Mean Joe Queen - Amature Mooto-X Pilot

4 days till the Snake Creek Gap Grand Finally! I've been on 2 mountain bike rides since the last race, almost a month ago. I have been hitting the trainer/rollers and occasionally the road quite hard though. Hopefully, my increase in road bike riding will make up for my lack of mountain biking. The weather has been pretty crappy. Mostly wet coupled with massive freeze/thaw has made most of the local trails unridable, at least on the days that I would be able to ride. All that road riding has led to some much needed weight loss. Despite eating more food than usual, I've somehow managed to lose 9 pounds in the 3.5 weeks since the last snake. More controlled cardio exercise and healthier food choices, though not always, have really helped shuck the pounds.

I've also had the chance to do several days of trail work at LBL. After nearly 600 man(and women) hours the Canal Loop has been cleared. The trail remains closed though until the Forest Service can figure out how to drop some of the hangers that are threatening to fall on the trail. I can't even describe the damage that the ice storm caused up there. Almost every tree was damaged in some way. The tree's that managed to stay upright lost their tops or most of their limbs. The skyline looks like a bomb went off in the woods, just a mess of toothpicks sticking up out of the ground. Wood N Wave Steve Wilson has been busting his ass out there lugging a chainsaw, cutting reroutes, organizing work days, politicking to get trail workers in the woods, and just being an overall champion of the LBL trail system. He'll be joining us too for the SCG Grand Finally, it should be a much needed break for him.

In happy news. My little hommie KRS1, aka Keith Schaper hooked me up with a smoking deal on a road bike from his old place of business. I was chatting it up with him telling him I was having a hard time finding a decent bike to fit into my price range. When he told me he would call the old bike shop where worked back in the day(Sheels), I hardly gave it another though. A few minutes later I checked my voice mail and he had already called and left me a message about a smoking deal on a new 07 Trek 5000 (just happened to be my size)that had been sitting on the shop floor for over a year. Anywho, it was such a good deal that I called the shop later that day and bought the bike site unseen and they even hooked me up with a deal on shipping. I sound like a sucker who thinks he just got one over on a used car salesman, when in fact he got the shaft.

Moots Mooto X Slider should be here in a few weeks! Pics when it gets here.