Las Vegas-Bootleg Canyon

I haven't been doing a whole bunch of riding lately, but i did get a chance to ride some place totally different.....Bootleg Canyon in Boulder City Nevada. I'm sitting here at the airport in vegas typing away using their free internet and thinking about the ride.

I had to go down for a work conference, but was able to sneak away for a day and ride some rocks.

I rented a car and drove about 45 minutes from my hotel to Boulder City. The drive out there was cool. just driving through the desert checking out the nothing...except for tons of guys on motorcycles. looked like something out of a mad max movie is guess.

I arrived at All Mountain Cyclery a bit early and met a couple guys from Southern part of Utah. They were decent guys...one of them ate crap about 20 feet down the first part of trail...heck of a way to start the day.

I rented a demo 7 with a totem on it....don't know if it is just my luck or if these fork just suck butt. this thing bottomed out all the time, but was so stiff in the first part of the travel. they had a decent set up to haul a lot of bikes.

This was the view back toward the strip in vegas about half way up the shuttle.

this was a huge satellite dish looking this at the top of the mountain. I was scared to go too close. didn't want to cook my insides.

i'd like to come back to this place with all the guys some time this next winter when it's cold back home. speaking of which...it's still probably cold back home, so i don't know what the hell i'm talking about.

winter is ending

well winter is ending, we are about to get our first 70 degree day of the year. I've been thinking all winter about improving my filming and ways to do it (without spending money).

so i figured a way to build a cable camera with less than 40 dollars in parts and materials...including the 500 feet of cable that was the majority of the cost.

So this is just the beginning of taking my filming to the next level on pretty much zero budget. Made of garage door parts, shelving metal, some threaded rod, pulleys and a few bolts. I'm going to do the first outdoor test tomorrow when the weather is a bit nicer.

I can't wait to test thing out on the trails, it is going to be an awesome season!

not exactly riding

Well the Maing Bus (A.K.A 1994 Chevy Astro Van) has been a staple of our groups riding trips, jokes and slow drives by elementary schools for the past year....just kidding.

The past few rides the noise coming from the front of the van has been getting worse and worse. Finally figure out that it was a worn out or broken engine mount.

This first image is what the motor mount is supposed to look like.

This is what the motor mount looks like after 14 years of hard driving.

This thing was not fun to replace. The drive side mount was easily accessible and was actually changed by somebody prior to me. I know why the didn't change the mount on the passenger side.....because it took me and Ross 12 hours to change the damn thing. Not fun...pay a mechanic to do work on cars other than changing air filter.

but she runs smooth now!

the day of riding

we rode long time on saturday the 22nd. just check out hack's blog...link is on the right side of the screen. He sums it up pretty well. Here are a few shots from the day.

blackrock 03-09-08

went to blackrock yesterday and trails were great. no mud, just sun and great riding to be had.

jake is getting ready to hit the trails. danners and knee pads. that's all you need right?

it was round.....I don't know how many of "Jakehatesracks.com" he says that all bikes he buys fits his car rack, just the bikes other people buy don't fit his rack? Go figure?

It was a great day of riding. The usual rob talking all day and only hitting one jump...i guess it's better than rob talking all day and hitting no jumps??? The day was so good that i didn't really take any action shots, just took post ride shots. I worked on the video so much that i've just felt like riding lately. My Saturday night drinking antics didn't help the ride all day cause though. I was hurting.

is it just me, or does dirk look like he's not quite sure how to work that bottle? Hmmm?

not exactly sure what darren is wearing or doing in this picture? only he knows.

the sky was also pretty cool looking on the way home.

Post Canyon should be drying out soon. Blackrock is cool, but post is awesome...shuttling is way better than pushing to the top!

It's going to be a great season!!!

02-17-08-blackrock

weather has kinda sucked for the past couple months, that's why not a lot of pictures or posts....but today was awesome. it was dry most of last week and into the weekend. I was still expecting there to be lots of snow, but to my suprise trails were dry. one of those days you can ride home in the clothes you rode in.

there was a ton of people that showed up, some new people like raul and a guy named todd along with all the usuals. we started in basic training where they finally got the take off on the right line finally dialed in. you don't have to go nearly as fast to make it over to the landing, but you can still go fast and not just go straight up. we also got to hit the new/revised sunday stroll upper section that we have worked on at the past couple build days. way fun and way flowy! after sunday stroll we headed up to grannies kitchen and hit the stump jump several times.

the new e.t. jump was way fun. huge take off (very freaky riding up to it) and an even bigger landing. just a couple small crashes...dirk the usual lay down on the road gap and casey did his best front flip off the hip jump on grannies kitchen. nobody in our group was seriously hurt!

summer is comin!

02-09-08-sitting on the couch

well, it's been snowing in the hills...raining everywhere else. i haven't been taking any pictures. so not much riding lately. jake and i went shooting the shotguns last weekend, that was fun. we walked past all the little kiddies sledding with their mom's and dad's....our back packs stuffed with beer and ammunition. gotta make some fun out of the bad weather.

i've been talking about riding with people...just a bit depressed and crazy spending all this time in the house.

maybe there will be sunshine in the future and riding.

j