Wednesday Warriors

Our ride on the VA Creeper and Iron Mountain was great today - 32 miles, beautiful weather, the company of good friends, and sweet trails! I’ve posted the GPS data at http://gotow.motionbased.com/. After you go to the data for the ride, if you click on the “Google Earth” link under the little map, it’ll download a .kml file to your computer that you can import into Google Earth to do a fly-through (you’ll need Google Earth, of course - you can get that at http://earth.google.com/).

And hey, I was wrong about the amount of climbing - it was 3900 feet, not 3000.

Thanks to Scott for organizing this annual fun-fest, and to Glenn for letting me ride with him in the Largest Non-Commercial Vehicle on Earth.

Kent, can you post the picture you got of Scott after his crash?

- Jon

Hey - riding the Slickrock Trail out in Moab was absolutely amazing! I just wanted to post a couple of pics - it was like riding on sandpaper, up and down steep little hills, and never, ever having your wheels slip - it was absolutely incredible. I found myself standing and plowing up 20 and 30 foot, 45 degree (or more) climbs - all you had to do was keep enough weight on the front to keep the wheel from lifting - traction was never an issue - you just leaned forward and pedaled up the climbs and prayed your legs wouldn’t burn up before you hit the top.

Check out the little white dots painted on the rock (if you can see them with the picture reduced). Following the trail is just a matter of keeping to the white dots on the rocks

Me on the Intense 5.5 I rented from Poison Spider Bikes (great bike, and a great shop!) with slickrock disappearing into the background (the trail’s painted on there somewhere…)

- Jon

Hey - congrats to all the Wednesday Warriors who completed the Mountains of Misery - me included Let’s see- Renee, Heidi, Reinhard, Jon, Deb, Todd, Sandra, Earl, Mary Dean, Allen, Ben, and the whole Piedl family (wow!) I’ve got the elevation profile off my GPS doodad - so here you go. Check out that last little hill - it’s a doozie

OK, so I got this new GPS thing, and I thought “yeah, now I can save heart rate, elevation, and all that - nice little toy.” Well, then I found out that you can export rides to Google Earth and overlay them over satellite data and actually do a fly-through of the ride. THIS IS SO AMAZING! Anyway, here’s a picture of the route of our Carvin’s Cove ride last week. It doesn’t do this justice at all, but I can’t post a fly-through yet. (Well, OK, I just don’t have time - I’m supposed to be working…)

And here’s the elevation profile. Yeah, turn your head sideways - I didn’t want to shrink it, so sideways is the only way it fits.

- Jon

PANDAPAS POND

Bring a friend and be at the starting location at 6:00.

Meeting Place:  Pandapas Pond Recreation Area – Park along Craigs Creek Road across Rte 460 from the upper Lot

Directions: Take 460 west over the top of Brush Mountain, then turn Right onto Craigs Creek Road across from the Pandapas Recreation Area entrance.