Turkey Day and Trail Maintenance

This is a photo from my dinner table. Honest...

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! With the holiday over, it's now time to enjoy the Christmas season as we wind down the last few weeks of 2011! Racing starts again with the Beacon Double Down Hoe Down, only 4 months away! 

On an impulse last week, we picked up an Xbox Kinect. It's really fun.

Ruth cooked up a big Thanksgiving feast for us and few friends. We ate a great meal, played some Xbox Kinect and watched the first Christmas movie of the season. It was fun having people over for Thanksgiving, and hopefully we can do it again next year. Rylie was going crazy all day with all of the smells of everything cooking. She calmed down a little after we gave her the turkey neck. I don't think I've ever seen her that happy!

This doesn't have anything to do with this update, but the soda machine blocking the exit can't be up to fire code.  South Everett...

I managed to sneak away for a little bit on Thanksgiving day and head over to the Duthie MTB park to do a little trail maintenance. Living in the Pacific Northwest means we get rain. The last week we've had a lot of it, so the trails were in need of some love. When building out here, drainage is a major issue. A lot of the berms need to have drains built into them. Overtime the drains clog up and need to be cleaned out. I grabbed a polaski and headed out. 

Clogged drain before.

Clean and dry (er) drain after!

Not much of an update, but hey, it's the off season. Ruth and I are going to get a Christmas tree and start getting ready for Christmas! 

-KT

Typical Morning Ride - Grand Ridge

A map of Grand Ridge. It's my usual morning ride.

Most mornings, I am lucky enough to get to ride. I spend most of my time on my "XC" bike. (I refer to almost anything with a front derailleur as "XC") In my case, it's my Diamondback Mission Pro.  I can ride from my front door to a really fun trail called Grand Ridge. It's a 7 mile out and back trail that climbs 1100' up and over Grand Ridge in each direction. The trail connects the Duthie Hill MTB park to exit 18 on I-90. It's not technical, but it is a great leg and lung workout. Check out Evergreen MTB - Grand Ridge for more details.

Rylie enjoying the leaves when they were covering the trail.

After last nights "wind storm" (or "slight breeze" for anyone reading this back in North Dakota) I was greated with a trail covered in big maple leaves. I was shocked to find King County out about half way through the trail with a crew and leaf blowers clearing the trail! It was great to see that the county was maintaining the trail as quickly as they were after last nights wind.

And what the trail looked like a little further down. This was much more fun to ride!

The other project happening at Grand Ridge is the boardwalk being built by the Washington Trails Association at the north end of the trail. The trail crosses a bog that is almost impassible in the winter. WTA and King County have been working on a boardwalk to make the trail more user friendly all year long. The last section is nearing completion and it will be great to finally be able to ride across the bog without getting wet!

The board walk over the worst part of the bog. (In progress, obviously)

The groundwork below the boardwalk.

The completed portion of the boardwalk.

As the only member of my family without any sort of glasses or contacts, I've started to try and take better care of my eyes. I was getting tired of mud and dirt being flung into my eyes on wet XC rides. I called Spy Optics and got a hold of a pair of their new performance Alpha glasses. These things are great. Interchangeable polarized lenses, 100% UV A, B and C protection, lightweight and very strong, and inexpensive (compared to other eye wear). MSRP is 119.00. Spy Optic - Alpha

They look good too!

I can't believe I haven't been riding with eye protection on XC rides. It really makes a difference, and you only have two eyes!

-KT

Old riding video are fun

A few weeks ago, Ruth and I got an Apple TV box to connect our TV to the internet. It's a really cool device that lets us stream Netflix straight to our TV. Another cool feature is that you can search Youtube. Naturally I looked up my old account and found some old riding videos from back in the day. I've got quite a few old videos floating around the web. As I come across them I'll post them up.

Old riding photos are funny. This was yours truly at  the 4th of July Parade in Medora ND circa 2003?  Check the sweet Cannondale F-500. Things that were cool back then, haha!

Up first is probably my favorite. This was made in 2006-2007? while I was in school for Fox Racing Shox's Where Ever You Ride contest. I ended up getting an honorable mention. I did the riding and editing. This kid named Jack did the filming and Ruth even makes a guest voice appearance. We did sneak into some random Japanese Cultures class to film the opening shot. Pretty sure I'm one of the few people who ever snuck INTO a class.



-KT

Season wrap-up!

Game over! 2011 race season is done for me and what a success it was!

Story of the year! 1st overall again!

We headed out to Moscow Idaho for the last race of the season. I was rolling with Bobby Stenson, Cam Hoefer, Kevin Littlefield, Ruth and Rylie. We rolled into the Moscow La Quinta Inn and hit the hay, ready for the best race of the season.

Moscow Mountain Road. I can't count how many times I've drifted my jeep around this corner.

Saturday was early for us. I built the course while I was in school there (Ok, I had a LOT of help!) and have helped put on the race for the last few years. Mike Smith usually does a ton for this race, but a broken ankle meant he was stuck at home and wouldn't be able to make the trip. Alex Eley stepped up and did a bunch of work prior to the race by renting a hedge trimmer and cutting back the brush and making an easy out around the off camber section. Tyler Martin got up there before the race and did a bunch of course taping, which also helped out a ton. Usually I try and get a little time on the track before practice starts to fix anything that needs it and add something to keep it new and exciting every year.

Alex hitting the off camber, thanks for the help this year!

This year we hiked the course and didn't have to make any real changes. The course was in pretty good shape. We knocked out the rut that was forming on the off camber section and added a few option lines in two other corners. Beyond that, we didn't have to do much. I took a practice run and remembered that Moscow is always strange the first run. You drop into the track and you are going. There isn't really any pedaling, or anywhere to rest. You are turning or jumping or trying to stay upright the whole way down the track. As soon as my run finished, the rain started coming down. It poured down and the trail turned into a muck fest right away. It became impossible to see. I hung out at the pit and grilled some brats with Jon Kennedy, the marketing manager for Diamondback. After an hour and a half, the rain let up and Kevin Littlefield and I were freezing. We decided to hike the back way to the top of the trail to warm up. After pushing to the top, I felt a lot better. I was warm, and we beat the shuttle truck!

Kennedy and Bobby. A long story goes with this photo.

Kevin and I dropped in and decided to stop at the off camber section. This section is hard in the dry, and crazy in the wet. We hiked and worked on how to ride it a few times before heading down the hill. By the time we made it to the bottom, the sun was starting to shine again. We grabbed Tim Zimmerman who was there to do a story for VitalMTB.com on the race. We went up the hill and shot a few of the sections, which was actually beneficial for us to be able to session and repeat a few of the harder spots. The trail was starting to dry out well and we were getting ready to wrap it up for the day.

Along with the DH course, Moscow has some amazing XC riding. We all brought our XC bikes and Jon, Tim, Kevin, and I decided to go for a XC ride with Rylie. We took the shuttle to the top of the DH course and pedaled to the top of Nemisis from there. We rode Nemisis and Gemini back to the bottom of the race course. It was such a fun ride. The trails were in great shape and flowed really well. Big thanks to Jim LaFourtune for all his years of hard work on the mountain. (For those that don't know, Jim passed away recently. Moscow lost a really good cycling advocate among other things. Check out Jim's Page for more info)

Thanks for the trails Jim. Your legacy will be enjoyed by many.

We all headed out to the Moscow Alehouse for some drinks and dinner. We had quite the crew rolling with us and were excited to head down to our old college drinking hole. We were all little bummed when we found out that the brewery was moving and wouldn't be brewing beer for a while. Hopefully they are back up and running again next year.

Me: "How's that for Brian Lopes parking job?"   Bobby: "Nah, you aren't in two handicapped spots!"

Sunday started with another early morning. I took 3 practice runs to make sure I was dialed on the course. The first one was just a nice coasting run. The second was a pushed a little harder and the third one was pedaling the whole run. I felt great and headed back to the van to wait for my race run. I have been doing the All Gravity Series all season and even with missing one race, I had a pretty good points lead going into the final race. I just had to finish to win the series, however, that's not a result I want to settle for. I love racing at Moscow and was going for the win.

My race run started off a little cold. I was a little loose around the first few tight corners, but quickly pulled it together. I came through the top section on the gas and hit the off camber section faster than I ever have. I shot over the wood jump and carried great speed through the tight corners after it. The rock roll didn't seem to be rough at all and I wove through the tight little trees after it without issue. I set up wide to drop onto the last road before the final section and in the middle of my corner, a root ball caught my rear wheel and I went flying over the bars down onto the road while my bike tumbled over me. I quick grabbed my bike and hopped on and started pedaling. My seat was twisted to the side which made pedaling weird, but that was quickly overlooked and sprinted it to the finish line.

I rolled over to the van and laid my bike down in disappointment. I was really bummed. I wanted to win that race really badly. I started to feel my wrist tingling as my adreniline was wearing off. I've broken it enough times before to know when I crash I put my hands out. I looked down and noticed some swelling starting to happen and ran and grabbed a bottle of fork oil from Cam's toolbox and dumped it on my hand. I was able to get my wedding ring off with quite a bit of tugging. I went to the medics and got it taped up then hiked up the hill to watch the impromptu "Huck to Flat" contest.

A rare shot of Justin Covey on the ground.

Last year before the race, we built a large jump towards the bottom of the course without a landing. We had always talked about having a huck to flat contest and Bobby managed to put one together this year. Justin Covey won without question, however he ended up breaking his collarbone on the last attempt. That ended the contest quickly and everyone funneled down the hill to check out the results. I waited for the crowd to disperse a little bit to find out how far down the pack I ended up. Ruth said I didn't seem far behind the guy in front of me, so I still had a little hope that I might pull out a mid pack result. To my surprise, the results sheet showed me on top!

I was pretty excited to see that result. I guess almost everyone had issues in their runs, so my crash didn't hurt my time as bad as I thought it would. I was excited to hear my name called to the top of the podium and for the first time ever, I got a champagne bottle to spray! Click the link below for Tim Zimmerman's photo/audio slide show from the race.

Vital MTB Moscow Slide Show

It was a great weekend, and I can't wait to go back again next year. I was excited to wrap up my season with another series win. That makes my season complete with 2 series wins, 11 podium finishes, 15th at National Champs, and another year of staying healthy. Not to bad and I can't wait for next season. I wore a wrist brace all last week after the race and my wrist seems to be doing alright. It's a little sore still, but I don't think it's broken! I'll keep an eye on it, but it doesn't seem to be bothering me.

Proof it is running!

In other news, Ruth and I are looking at houses now, I got my VW caddy running again, and trail work will be commencing this winter. I also figured out how to update the blog remotely, so expect more frequent updates throughout the winter as we start training for next season!