Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Riding and Getting the Word Out

Once again another perfect April day results in me going and riding my MTB bike in the Rattlesnake. Working that long gradual climb up the old Marshall Grade then riding some of the Woods Gulch and Three Larch trails (big thanks to Laurel at MBW for letting me know the snow was gone). When all is said and done, I couldn't have asked for more out of two hours on the trail. I brought the camera along to try to capture some of the greatness that is mountain biking in Montana in April. It just seems like it is an ironclad lock that if I tried to recreate these pictures come the end of June there will be a whole bunch of the smoke in the background. Enough talking for now, pictures will do that for me.

Buffed out singletrack, you can't ask for anything more.

Top of Three Larch (or whatever the hell people call it)

Doing my best to work with the 10 second timer on the camera

In the world of bigger websites dedicated to bikes, Homie Gnomie over at DC was kind enough to post an email of mine regarding the whole Wilderness debacle outside Bozeman that I went on a rant about last week. Gnome even threw in his own two cents, which was a nice taste of logic that few can deliver as he does. Think what you may about a website that for seven years was dedicated to nothing more than bikes booze and boobies, but trust me those guys know and love bikes. It was nice to see the comments that had accumulated as of this morning of people who agree that the decision made was stupid. So big thanks to Gnome for getting the word out, I'm sure good karma will come back around for him in the future.

Other than that it looks like Montana's most well known XC man could be missing the first World Cup of the year due to Mother Nature. Not much you can do when a volcano decides to erupt, so this situation blows not just for Sam, but his whole team, who from the looks of things still have an ocean to cross. This has the makings to rival Planes, Trains, and Automobiles as one of the greatest travel stories if the Subaru-Gary Fisher folks manage to make it over there. I'll say a quick prayer to the travel gods for em asking the winds to change and blow all the ash somewhere else.

3 comments:

  1. It's really called the Kruger Trail named after the guy who built it. Then, because the USFS was up in everyone's mugs about illegal trail building in '97, it became known as Freddy Kruger to mask his identity. I guess for one reason or another this name stuck for awhile as it used to be harder and somewhat of "nightmare" for some to ride. Then, when normal people came around the shops and such looking for the entrance to the trail it was noted that one would know when they'd arrived at the entrance by the three larches. See, normal people on Trek 930s ruin everything, right?

    Your historian
    Stinky

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  2. Stinky, thanks for the history lesson, you are like a bright shinning light that makes Ghandi look like a child pornographer. I knew about the "Kruger" backstory, but I've heard it called "Three Larches" more than "Kruger", hence why I referred to it as Three Larches. I used to ride a Trek 930, and yes you could say that I helped to ruin everything. Feel free to let me know any more stories for the old days, I'll even buy you a beer if you want.

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  3. For the record, I had a Trek 930, too. Not exactly that you or I really ruined anything, it's more that as things change (more riders, less cohesive scene) things tend to splinter, names & origins get forgotten and roots get torn up by the wheels of progress.

    Beer is always good, btw. There are three levels of "school" in Missoula MTB when it comes to that:

    Old School: Chuck's, Flippers & the OLD OPP
    Middle School: Al's & Vic's & Iron Horse (this is when triathletes stopped straining their cottage cheese long enough to drink a beer)
    New School: I really don't know, but it's probably wherever Owen goes!

    Stinq

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