Mooseknuckler Cycling Alliance

The Alliance went for a ride up Jardine Juniper last night to do some trail work. When I say Alliance, I mean me.

My legs were toast. I could definitely feel our little road stint the night before as I attempted to climb the trail. I had to stop and rest more than ever. So I made it a point to not stop until there was something that needed to be done on the trail so I could do a little work while my legs rested. I did make it to the top where I spent about two hours trimming the vegetation that has overgrown the trail. I didn’t even make a dent.

Once it began to get dark I headed back down the trail. I had noticed one corner on a switch back that was covered with loose rock due to people taking the turn a little hot. I stopped and began to remove the rocks. Just as I was finishing a female rider came up from the bottom. She looked as if she was blown and had really been pushing it. She looked at me and then asked, “What are you doing?” She said it in a way that denoted how ridiculous she thought what I was doing was. I explained that I was doing a little trail work and trying to keep the trail rideable for others. She continued on her way.

I don’t write this to toot my own horn (I have been a bit relaxed with my trail maintenance) rather to bring attention to the issue at hand. I’ve read in several places and would like to repeat it here, for every ten hours you spend riding you should spend one volunteering for trail work. I can’t imagine what kind of trail system could be developed if we all did that. Our trail would be beautiful and we would have plenty of time to design, plan, and build many more. IMBA, if you aren’t already a member you should be.

Anyways, there is an Alliance ride tonight, 6:30 at Sunrise Cyclery.

Peace. Love. and Revolution. Do your part.

I’ve added another category. Working in a shop, as all shop rats know, requires us to filter what we say about products with the understanding that not everyone can afford or wants to spend the amount of money on a bike to get what really works, really works well. So, to help me deal with not being able to always voice exactly what I want to say, I shall say it here. Note: This doesn’t mean I am a bike snob.
As an inauguration of this category, I wanted to offer the praise that is greatly deserved for Hope brakes. They work, perfectly.

Their superiority become blatantly obvious the other weekend when I rented a bike that had some Hayes Nines on it. They had plenty of stopping power but they had no modulation. You were either skidding or not slowing at all. Hopes strength becomes apparent when one is bombing a steep downhill where you don’t want to skid but you need to be able to keep your speed down a bit. The Hopes can do it all, slowly bring you to a stop or bring you skidding in right behind the other brakes.

After riding Hopes for the past 4-5 months, I will never, I repeat never ride any other hydraulic brake system. Hopes are expensive but they are worth saving your money for. They are bomb proof, have perfect modulation and will cut time off of any descent due to added control.

Aaahhhhhhhh!

The shop guys and I went for a quick little sprint around the Little Pyrenees last night. First time I’ve ridden my road bike in quite some time. It almost made me want to keep it. I-dog and KC accompanied me on this little stint. We road easy but made really good time, cutting almost a 1/2 hour since the last time we rode it about two months ago.

I’m still convinced that riding is about camaraderie and has absolutely nothing to do with being the fastest. If you ride with a group of friends and all they do is try to drop you and prove they have the biggest uh-hum then it’s time to get some new friends. With that said,  there’s nothing wrong with a little friendly competition.

Just another reminder of how much I love to ride my bike.

Life goes on. Ride it on a bike.

I spent about two hours doing research yesterday to write a little something for y’all. The internet is a great tool, but when things aren’t meant to be found they aren’t going to be found, easily. I would assume, erroneously, that in a democracy where policies are supposedly driven by public opinion information about those policies would be readily available. I find it informative to research a country’s foreign policies to find it’s core values and what it is attempting to do in the world. The best place to find these policies is in the international democratic organization, the United Nations.

If you Google “UN votes” the first page that appears in the search is a goverment site titled Voting Practices in the United Nations. I thought I had found exactly what I was looking for and that life was going to be good. Unfortunately, the U.S. government apparently finds it useful to only post how other Sovereign entities are voting compared to their own. The site fails to detail how the U.S. voted on any issues period.

Well, the U.S. government didn’t want me to know how they were voting so I headed over to the U.N. site. After perusing their webpage for a while I finally found how to see how any given state voted. First, you search through a list of motions and what not to find the one you were looking for and then you can click and get the notes, which do very little to explain what they are voting on, you have to follow a different link for that. There is, however, at the bottom the actual votes recorded on the given issue.

I found a few issues that interested me and that seemed like no-brainers that I would approve of as a person. “The Rights of a Child,” “The Rights of Girl Children”, and “The Right to Development” are all things, after having read the bill to see exactly what they were trying to do, I agree with. On all three the U.S. voted against the motions. The U.N. site also includes explanations of countries, if given, of their vote. I looked up the one about Girl Children. No logical explanation was given, only that the U.S. claims that the motion gives no express rights internationally to anyone and does not recognize it as a binding treaty.

I would think that the biggest, most influential government that claims to promote democracy and freedom, would be the one fomenting the rights of a girl child to grow up before being encountered with sexual assault and diseases that none of us would wish on our worst enemy. Apparently, our government does not agree with those ideas.

I began researching our voting history in the U.N. to be able to publish it and make it available in another arena. Also, I was hoping to discuss democracy and how we can all do a better job of fomenting its existence here. Democratically ruled government is one that is impulsed by the will of the people, but the people aren’t being informed of what their leaders are doing. I hope that every U.S. citizen would be appalled to know that their government voted against these three issues in particular. It would be most interesting to see a full history of issues and how we have voiced ourselves.

The biggest problem impeding our pseudo-democracy is the lack of information. It is held that the Press is the fourth branch of government, the real watch dog of the people. Unfortunately, the press has been bought up and out by big business and is no longer concerned with the issues of the people. For a journalist to be successful, they must publish what it is that everyone already believes. Anyone going against the grain and trying to bring to light these things is labeled as anti-American, communist and unpatriotic.

I am a student of journalism. These are the reasons that I hope to never make any money doing what I want to do. It is a perfect gauge on how truthful and useful I am being to my readers.

In hopes of starting a tradition, this year the shop will tour the Lotoja course the Saturday, Sunday and Monday after the race. It seems fitting that we should get a good long ride in after long hours at the shop before the race. Anyone interested is welcome to come, self-supported and entirely unorganized.

I love to ride my bicycle. This becomes painfully evident when life takes me in another direction and I don’t get to ride for a while. And then, boom, it hits me as soon as I start to pedal my way up a trail. The feel of dirt under my tires inspires me to live, to be. In all my life I don’t think I have found anything that clears my head and relieves me of stress quite like pedaling.

There have been a few people in my past, the unnameables, that thought I loved my bicycle more than I did them. If they are that stupid than they should be where they are. Truth has it I don’t love the bicycle. I buy and sell them too frequently to have any kind of sentimental value attached to them. How could you sell something you love? I know I’ve never sold any of you so where does that leave us.

No, it is not a love of all things metal and shiny that drives me to live this odd little dream that is mine. It’s the ride. It’s the friends, the hooping and hollering, the feel of air beneath my tires, and of course, the feeling of accomplishment that surges when you know you should have died but somehow you kept the rubber side down. All of my friends, at least the real ones that never leave and are always there, are the ones that ride with me. There are few, as in three, who have never ridden a bike with me and are still my friends. The ride bonds, it combines the camaraderie and passion of bicycles into lasting good memories.

So, here’s to the ride, the passion, the love, the dirt. Here’s to life.

Another day, another dollar. It seems that life is just one unending continuum in which we have little choice as whether to continue or not. Sometimes don’t you just want to give up?

On a happier note, it’s a beautiful morning up here in the polar north. The temperature has begun to feel really good again. We are cooling down at night and the mornings are fresh. There was a brisk wind the other day that felt like Autumn, a bit early but not by much.

There is a Critical Mass ride today. No I didn’t organize it. I tried that with Gurr before and it didn’t seem to work. The shop will be closed an hour early to allow us peons to support whatever it is these people are trying to do. It appears to be the right thing to do, values before dollars and such.

Life goes on, with us or without us. Peace.

http://mooseknuckleralliance.org/blog2/alley-cat-races/

Green Canyon was conquered once again last night. The Alliance rode from the shop, picking up Anson on the way. This is an easy trail so connecting it to as many different things as possible is a must. The ride over was a nice pace. The only obstacle was finding a garbage can to toss my Reese’s Fast Break into. Of course, there was Temple Hill and Old Main Hill that got us breathing a little harder for a minute.

The actual canyon was loose and dry, pretty much the way it usually is. The nice thing about Green is that the sun doesn’t hit it for long and it is always nice and cool. After sweating up to the top and resting, I was getting goosebumps on the way down. It should go without saying that the descent is the only reason someone would do this trail. It’s fast, rocky enough to be interesting and you get to ride singletrack.

Then I conquered the rock. This is the same rock that almost killed me the first time Anson and I rode the trail. It took me three tries. The first I made it to the top only to panic for realization that I hadn’t planned the exit very well. Second, I didn’t quite make it. Third, perfect run in, I carried just the right amount of speed, slowed at the top and carved my way back down to the trail. Hoorah!

To finish things off, we rode the Bonneville Shoreline Trail back, well most of it. Anson had a genious idea that we ride across the golf course that is the country club at the top of the trail. We rode through the greens and over to the cart path and down to the road. Luckily it was closed and there weren’t any crazy golfers chasing us on their little I’m-too-lazy-to-walk carts.

Ride more. Drive less.