an beatha simpli.

eat, relax, waste time on the internet, carve, eat, drink, carve. only thing missing is riding. i got notivation.

not yet finished.

eagla

couple more from today. took a look around the internet at some of the other carvers there and realized i needed to step my game up a little bit. animate the faces a little more. i decided to go with angry wood spirits today.

snoíodóireacht adhmaid

no riding today. it was raining and i, again, lacked the motivation. got an interesting call though, with some interesting info. need to return that call.

worked a little bit on two of the carvings i posted yesterday. well, a lot on one of them and a little on the other. i cleaned up the one and squared up the eyes a 'little' better, and cut the entire face off the other and re-carved it.

still not symmetrical, but who is?





this guy from yesterday's post:




became this guy from today:



this is one i've had sitting around for about a month.



anyone know what type of wood this is? it's about 2 inches in diameter and was found as driftwood on the coast of norton sound.

adhmad aris.

rode today, on the karate monkey. having some flexing issues with the back end. i don't think it enjoyed all that bending and hammering to fit the 26 x 3 and 70mm rims as much as i did. good thing the 'other' is nearing completion. one glitch i've run into with the 'other' is that rock shox has decided to go post mount on their 29" forks this year. at least the 20mm axle one anyway. unfortunately, half of the 20mm hubs on the market are 'out of their spec range'. which means that the hope moto v2 caliper hits the friggen spokes when mounted straight to the posts and slammed all the way left. i have a 183 adapter en route in the hopes that it'll cure my woes. according to a thread on the ultimate waste of a mtbers time, it's happening to nearly everyone stupid enough to purchase that fork. i should have known better than to trust a company starting with the letter 's'. other than surly. and speedway. so, starting with the letter 's' and containing the letter 'm'. the ride was a brief one at crev-mo. it was enjoyable, i played around a bit, and walked the steeper hills because im a disgusting blob.



got home and actually did some carving. i've been doing it sporadically ever since mexico. i guess maybe sparsely would be more accurate. but alot more since i moved up here and discovered cottonwood bark, which carves like butta and is in massive abundance. the typical stuff i've always been doing, santas and woodspirits. santas because my mom likes them and woodspirits because everyone likes them wether they admit it publicly or not. what's not to like about a crazy old man with an epic beard painstakingly carved into a piece of wood?

here's a preview. most will be getting some sort of paint. the cottonwood bark actually needs paint to tone down the excessive grain, which drowns out features of the carvings unless side lit.



this one is today's


blurry

dhigniomhachtaigh

i've also deactivated my several month old fecesbook account. now i just need to stop visiting mtbr and all will be right with the world.

an triu fogra inniu.

and my mom will now be happy that i've managed to bump the photos of dog poop and puke off of the front page of the blog.

airgead caite eile

in other news, i've decided the best way to cure my lack of motivation to ride in the last month by throwing money at the problem. a new vehicle is nearly finished being cobbled together in the garage with a springy thing up front and a select few toothy things outback...

ag titeamh na phictiuri.

major photo dump. some photos from my rainey trip to tok for starters. i went up there with the main purpose of checking out some land that i had interest in purchasing. it rained the entire way up and most of the way back. the land was good, dry, level, thickly treed, good well depths, on a road, in a town, free of taxes* and close to trails. *by free of taxes, i mean that the only taxes i would have to pay living there would be federal income. no prop, no sales, no state income. yeehaw!

i didn't question the decision to buy untill i got back down into the matanuska valley coming through sheep mtn and chickaloon. incredibly gorgeous area with great trails and big mtns, closer to everyone i know up here. but land there just costs more than i'm looking to spend. so i bit the bullet on tok earlier this week. once the guvmint get's the contract prepared sometime in the next 6 months, i will be the proud owner of 5 acres of land in a town who's average winter temperature is -30. that's average, and negative.

some photos from riding in chickaloon on the way back. the rest of the trips photos are crappy due to weather conditions.









the next anything worth mentioning, aside from being a shiftless layabout getting fat on the couch, was this ride up and over powerline pass to indian. the ride took much longer than expected, but was overall very pleasant and chock full of scenery. the trail up was fun and challenging, the trail down was steep as all hell and fun. i kept trying to jump the waterbars on the way down, only to end up going way too fast when my tires hit the ground and barely making it through the next turn. let off the brakes for a second and your speed nearly doubles. really fun stuff for those with a spare set of brake pads laying around.

at indian, we rode straight to brown bear, which is the only biker bar i could imagine that has microbrews on tap and welcomes skinny guys in spandex in a thankfully platonic sort of way....



















totally platonic... tha bathrooms being behind that wall mean nothing...

rrrrrrruuuummmmmbbbblllee

i just felt my first EARTHQUAKE!!!!!!! so awesome! i've slept through a few of them, but this was a mid-dayer and it ruled! i'm beyond excited right now.

madra amuigh

hi, my name is cami, i'm a samoyed, and i'm an outside dog.



i WAS an inside/outside dog, but then i decided to do this over the course of 4 days! yay!













i kind of had and excuse because i was sick, as you can see i puked. but i prolly just got sick from eating a mouse and some other strange object AFTER the first peeps and poops i did inside the house. but i got left outside after those, then i got better, then i got to sleep inside last night and today i decided this was ok.





i'm cami's brotha from anotha motha chet. i'm a good boy and highly intelligent. here you can see that i have invented a method of keeping myself on my back for cooling purposes. all i have to do is twist my back like this and wedge my mouf under this big thing with the drawers and i can air out the junk for days!

glan caoin

this is how i wanna ride. not brakeless, but i want this bag of tricks in my repertoire. yes i had to look up how to spell that.


chris akrigg on the rocks.

Brakeless Two / Chris Akrigg from chris akrigg on Vimeo.

Turas go Tok.

road trip. i want to see what Tok has to offer.

link to route and maps.


View Larger Map

photos, of course, when i return.

siul sleibhe

been riding a bit since i got back, but mostly being a shiftless layabout and wasting my money buying things i don't need on the internet. my legs were pretty dead from having a month and a half without the bike, but they came around quick enough. went for a hike/scramble today up in independence mine state park. really, really foggy. went as far up the one ridge as i felt comfortable doing with noone knowing my whereabouts. basically that means i got to a point where realized my inner pussy, went a little further, took some pictures, then turned around and gingerly made my retreat to a less mellow grade. it was fun though, and i got some good photos out of it.