Talamh reoite, sonas orm

Went for a little spin around Crev-Mo and Keppler today. First time on a bike since last weeks ass-chapathon. Wait, no, I played around a little bit the other day, but not for more than an hour... Anyway. Temps were right around 30, trails were frozen and fast. Threw the SSStump into it's girlie gear and left it there for the duration of the easy ride.

Some instances of interest:

Plastic shopping bags suck. Part of this trail system butts up against the Palmer dump. There's no odor that I've ever noticed, but the strong Matanuska wind blows hundreds upon hundreds of plastic shopping bags into the surrounding woods.



Seconds after taking this photo, I ran into one of the valley's chainsaw gnomes. Anchorage has chainsaw fairies, the Valley has gnomes. He was cutting out a bunch of the blow downs that were blocking the trails. I helped him get some branches off the trail, thanked him, and rode away. He was riding with an ancient looking frame pack and what looked like a 20" bladed Stihl... I ran into him a few times throughout the ride. For someone carrying a chainsaw and stopping to cut trees along the way, he was keeping a pretty damned good pace. Real Gnomes don't show up in photos, so I didn't bother.

Saw some fungus.



Had some fun.



Fell down a bunch.

Untitled from sean grady on Vimeo.

Lost my keys. Purty sunset. Beer. The end.

luain lasrach, toin lasrach....

Big group ride up over Hatcher pass and down to Meadow Lakes yesterday. Last year's iteration of this ride saw more than a foot of snow on the ground, this years, barely any. It also saw me making a hasty retreat with frozen toes before even making it to the parking lot at Independence mine. This year saw 14 riders, 12 fat bikes, 11 bikes with fat tires, two different fat tire tread patterns, @60 miles, over a pass, beer, bar-b-que and good company.

I set my alarm for 5am in order to get myself and the Karate monkey shod and ready for the ride, after spending most of Friday breaking a sewing machine. Got up at 4:59, before the alarm, and was then woken at 8:11 by a phone call from Mark, of Wildfire cycles, offering me a lift to the 10AM start. So it was a speedy shower, breakfast, try to find clean riding clothes appropriate for the weather, and through the only completely assembled bike I have (the SSStump) in the back of the truck and try not to forget anything important...

We barely made it to the parking lot before the group took off. Quickly got the bikes together, restaged the group start photos, and took off, immediately hitting a steep, 2 mile climb in the cold alpine air. That one hurt the lungs a bit, and while the SSStump is, in fact, a girlie multi-speed contraption, it's easiest gear is a 32f x 24r, so I was soon walking at about the same pace people were riding



It was refreshing to see a variety of fat tire tread patterns in the snow.







colorful fat bikes



colorful people





From the top of the pass, it was an incredibly fun ripper of a downhill. @3600' of elevation lost. Perfect trail conditions, frozen and fast without a hint of ice.







The group was dramatically reduced in size after the bar, and the rest of the ride was on bike path. My thighs were starting to burn by the time we got there, 30 or so miles in. The bacon cheeseburger and beer didn't help that as much as I though they would.

just your everyday team of huskies pulling a four wheeler down the bike path....


About ten miles from the Frank's cabin(the finish), we rounded a bend into a direct Matanuska head wind, laced with airborne glacial silt. My burning thighs became cramping thighs, and the SSStump was relegated to the wussiest two of it's 4 working gears. It was during this stretch that I also really began to regret forgetting to apply some shammy butter... We soldiered on through it though, and were rewarded with a feast of chili, brats, baked goods, beer, coffee and a warm cabin, all courtesy of our hosts and friends.

The finishers: beer, bar-b-que and excellent hospitality were the reward.

Ag leim don deireadh.

Finally got my lazy ass out the door, on my bike and over to Crevasse Moraine for a bit of fun. It's been way too long, and I really have no excuse. The leaves have nearly all given up the fight and fallen helplessly to the ground, where I crush them with my wheels of fury.... or something like that. I was surprisingly not feeling like Jabba the Hut, and had little problem getting up the steeper hills. Took my usual route, west side parking lot at Loma Prieta, up the gradual ski trail climb, into the University singletrack. The trails were frozen and fast, with a little bit of tack where the sun had managed to beat down.




Hard left onto the powerlines. Noone else seems to go this way and that's fine by me. Right turn, over the log pile get's me through Mooseberry Mesa's backdoor, which frankly, is way more fun than the front. Hit the switchback head on and go right. Fly down hill, catching little air off the humps. Stop to take some photos of the mini-meadow before heading back up again. Left at the 4-way, right onto Moose Poop Loop. Much more fun in this direction. Nice work repairing the bermed turn where the tree was uprooted by VMBaH. Out to the ski trails again and go right.












Right at the picnic table, left at the Y. This lolli-pop loop is much more fun for me in this direction. A little disappointed at the log crossing being gone, but understandable on that trail. Back up to the picnic table, pushing the lungs a little, feels good.



No stopping for photos for the rest of the ride. Right turn on Long Lake, and left into Crev-Mo's finest. Rooty didn't get the leaf-blower treatment Moose Berry Mesa got, and I like it that way. It's a more primitive trail, and the leaves don't detract from it's goodness. Legs are starting to burn on the short climbs, getting winded at the tops of them. Right onto Tighty-Whitey. No stopping, cleaned all the trees. Those short steeps near the end always hurt. Are they really as steep as they seem?? Left onto the old trail/alternate exit. Log hopping goodness. Keeps me happy. Cruise home.

The end.

crainn lasrach

two days in a row. better be careful i don't burn out or something... went back to crev mo on the ssstump today. did the same loop as yesterday. short, but hits all the fun log crossings. it was cloudy all morning, so i was in my cage carving when all of a sudden the sun just burst through the clouds and filled my room with light to the point that it nearly hurt my eyes. so i finished up the piece i was working on and got on the bike.



oh, i had also found a relevant user manual for my now several week old reba team, which doesn't come with one, on the interwebs. read through it and found i was adjusting the floodgate improperly. apparently you need to adjust with the compression on full lock. it was much better today while climbing locked out, but still has a tendency to dive over log crossings whether it's locked out or not.

i don't think it rained last night, but the roots were noticeably more slippery. legs felt great, as they should on such a short ride. i don't think this loop, including riding to and from the trailhead, breaks 12 miles. i had to retry the one multiple log crossing 3 times before cleaning it all the way through. it's the first one that throws me off. it's 2/3rds of the way through a turn and about 26" high. factors which i don't seem to remember causing me any grief back in nj. maybe my skills are dumbing down from lack of use? i'll have to go out and play more.

tiocfidh se...

it's getting to be about time i started thinking more seriously about my upcoming second Iditarod Trail Invitational, aka Alaska Ultrasport, aka Iditabike. yeah i said second. in my year plus long blogging hiatus i managed to barely finish my first attempt. i still intend to eventually get the writeup on this thing, once i've had a chance to fully digest it, of course....

but anyway, i need to start 'training', or at least riding/hiking on a daily basis. no more of this lollygagging i've been doing of late. time in the saddle and miles in the legs will be necessary if i don't want to repeat last years dismal, although somewhat dramatic showing.



so, with that in mind, i headed out to crevasse moraine today to play on the very few, semi-hush-hush log features in the place. not hush-hush because they're illegal, but hush-hush because alot of people up here have hard-ons for chainsaws and have decided that the perfect outlet for their love of motorized cutting is to remove all fun from trails... bastards.

crevlogs from sean grady on Vimeo.

the yellows and golds are still hanging in there, as are the understated reds. the trails are firm and grippy, despite the cover of leaves. scenery can't be beat and it was a beautiful fall day in the valley.

rinne me dearmad...

just got back from a fun little ride at crev mo on the ssstump. a couple of minor annoying mechanicals, but i began to realize that it might actually be quicker running a handful of gears. and a suspension fork. biggest annoying parts are the clank of the chain or der. hitting my right chainstay, and the reba still seems to dive on the backside of logs, even in lockout. i'm pretty sure that's something i can adjust though. i brought my camera, as it's a gorgeous blue sky day, with golden yellow birch opening up to views of freshly snowcapped mtns. unfortunately, i forgot to put the memory card back in, so it was just dead weight...

all of my day, up until i went for the ride, was spent getting my wood carving blog (http://carvingsbygrady.blogspot.com/) up and running. photographing carvings, finishing touches, uploading the photos, pricing and descriptions. took quite a bit of time. i guess there really is no complete escape from 'office work', but it was entirely self centered, so i didn't mind really. i've decided that i'll be putting the finished carvings only up there, and will still occasionally post photos of in progress ones over here.

alright, time for dinner and a fancy beer. i've been drinking the beast ice all week and i deserve a reward for my diligent frugality.

ag bogail

at some point this weekend, i will begin putting all of my carvings and artwork on another blog: http://carvingsbygrady.blogspot.com/ future carving/artwork updates will go there, as well as information about how to purchase any of them, if anyone is so inclined.

i've been dreading the painting of my carvings for some time now for several reasons. for starters, i really don't have alot of practice painting with a brush. all of the paintings here were done with a combination of sticks, scrapers, paint markers and my fingers. that kinda crap just wont cut it on wood carvings of the size and ilk that i am currently churning out. painting with brushes will take some getting used to, and for now, it's tedious and taking waaaay longer than it should to achieve a given result. practice, practice, practice.....

i began painting a couple of the monsters today in light acrylic washes. neither are finished, but the devil is close. layer after layer of color after color. the horns won't be painted, but will have that sweet polycrylic finish to bring out the grain. oh, and apparently "primary red" is basically pink. took me for friggen ever to mix those colors into something resembling what i think of as red. note to self: next time buy cadmium red...





while i was waiting for layers to dry, i went out for a quick spin on the SSSTUMP. tried going to crev-mo, but there was a high school invitational xc meet, so i decided against risking collision and headed out for a steady effort on the palmer-wasilla highway bike path. fall colors are coming out fast. the reds have been here for a while, and the yellows are coming on strong. wont be long now.



got home to find a package from juxtapoz containing my new t-shirt by jason maloney. i subscribed a couple of weeks ago. it's a magazine i've missed sorely up here.



so i wore it while i painted some more, and when i got sick of painting, and indecisive on colors, i went back to work on a piece of driftwood spruce that i've been chopping away at little by little. i think it's spruce anyway, kind of hard to tell sometimes with driftwood. it's slow going because it's a pain to work with palm chisels. tempermental and tight grained to say the least. the below carving as well, is not yet finished. needs a little more filing and sanding, and i've yet to decide wether to polycrylic it or oil it. i'll also cut the bottom flat so that i can mount it on a wooden base.



i'm probably going to head out for another attempt at crev-mo after an early dinner, then maybe try to get to work on them again afterwords.

aistriu.

got out for a shakedown spin on the Semi-Squishy-Shifty-Therefor-Unmanly-Pony, or SSSTUMP for short. it's got a single ring up front and 5 speeds out back, of which only four seem to work, so it's not really a full on multispeed. i like to think of it as a singlespeed that stutters. besides, the easiest gear it has is a 32 x 24... i need to lower the front end. shorten the travel to 100mm probably and maybe throw on a lower rise/longer stem.

as expected, it's significantly faster over the roots and downhill, and more forgiving of error on obstacles with bumpy exits. climbing was noticeably slower, which i'm attributing to the front end being so high. i also need to actually try adjusting the fork. i kinda just took it out of the box and put it on the bike, like one would with a rigid fork, not adjusting anything. i have no idea what the +/- air pressures are. the maxle is incredible though. 40mm more travel than the reba i was running a couple of years ago on the rigorilla, yet it tracks really damned well through the turns. i like it. gordo rims aren't that noticeably heavy, at least compared with halo freedom disc and wtb ddfr's, which i'm running otherwise. stouts at 50psi had more traction everywhere i rode yesterday than they do at 30-40 psi, and roll alot faster. i did notice more bounce out back on the roots though. even i can admit that 50 psi is a wee bit high for a 29er, especially with 35mm wide rims....



sat down and knocked out a couple of carvings today. first female face i've carved in a looong time....

pre-polycrylic in the backyard sun





post-polycrylic in the behind the garage shade