First pump track complete!

Today was pretty successful! We finished the first pump track. It needs to settle overnight and then be packed down again before the first go at it! It was just Tim and I so I'm pretty tired after packing and shapping all the berms and rollers by hand!

Build day tonight!

Just a reminder that to day is the first "official build night" we will be out there working on the first pump track and possibly be setting up the second one, depending on how much we get done and how many people show up!

Tim said he will be there about 3 and i should be there around 4 or a little after! Come when you can bring your hand tools

The rain wasn't much and it will probably help the dirt be moist and pack well!

Look forward to see you out there, meeting you and building some sweet track with you!

Bangin' it out one berm at a time!

Well Tim, Trevor, Frank and myself were at Lexington today to kind of lay things out and figure this bad boy out. It went relatively smoothly. About 1.5 hours of laying out, figuring things out for drainage and laying things out. We worked for at total of 3 hours and completed two berms. We will be out there tomorrow at about 4:30pm and hopefully bang out this pump track and maybe start setting up the second one!

I hope this rain doesn't amount to too much. A little rain will be nice since we don't have the water hooked up and if it stops early and the sun comes out. It will be perfect!

Here are some pictures!

Build day tomorrow

Hello Ladies and Groms!

Its time to get this shit started! Tim, Trevor and I will be out there tonight laying out and doing the prep work to build the first pump track tomorrow! I will be there tomorrow around 430ish and ready to rock and roll straight away!
We should have the drainage figured out and the lay out roughed in tonight and get to shaping and packing tomorrow and touch up Saturday morning if need or just rip the shit out of the new pump track!

Keep it real!

Mr. Productive!

Well this weekend was a huge success!
This Thursday night the floor guy came back and fixed the small floor heave. This guy does amazing work!

The rest of the weekend we were super productive! My parents and grand-parents came from SD. My family helped us rock out a bunch of "to-do" things. My brother helped doe some electrical work, putting a fan in our upstairs bathroom and a light switch in our laundry room. My dad helped me change some light fixtures and put a new fan in our kitchen. We figured out what was wrong with the sink and water draining. We snaked everything we could and only pulled out a small clog in the upstairs bathroom sink so my dad got to thinking it was a venting problem so we tried to figure out what could cause that. Crawled up on the roof looked at he sink vent, nothing but snaked it anyways. The my dad looked at the main sewer vent and the old owners capped it! This caused major vapor lock! We took the cap off and bam! everything worked exactly how it was suppose to!

We had a great BBQ on Friday night juicy lucy's and all! It was great, Kelly's parents and sister and husband came over and we all hung out.

Saturday afternoon after all the inside work was done my buddy Adam came over with a bunch of saws and we go to work pruning all the trees. We have a big ass pile of trees to cut up and burn now!

Sunday we didn't do a whole lot. Ate breakfast and said good bye, but then I had to get to work or play. Not sure what you call it. I go in the car with all my drawing and headed up to Elm Creek Park Reserve in Plymouth. I me Jay head of the park department there to go over my proposed design for their new bike skills park! I think it went great. I think he really liked it with only minor changes. I hope he uses it because if he does it will be a killer place to go ride and worth the 50min trip up there for sure!

After I got back from Elm Creek. I loaded up my bike and headed to Battle Creek to meet up with a potential coach/partner for the South East Metro High School Mountain Bike Team! I met Dave and chatted with him while getting my first actual ride of the year in. I think we will be a good fit. He is much more old school XC then me but seems like a great guy. I'm excited to see the ball starting to move a little bit more each day!

It was good to get out and ride. On the bike, things felt a bit foreign but the more I rode and the more I relaxed and let go the skills and ability took over and I loosened up and focused on the light hands heavy feet and attack position.When I would do that everything got smoother and faster and way more fun!

After the ride I came home and ate, then went to the movie 21 Jump Street with Kelly and our friend Abbie.OMG that movie was super funny! Probably one of the best comedies I"ve seen in a long time!

I hope your weekend was as productive and fun as mine!

Keep it real!

MTBitis

Yes I have it bad, yes I did get out last Wednesday for a 45min urban assault ride, yes they have officially opened Salem Hills in Inver Grove and Mammoth in Chaska but I can't seem to find any time for myself! Hell I haven't been to the gym since the Monday of the week of our closure on our home! that was 2/27/12=last day I lifted a weight or did any training! WTF! I worked so hard over this winter to piss it all down my leg! This sucks! Know one told me that buying a house would be the most time consuming undertaking ever! I'm sure it will all be worth it in the end and I won't have to or be able to move again for awhile now but seriously! I feel out of shape and that is not good!

I want to ride my bike and I want to ride my bike strong! I know that this is an abnormally early start to the season but I want to enjoy this season and make huge improvements to my skills, so I can hopefully pass that on to my team!

This better be the last week of this BS, all I'm asking is to get to the gym 2 non-consecutive days a week and 2 days during the week on my bike either on the trail, urban assault or doing skills and at least one longer ride on the weekend!

I'm hoping I can maybe get a run or something in tonight.

We'll see,

Keep it real!

wrench time!

So a few weeks ago I went to my buddy Tim's to go through my fork and shock. It was a good time. The fork was a lot easier this time. I had a little bit of an idea of what was needed but we still followed the fox site's instructions. The shock was super easy and there was an amazing video on youtube that showed you step by step what to do. A few hours later and a little cash spent and my bike is in operational condition!
Here are some pictures!

another update!

Alright the area is set. The dirt is pushed out and ground leveled! We are almost ready to get rocking and rolling on this! Tim is out of town for a week or so and my family is coming to town next weekend so hopefully the best weekend to try and build this first pump track will hopefully be 3/30- 4/1. I will let you all know!

Lexington Bike Park Update

Ground is 100%clear of snow, ice and no standing water!
I dug a test hole on Tuesday about 1ft deep, no frost- the ground is still a little soft to bring in any equipment but the piles of dirt are 100% thawed, this weather in the 60s and 70s should help dry it out big time! I'm super excited. Drove some stakes last night to mark out the dimensions of the first pump track. Met with Tim Wegner and Trevor Crawford last night. Big thanks to them for their help. Tim will be joining us on the major build weekend and helping out with his knowledge of trail building (he built Cuyuna, Salem Hills, Lebanon Hills, Elm Creek and many others) and Trevor has agreed to donate his time and knowledge to survey the land and help design and lay out the drainage system so we don't have a swimming pool after the first rain.
I've spoke with Paul at the city and they are calling in locations. That should be done by this weekend and they will hopefully have the water hooked up by end of next weekend. My schedule is pretty booked over the next two weekends. I have a wedding couples retreat Friday night and most of the day Saturday and it's St. Patty's Day! Next weekend my family is coming to town to see our new house and help us do some repairs and such that are needed.
The good news though is that you can put it on the books folks we have one official build day/weekend we will see how things go. It is 4/13/12, that is a Friday some friends from QBP have agreed to help, as well as Tim Wegner with the Dingo and hopefully we can rally a few more people. I would like to start around lunch time and go till dark but it is open for discussion.
I have the whole day off. If you want to help out come when you can, I understand it is a Friday. I also encourage your to bring any shovels-flat or spade, metal rakes, 5 gallon buckets and wheelbarrows. There should be running water by this time but just in case.
I would also like to get one more build day/weekend before this date if at all possible. I will be looking at the calendar and will post up asap to let you all know!

Hope to see you out there!

Keep it real!

High School MTB League!

WTF!! Where was this when I was a kid, oh wait I grew up in SD not much organized MTB going on there, only 2 trails with in 50ish miles or so! But we did have BMX and a dang good track at that and I loved to race and ride that beast! http://www.aberdeenbmx.com/

The cool thing is that High School MTB is growing not just here in MN but nation wide. States like Colorado, California, Texas, Washington, Virginia and now MN! They have partnered with NICA, IMBA and many local organizations and bike shops  to bring MTB to the youth and bring it some more credibility. To my understanding it is still a club sport and not school specific or affiliated but that is fine. That is how my hockey team and soccer team was growing up in SD. It might have changed since then. Actually most sports start this way and as their popularity grows then the school can look at what it will take to make it school specific and each school getting their own team and coach.

I don't know a whole lot about it yet. The kick off meeting is this Sunday at QBP from 6pm -8pm I will know more after that. I am hoping to be an assistant coach or at least a ride leader this year and work my way up to being a head coach. I will have to see what it takes and how much it will cost. Money is very tight right now with the major life changes going on. House purchase 2/29/12 and wedding coming up on 6/2/12!  There is a lot on my plate right now to say the least.

Here is the link to the MN Highschool MTB league and a nice write up on singletracks.com

I'll fill you in as I know more!

Keep it real!

War of the Wheels review

So I got the new BIKE the other day and I always thumb through it asap and scope out the sweet pictures and then pick what looks to be the best article and then read that first before I continue on to read it cover to cover. Kelly calls it bike porn and yeah it is. It is a magazine filled with bikes, locations and trails that I stare at, drool over and probably will never get the opportunity to ride, just like the good old wank mags ;) but a better chance to ride the bikes, people are more apt to borrow you one of those for a tester! HAHA

The first article that really caught my eye was the “War of the Wheels.” It was more of an insider’s look at 29er vs. 26er and what the industry thought about it and what they think the future holds for it.

The answers didn’t surprise me and didn’t really concern me but they did come with a bit of dismay to me. Basically the long and the short of it is if you love 29ers, you are in luck they are here to stay and they will be taking over the market share of rides from rigid to 5inch travel. If you hate 29ers then well tough shit because they are here to stay and not a fad that many of you were hoping they are. 26inch will hold the market share on freeride, DJ and DH bikes at least for now. They will most like keep the market share on 6inch bikes on up as they haven’t quite figured out how to cram all that in without running into the problems that the first 29ers had. The extreme wheelbase length and monster truck feel for handling.

The said that none of the bikes will go away 100% there will always be lovers and haters of both and enough space for them all but don’t be surprised when you can’t find many rigid, hard tail and xc 26inch bikes in the near future. The trail bikes will still be split pretty equally and all-mountain on up will still be mostly 26inch bike. Thank God! I have nothing against 29ers but they are not for me and they have a cult like following and I will not be drinking the kool-aid anytime soon.

They also said make room for the 650b is here and it doesn’t look like it is going anywhere either. It is still in its infancy stage and will grow just like 29ers as more components and tires become available, more and more bike makers will pick up the style and run with it, even though 650b’s get mixed reviews. The test riders say they aren’t as efficient as a 29er and not as fun as a 26er but the designers that are pushing them say they are the best of both worlds. They have all the advantages of a 29er and none of the disadvantages. They also say they can put 650b’s spot on with 26ers for frame geometry and numbers. So I guess I don’t know. I have never ridden one so I will keep an open mind right now only a couple companies are actually building them Jamis and Haro are the only two I know of.

So there it is drink the kool aid or not but if you don’t want get stronger and push a 6inch 26er better either keep your current 26inch ride and never sell it or get use to the idea of riding a wagon wheeler!

Springs almost here and its almost riding season! Possible 50’s next week!

Keep it real!

It's Official

Well it is all done. We went last night and got a mild case of carpal tunnel and signed all our mortgage papers. We are not home owners in the sate of MN. We bought a nice 3 bedroom 2 bath house in Cottage Grove, a south eastern suburb. It has a fenced back yard for Jerry, a nice deck and a 2 stall attached garage!
We will begin the moving process tonight with some painting of the kitchen so it is ready for the appliances which come tomorrow!
I guess I'm officially a MN resident now. I own a house here, my car has MN plates, oops still have to get my MN drivers licence but that will be next week I think. I have to look at the driving book quick first since I have to take the written test first. How dumb I've had a licences since 14 but have to take a test again! haha oh well
Cottage Grove is a nice area, it has a small town feel and is pretty centrally located to all the MTB trails I like 18mins to Lebanon, 10 mins to Carver, 12 mins to Battle Creek, 35mins to Red Wing and about 10 mins to Afton-haven't been there yet. However I have a lot of work to do. There is no mtb trail in CG, no bike park in CG or even a Bike shop that I know of! Void of the essentials! It has a lot of bike trails and is close to some gravel roads and nice quite county hwys so that will be nice!
Looking forward to it! I'll keep you posted!

Keep it real!