A Funny Story From The Short One.

Once in a while we could all use a solo ride and when you live in a Subaru that solitude becomes a necessity. After we parked our 20 square foot mobile home at the Comfort Inn of Fruita CO for a few days of down time I decided to ride out to the Kokapelli Trail Head for some delicious sunset single track. Little did I know that last night the resident Troll had been up to no good in our Subaru.

You see, I’ve come to the conclusion that our Subaru came with a troll named Mingus who lives in the spare tire well. Late at night Mingus pushes all our gear aside, creeps out of the spare tire well and steals things out of my Camel Back. Mainly tubes, patch kits and pumps. The stuff you really need when you’re riding around in places like Fruita. The problem is that Mingus is tricky and he only strikes on occasion so I sometimes forget to double check my pack and make sure the stuff I rarely use is in there. It’s not often that I have to change a flat or patch a tube. In fact, until today it’s been a couple weeks.

As I was cresting the overpass of HWY 70 on the last section of pavement before hitting the dirt road that would lead me to single track I noticed the familiar feeling of a floppy front tire. Sure enough, upon inspection I had a couple tiny thorns in my tire. “No Problem” I thought, “I’ve got a tube and two patches… plenty to get me through a ride and back home.” But as I emptied my pack I realized Mingus had struck again. My tube was gone however, he hadn’t been able to locate my hidden patch kit. I pulled the thorns out, patched the only hole I could find and was on my way. Perfect timing the sun was just getting low.

On the dirt road decent towards the trail head I noticed my rear tire was feeling a little loose, I decided to wait until I got to the trail to fix it but it was losing air faster than I thought and the wheelie drop off a little ledge wasn’t smooth enough. Ssssssssssss, pinch flat. “Damn it Mingus!” Now I had a leak in my rear tube and two holes from a pinch flat with only one patch left. As concerned riders rolled by and asked I was OK I let my pride get the best of me while forcing a smile and telling them “thanks but I’ve got it.” I cut the patch into four pieces, covered the holes, pulled out another thorn and decided I’d take the chance and keep rolling towards the trail.

Only 50 yards into the first climb I felt my rear wheel wiggling around behind me again. My tiny little quarter patches hadn’t been enough. It’s probably good Mingus didn’t hear what I said about him this time. I was a little frustrated and the Pennywise rolling from my ipod wasn’t very calming. I pulled out my last quarter of a patch and got to it realizing that there was no way I was going to make it five and a half miles back to Fruita at this rate. I finally swallowed my pride and flagged a friendly group of riders down to beg for a patch, a tube, or a ride back to town. My trail Karma paid off and thankfully they had a tube for me. After assuring them that I would be fine and promising I would not get lost alone at night they wished me luck and rolled away.

 With only a few minutes of daylight left I was determined to get a little trail riding in so I quickly rolled to the closest viewpoint and took in the last bits golden light on the cliff walls. My ride didn’t end up as planned and it wasn’t exactly one of those amazing mountain biking experiences but it was an interesting little mini adventure and as my friend Aaron always used to say when ever we found ourselves freezing in the snow on the side of a mountain, “it doesn’t have to be fun to be fun.” 

Sausage Foot

Please send treats. I like the peanut butter flavored kind. My leg has turned into a hairy black sausage because I'm just a really really hard core dog. We're hanging out on the continental divide in Colorado and yesterday and after riding a section of the Divide Trail we dropped down a rippin fun decent called Greens Creek which was apparently a little to much for this Wiggly Black Dog. Luckily I've got an overly concerned small Basque-0 to freak out when I get hurt so we went to the vet today, got an x-ray and decided it's nothing deadly. They sent me home with some good drugs and told me not to have any fun for a couple weeks. LAME. So, here are some photos of fun and people we like to have fun with to make me feel better!

Fun ride last week in Kurt Gowdy State Park WY.


My fun friend Julie at Whistler... I didn't get to go on this trip but man did I hear about if for a long time.


And Julie's fun and fun-ny looking husband Shane in Whistler.


And of course the always fun Cleary family.


And the JW killin it at Kurt Gowdy.

The drive from Bozeman MT to Jackson WY was in no way boring or unscenic. There's this quaint little park called Yellowstone between the two locations so we thought we'd check it out. The small basque one was on a photo marathon as we didn't have a ton of time but wanted to see as much as possible. There were all sorts of chase-able animals that I watched from my throne in the back seat but the peeps wouldn't let me out. The bison didn't look THAT big to me.

The Tetons and a big lake

Good Old Faithful and a big geyser.

Some really hot water.

My cousin harry munching on what we think were grasshoppers.

Some really big goats.

Cow Boys and Mountain Bikers

You know, it's funny how a bunch of people who love trails for very similar reasons so often don't get along. I'm always hearing my peeps talking about how to reduce user conflict on trails between equestrians, hikers, bikers, runners and dogs. Personally I don't see the problem because I'm a dog and I love everyone but every week the topic comes up. So, last weekend we were all really psyched to work with the most united group of trail enthusiasts we've come across. We spent the weekend camping, working, playing and eating with representatives from the Montana Wilderness Association, the Wilderness Society, the Last Chance Back Country Horseman's club, the MSU mountain bike team, the High Divide Cyclery Club, a bunch of other people and their dogs.


So, if you're up on trail politics you probably understand how unique this situation is. It would be similar to getting a group of hunters, animal rights activists, and wildlife conservationalists together for a weekend of fun. And everyone had a great time!


We did a ton of trail work, enjoyed some good home cookin done right by the horsemen & women, shared a little whiskey, talked about hunting, biking and hiking adventures, walked on a slackline, and enjoyed the Back Country Horsemen's luxurious wall tents with wood stoves during the cold evenings. The coolest thing was seeing everyone realize how much they had in common despite their difference in recreational mode, political views, and backgrounds.


I took it upon myself to make sure none of these tasty sticks of meat were wasted. The locals took pity on my sad sad story of nomadic traveling and days without food and I left camp bloated and happy like a Lab should be.


We also helped the local wilderness advocates and mountain bikers find a new mountain bike route that will circumnavigate the new proposed wilderness area south of Helena MT.

Now we're kickin it in Bozeman with our friends Chad and Devri from Bend who we haven't seen in about 4 years. It's amazing how time doesn't really count anymore. It feels like maybe we haven't caught up with them in a few months... not a few years!