Aloha Hunter

Greetings from the Honolulu Pier, where the weather is phenomenal, the beaches pristine, and the little umbrella drinks divine. Too bad you can't join me... even worse that I can't be there either. A friend and ex-coworker from 12 years ago emailed me the above photo of a little item I left behind when I moved down to Nashville. It's found a new home in Hawaii, as has Javier. I never expected to have either show up in my inbox. Imagine his surprise when I show up on his door step!

I got another surprise in the old school inbox yesterday too, this time old technology from a newer tech friend, Hunter. Do they still teach printing in schools? Thought everything was keyboard driven and touch screen nowadays.


It's good to see some kids still have manners. Hunter is thanking me for a Bacon lunch box (mmm bacon) (oh, thanks again Dan!) and for the fun time we had working on the trails at the SORBA DSG trail work days. Then, in what I can only assume he has picked up from his Uncle gRant, throws out a sneaky sales pitch followed up with a bit of smack.

maybe Uncle gRant should take lessons from young Hunter?

Well my friend, yes I will see you at Dirt Sweat and Gears (May 9th, sign up now and don't forget to donate for a chance to win a Moots frame) and yes, you are probably a lot faster than me on your bike. (Get dad to explain that one to you). Thanks for the letter little buddy, get to training, I've got $20 riding on you turning a faster lap than Petird.


Hey Dug the Head:

Swing over to Dicky's place and read up on the following photo. We're going to need you to fire up that silk screener and make a few t's for next year's post Snake Chilli's dinners. The backs will need too read "Stranger", "Rudder", and "Double Dutch" for OldGreg, Jeffy, and Squish.

Swiped with glee (and a strong antiseptic) from teamdicky.com

Getting Back Into The Swing Of...

... soaking up headwinds and vitamin D. Great day to enjoy being outside today, 78 degrees of sunny warmth and windy with some scattered clouds.

I met up with OldGreg this morning and we biked over to REI armed with some left over b-day gift cards and refund checks to pick up necessities for a few adventures planned this spring. While perusing the store, we ran into Unckle E, which is pretty typical when I'm out riding near Franklin, but normally it's a passing wave or a horn honk. Today we were able to enjoy a Chile Burrito lunch out on the patio. I've forgotten how much I missed good weather.


On the way home we got stopped by a train (rarity in Nashvegas) and witnessed some interesting juxtaposition of railroad graffiti.

Is that read more books or read more graffiti?

Support Your Happiness

Photo used by Permission. Credit:Bryan Bloebaum BlueTree Images

Thanks to Bryan for taking the shot of me enjoying the halfway point descent. In the photo you can see the Swiftwick Tech T and the merino 12's. I heard a lot of "Can you get me a Swiftwick shirt like that" and "can you get me some of those socks" from people around the finish line party, followed shortly by a few people saying "just ask Sharp to give you one".

Here's the thing, just like the photo above, Swiftwick (and other sponsoring companies like them) are donating to help our scene grow and thrive. The photographers are out trying to earn a living taking memorable shots for you to remember your adventures. Likewise Swiftwick is in the business of making great apparel, but in order for them to keep making great products, we need to support them by buying their products. Why take advantage of friends just to save $23 on a shirt? I don't get it.

Swiftwick is a local TN owned and operated company who's products are TN (USA) made quality stuff and they give a lot to cycling, SORBA, and to the Southeast in general. Their products are stellar and well worth the price. I wouldn't be using them if I didn't believe in them. Please support your locals when you can: breweries, apparel companies, lbs' (MOAB, EastSide, Harpeth, etc..), and your community.

Enough ranting.... it's a beautiful day out there today in TN land. Nearly 62 degrees this am when Slumlordess Hannah and I ventured out for a spin. This was her maiden voyage on Fish (her new road bike from EastSide Cycles). It was a recovery spin for me that felt more like a good ol' morning commute since it's been a while for temps to be over 40 before 2pm.

The Hannah and Fish

The pups and I are chillin' with "all the door" open (eh OldGreg?) today while working. Well, I'm working, they are basking in the sun. Full time employment may be elusive, grocery budgets tight, and wants going unmet for a while, but it's all good, sitting here enjoying the pursuit of happiness. I'm going to enjoy it while I can. The cold temps and gloomy weather appear to be on the horizon.

open air offices rock

Bad Idea on Easy Street

only good for easy spins, I still think trainers suck

Wanting to spin the legs out after yesterday's effort, especially on such a spring feeling yet overcast day, I just couldn't convince myself to get outside. There aren't any "easy" routes from the cave, every direction has hills that hurt, usually at both ends. Such is life in the high country of North Nashville. I love this about the new locale, but it makes it tough to stick to an easy ride and not go too hard. So I took a page out of the Bad Idea Racing picture book and set the road bike up on the trainer. Put CBS.com on the computer and watched a full episode of Numb3rs while spinning out the legs, I guess a trainer does come in handy every once in a while.

Check out the latest prize handed out from the NWGA crew:

I think the arrow is there to help people realize which "Canada", kinda like the Michigan hand thing

Snake Creek Bottle Opener/Dog tag. Hell yeah! Note the packaging though: Made in Canada. Also note the arrow pointing which way is out. Canadians are funny. I see it as more a descriptive helper. For example:

Dude handing out prizes: Here ya go.
Dude getting prize: (looks over prize and says) Made in Canada?
Dude handing out prizes: Yup, Canada.
Dude getting prize: Canada?
Dude handing out prizes: (points up)
Dude getting prize: Oh, Canada. Cool.

Here's a photo for Dicky. I know what you're thinking: are those 4's or 12's?

hounds tooth or argyle?

Endurance Walking?

Photo Cred: Steve Sharp

The last round of Snake TT's for '09 has come and gone. Great weather and a semi dry trail finally greeted the 300+ racers from around the Southeast (and Ohio) showing up to toe the line. Having had some equipment failures lately, I was locked into a 34x18 gearing. Doable, but stout for Snake. Run what ya brung right?

The day turned out good for the Moots/Swiftwick crew. Meanjoe crushed 47 minutes off of his previous attempt and rocked in at 3:34! krs1 cruised by me with about a mile of trail to go and raced home to a 3:39! Dustin the pro finally was able to catch us old guys on rigid singlespeeds and had a 3:3x?? time too. Took him long enough to catch us though, heck I was walking for what seemed forever before he finally caught up.

The gearing proved manageable for the bulk of the race, however the last 5 singletrack miles of the final 8 miles was a bear. Meanjoe caught sight of me at the left turn of doom and rode with me for a while. Learning from past mistakes, he eventually went on his merry way motoring to the finish. krs1 caught up to me shortly before the towers and swiftly left me in his dust. I was walking and griping, not about being sore, tired, or cramped I was feeling great, but pissed that I couldn't ride the most fun stretch, I just couldn't turn the gear over in the uphill rocks and keep momentum. I felt like I had brought a road gear to a mountain bike race. Frustrating.

krs1 offered some words of encouragement, luckily it sank in. I dropped a few more psi in the tires hoping it'd help me crawl over the rocks and keep some sort of momentum without requiring leg pressing. I got to a short rocky grunt up and stalled out, track stand style. Two photographers happened to be right there clicking away and started yelling at me to "stop posing". A few weak pedal kick maneuvers and I was able to lurch forward and clean the grunt, I can't wait to see that photo run.

From there I just tried to keep the pedals ticking over, soon enough the gravel downhill was in sight and my gearing felt much better! I rolled across the line 3:42, my best time yet with probably the most walking I've done at a Snake race. Hodge said it best when I told him how much I had to walk: "That means when you were riding, you were really moving!"

Sub 3:30, you're mine next year.

Props to everyone. Thanks again for driving Meanjoe, and Jeffy for hooking us up to make the shuttle work.

Spinning To Stand Still

Ahhh... On Wednesday I was finally able to just get out and ride my bike. Seems trivial, but it's been a rare treat this month to have time to just peddle away some stress. The sky was blue, the roads were clear, and I was as happy as a Canandidadian at Rays.


Thursday morning held some barn chores then had me motoring off to meet up with a few friends and SORBA folks to visit with the man behind a new trail opportunity getting built on the East side of Nashville. We got a short tour of the trail, discussed some issues, and got turned loose to give the completed portions a spin.

A touch of urban in the woods

H. was actually not working a Thursday night (rare) and we were able to sneak out to the Tap Room to see the kids and enjoy a coldie. While the Easties headed East and the recently relocated Southeasties headed Southeastie, H and I started to cross the river but 5 Guys Burgers was too tempting, so a Bacon Cheeseburger later we were heading North to prepare for the 30 tons of gravel coming in the morning. Plus I needed to pack for yet another weekend away from home.

OldGreg holding court

mmm... dos mootos

My First SORBA BOD Meeting

Darryl and I loaded up the bikes and camping gear early Friday morning and headed down to South Carolina for the first of the 2 planned Board of Directors meetings this year. IMBA is starting to implement a Regional Level design to try to get other areas of the nation coming together, working together, sharing ideas, resources, etc... They are modeling this off of the SORBA model, so this Board of Directors meeting is really the Southeast's RLC meeting and already ahead of the game. Chapter board members from Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, and North Carlina were present.


Being my first ever foray into a business style meeting for SORBA, it was with dragged feet and a feeling of "this is going to be a waste of time" that I agreed to attend. I couldn't have been more wrong in my early assessment. The meeting was kept in order and marching along while still allowing concerns and questions to be heard from the chapters present. The intellectually stimulating discussion was both engaging and educational.

My favorite presentation from the day came from Dave Senecal and Scott Martin from SORBA Paulding. Their presentation was about how to build trail in a weekend using the inspirational and incredible story of Sara Babb Park. Essentially a precursor to IMBA-SORBA's Gateway Trail concept, Sara Babb Park is a city park where they've been able to build three 1-mile loop trails connected by connector trails giving the trail design a shamrock shape around ball fields, soccer fields, and playgrounds. This concept is something I personally would love to see more of in the greater Nashville area. Neighborhood parks including small trails and skills parks for kids and families to enjoy riding as well as dirt paths off of (or paralleling) the greenways, allowing people to enjoy more nature in the city.

Aside from the trails being built, the story of how their community came together to help build the trail was the inspirational part. They had 175 volunteers show up. Volunteers who weren't mountain bikers or cyclists at all, but members of the community working together to build community. Amazing. Many lessons and ideas can be drawn upon from this incredible success story.


A group ride at the famed FATS trail system was planned, but the torrential multi-day rain washed up those plans. While Darryl had to sit through a short executive committee meeting following the board of directors meeting, I took advantage of the break in the weather and suited up to get a spin around the lake on the service roads. On the recommendation and urging by one of the local SORBA chapter members, I ended up riding the Bartram trail that strings 8 miles of trail from the visitor's center to the Petersburg campground where we were staying.

Not wanting to damage trail or ride in mud, I was assured the trail would be great, and amazingly it was. The soil is similar to Sewanee's Perimeter trail: rocky, sandy hardpacked soil. While there were areas of standing water, it was like riding on a rocky creak bed vs plodding through muddy soup. On the trail I met up with 3 other SORBA members and I was lucky enough to enjoy 18 miles of trail before meeting back up with Darryl and starting the long drive home.

We arrived Friday night to cold temps and rain, lots of rain. It rained most of Saturday but cleared off by 2:30 when I was able to sneak out for the ride in shorts and a jersey enjoying 70 degree temps. Just as I finished my ride the rain dumped again and temps dropped to the low 60's. We enjoyed clear weather through Atlanta then were met with rain, then sleet, then snow in Tennessee, the temperature dropping from 45 on the Southeast side of Monteagle to 30 degrees on the Northwest side. Pretty typical weather for a SORBA BOD meeting, or so I'm told.