Site changes, Tokul morning ride, Bike Tracks app

As you might have noticed, there have been some changes to www.KyleThomasBikes.com  I've added a new navigation toolbar with links to results, media, race schedule etc. It's still a work in progress, but it should be finished soon!

Flowtron, one of the most fun trails in the area. It loops up and down the walls of this gully the whole way down.

Anyways, I have been riding Grand Ridge and Duthie quite a bit lately and was looking for a change of pace. I'm really spoiled living as close as I do to the trails, so the thought of driving a whole 10 minutes to somewhere farther away never really crosses my mind. I decided this morning that I should venture out! I drove out to Tokul this morning. Tokul is a trail network on private land that really is the definition of all-mountain riding. Most of the trails involve pedalling up a logging road and having a fun freeride trail to the bottom.

Logging starting soon.

Part of Tokul is set to be logged soon, so I figured I would get a few laps in before the destruction. It's always sad to see a trail system get logged, but it creates new fun trails and allows the usual builders to focus their efforts elsewhere.

This is at the start of the trail. It's almost as if there was some magical liquid that made people build trails!

I normally bring my iphone with me when I ride. I throw it in my camelbak in case of emergencies and as a clock. I found a cool app a few weeks ago that I've really come to like. It's called Bike Tracks and it does mapping, average speed, max speed, elevation gain, elapsed time etc. It also records your information to compare training rides. You can make notes of the type of ride, the trail conditions, the weather etc. If you have an iphone and ride bike, I highly recommend it. Check out Bike Tracks via itunes

Screen shot of the app.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

-KT

Rainy Season, House Update, and the Most Fun Place in the World!

Trails are wet again.

We've been really lucky these past few weeks. Normally this time of year is really wet, but the riding has been great lately. The snow level is still high and everything is still dry (for the NW anyways). The forecast looks like our luck is running out and the rains are back. I rode Grand Ridge with Rylie this morning and enjoyed sliding in the slop, but I forgot about how much I hate having to go home all muddy!

The black Mission hides the mud well, but it's there.

That brings me to my next bit of good news. Ruth and I put an offer in on a house and it was accepted yesterday! We are going to do the inspection tomorrow, as long as that goes well, there should be a nice garage in my future. To be truthful, the house hunt has been horrible. I thought it would be like the TV shows, show us three perfect houses and we get one. Nope, Ruth and I've looked at numerous houses, put in offers on a few of them and either have been outbid or have them go to pending right after we are done touring. Our agent has been great though, and has really helped us through the whole process. We really hope this works out, we are tired of house shopping!

Yes Mike, this is still your DVD. It is currently on loop in my van. Alex Rankin FTW!

After looking at the house last weekend, Ruth and I met up with some friends at the most fun place in the world. Sky High Sports is essentially a warehouse covered in trampolines. Yes, this place is probably designed for people much younger and smaller than us, but there is no age limit. Besides the main trampoline area, there is a foam pit and two dodgeball courts. If you're ever in the Bellevue area, I highly recommend stopping by!

Main trampoline area.

Foam pit

It cost $10 an hour and is worth every penny. It's really fun destroying middle school kids at dodge ball. I will warn you though, it is an really good work out. If you want to go, go to one of the latest sessions to avoid most of the really little kids. I've never been early, but I can imagine the place looks like a daycare at certain times of the day. 

 

 

 

If you can dodge a wrench...

All it needs are these two and ESPN 8, The Ocho!

 Until next time, keep riding while the snow is holding out!

E-27 last week. That's frost, not snow!

-KT

Old riding videos are fun - Part 2

Old school Metzger! Crazy high to clear my Jeep with my DH bike on top!

Here is another old riding video. Story goes, It was spring break, I had just got a new video camera and wanted to go do some filming with Metzger. I drove up to Spokane and when I got there we started filming the lower jump at Beacon. Mike got called into work after about an hour of riding, so I was left all day with nothing to do. After a few phone calls, I met up with Will Barnett. I was not planning on riding/filming, but I had my bike with me so why not? To prove the lack of riding/filming intent, check out the sweet corduroy pants. Take that, Troy Lee pajama crew! Joe Perrizo met up with us at the end of the day and finished off a great day of riding.

One of these days Mike and I are going to do an updated version of this video..... One day..

-KT

Your government hates bikes.

This video made me laugh. Cops that do stuff like this need to be fired.



Remember kids, stay in the bike lane at all costs!

-KT

How to ride Whistler

Normally, this is a pretty egotistical blog about me, myself, and I. However, every now and then, I come across something worth posting. This is one of those thing.



Chris Kovarik absolutly ripping Whistler a new one. Chris is a former World Cup pro who just moved to Whistler last summer. He is still insanely fast. You can catch a re-post of this on Team Robot later today ;)

-KT

Usable bike stand, Scratch ticket Christmas tree, XXX burger, and a few new sponsors

Rylie being forced to enjoy the holiday season. 

I've had the same bike stand for about a decade now and while my Park Tool stand is still going strong, it was designed for someone who looks up to Snookie, height wise. I decided it was finally time to make the stand a proper height. After some careful measuring and a trip to Home Depot, I was lucky enough to find that a steel fence post was the same diameter as the stand. A hacksaw, a drill, and a few bolts later and I finally have a stand that I can use while standing!

Short and useless for anyone taller than Webster.

 

Finally, a useful stand! Now I have no excuses for not overhauling my bikes.

Last year, Ruth and I went out and chopped down our own Christmas tree. It was fun and a nice afternoon together, so we decided to do that again this year. We walked out the front door to head to Home Depot for the bike stand and were hit by pouring rain and miserable cold. While in the store, it was mutually decided to abandon the whole "Walking through a forest for an hour and freezing" thing and head into the Home Depot garden center to get a Christmas tree. However, we had not planned on the garden center not having a roof. While getting rained on, we quickly decided on a tree height and grabbed the first wrapped tree we came too. Ruth dubbed it our scratch-ticket Christmas tree, as there was no guarantee of winning! We threw the tree in the back of the van and headed home to find out what we bought.

This is how it looked in the store and how we purchased it. Sight unseen!

With the tree firmly in our stand, I cut the netting off to reveal our living room decoration for the next month. Needless to say, we will be unwrapping the tree prior to purchase next year. After it settled, it did look okay and once it was decorated, looked fine. It was a fun afternoon though, and I'm always up for doing something random and different.

With all of the decorations, it looks like a typical tree!

 We wrapped up the night with a trip to the Issaquah XXX Drive in. When I first moved here, I thought it was an adult bookstore, but it's actually a local restauraunt. I heard they had good burgers, so we went to investigate. I was hungry, so I ordered their namesake "XXX burger" without really reading the description. I was a little shocked when I saw what they were bringing me. This was the largest diameter burger I've ever had, by far!

Me:  "Do you have a knife?"
Waitress: "Hands at 5 and 7. Enjoy!"

It's a good thing I have big hands.

To rid my guilt from the burger, I had to go test out some new gear on Grand Ridge the next day. I'm really excited to be working with Camelbak and Clif Bar for next season. I grabbed the futuristic looking MULE pack and hit the trails. I was so happy with the MULE at the end of the ride. The metallic looking fabric is so easy to clean, which is a necessity here in the Pacific Northwest. I've used both Clif Bars and Camelbaks for years, so it was an easy relationship to start. It's great being able to ride for companies you actually use, and believe in! I'll have some more product shots and comments in future updates.

The bare necessities of life, food and water!

Charlie Sponsel from Team Robot is coming up for the weekend, I'm buying a dirt bike, and I've got another shoot planned with Andy Tran soon. More info on all of that in the next update!

-KT