Behold

Just a little something I'm calling "The Gnarness Harness" for now. Stay tuned.

Heavy

The above image is of my old buddy Colin. He is a Lansing, Michigan cop. We go way back, close to 20 years back. We played high school lacrosse together. Lots of good clean fun, some highjinks as well. Kept playing together some in college as well. He was in fact, my first mountain biking buddy. The first dude I knew who got a job at a bike shop. We used to rip single track all over mid-Michigan in sleeveless t-shirts and without helmets. When I turned 21, he was the first person that bought me a drink. Fucking Prairie Fire. I spent a weekend at his house one time, we drank only Molson Canadians, and everything we ate was meat cooked on a bbq. It was pretty awesome. We spent a hell of a lot of time listening to The Smashing Pumpkins "gish" album and playing disc golf at Grand Woods Park.
We drifted apart after I left Lansing in 1998, at the time he was a cop in Charlotte. Last time I saw him, he told me if he ever saw me on his beat, he'd run me in...never knew if he was kidding or not.
Last Saturday morning, he took a bullet in the spine. He is in the hospital with two collapsed lungs, and from what I've been told, is paralyzed from the chest down. I wasn't there, so I don't know what exactly happened. What I do know is that the shooter was his wife.
I also know that personally, this is the most fucked up situation that has ever happened to anyone I know. The knowledge of the event kept me awake last night...it is heavy.
He and his family are in my thoughts.

creative energy

I'm not blogging much these days, and I'm sorry for that if you are stopping by and not seeing much. As I just described myself to Roy, I'm just some dude talking about some nonsense on some obscure blog, so you can probably get your fix elsewhere.
The above bike build has been what I've been creating lately. Our show bike for Interbike this year. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

so little time

Interbike looms, so much to do in the desert this year. Excited to bring PDW to a bit bigger stage and re-connect with industry types I only see once a year. You gonna be there?

This Guy

Pump Track

Rode on this pump track up in NE last night. Hopefully going back on Wednesday. I'm totally hooked, and now I want one.

New Digs

Like the new living room rug, really ties the room together, doesn't it?

The Flow

I saw this write up I did on The Flow trail in Marquette cycle through on the Bike Mag site today. Love that they team it with the above Derek Frankowski shot that he took during the Monster Park weekend back in 2004. That shot also ended up as a cover of the Mag. So cool to have had the opportunity to write about one of my favorite trails.

Hey You

Lewis River Trail

Took a great ride this weekend with Jen, Cheever and Brigid at the Lewis River Trail (#31) in the Bronson Pinchot National Forest Saturday. Okay, so it was the Gifford Pinchot National Forest.
Either way, that trail is awesome from start to finish. 98% single track. Tons of climbing and ripping. Huge trees, clear cold river, water falls, stolen beers, oh and yeah, the bone pile pictured above. After wards had a great meal at the Cougar Bar in Cougar, Washington. Hopefully we'll be getting back up that way in a few weeks to ride around St. Helens (Ape Canyon-Plains of Abraham).

Stoked.