there seemed to be signs that had been turned around. I had basic idea of where we were going but it would have been nice to have better placed signs to guide us.

By the time we navigated the side streets to the Bumps, it was sun down as you can see in the pictures. Another rider was already riding the Bumps. He was filming himself with a video camera on a little tripod. My son and I watched him take a few runs. My son took a few runs of his own. I rode just behind him at least once. The track was mostly dry but for some of the shaded corners. I found my tires slipping and sliding through the mud. I was exhausted quickly that was for sure. After we finished our runs we headed back toward home. We took a main street which saved a lot of time on the return journey. I was glad that we got home quickly. The sun was down when we left the Bumps and by the time we rode home it was getting dark. A good preseason run for me. I hope we get some more warm weather here in Colorado. I am tempted to try Green Mountain one these weekends if the weather holds.

See you on the trails this season.

After wrecking my vehicle(click on the title to learn more), I have been in a bit of a daze. I got really sick the same week that I had my wreck. It was not pretty. I used up the little sick time that I had saved up since my wife's surgery. I imagine that I was a victim of my own stress that week. I don't normally get a fever. It's scary right now not having a second car. Technically, I have my grandfathers 1979 Ford Ranchero to drive to and from work.

It is a very low mileage vehicle even lower than my own vehicle. I have driven this classic beauty for the last three summers in a row. It's great to haul around my mountain bike, but it only is a two seater. I am not sure what I am going to do about buying a second vehicle. I got just a little bit of money for the wreck, and I got a little bit more back from taxes. Combine this will be the start of either a down payment or buy a car with that money. It's really up to God at this point. That's a really scary idea. I have been in this place before. God came through for me that time. I don't know why it's so scary this time around. I guess that is why God tests our faith once and awhile. I know that I don't learn the lesson the first time every time.