Watched sun rise over mtns out @ road 18. Plan is to ride these trails & then move into town to see about the festival.

Camp spots were plugged but hardly a rider was stirring when I left on my ride just after 9:00. Looking forward to my improved suspension. And it is great, Thanks PUSH!

Can’t fix what i just did w/ fonts.

I rode stuff that I was unable or willing to in past rides. Do Zippty Doo Dah steep knife edge downhills. Courage. Really enjoyable ride. Hard, hot, & sunny. Like 3 hours & about 18 miles & 1850′ @ 4600′ elevation.

Drove back into town. The road is just stutter bumper & shakes the van so badly, like I said: 1 round trip.

Into town.

Health club is offering showers for $5.00, not $10 i paid one time b4. Showered, washed off sun screen & dust. Met Chris in locker room whom is here for festival.

Stopped & visited w/Chris @ Single tracks, gave him last Snake Creek time trila poster. He said somebody years ago gave him 1.

Walked thru exhibitor area to old log house that I thought was were the registration was to be. Met pretty woman @ receptionist desk. She slyly smiled and asked me how I got the mardis gra(sp) beads like she knew about beads. Had a great conversation w/ her, she said she was looking forward to telling her husband about it.

Drove over to mexican restaurant for Thurs party for beer & food and visiting. New Belgian brewery beer. Visited w/ Chris: ski instructor @ Aspen. Saw a guy standing nearby that looked familiar but memory recall failed. I said hello to him and he remembered me and I remembered that he is B. Rose from Shokdoctor in Minneapolis who helped solve a front end problem. He is a regular here apparently.

Parked across several parking lots for night. Viet Nam memorial had a wall of names & a Huey helicopter poised overhead.

Quiet night. Drove back into Fruita to festival to a flurry of activity of vendors setting up. And there was a Turner booth staffed by lots of DW link bikes & Moe, the Turner demo guy. He offered me a Spot DW for afternoon. I turned him down, more later.

I looked for ride sign up sheets to se what exciting ride I could go on. No offerings. Temp is climbing and I wanted to get my ride in b4 it got to hot so I went on my on and drove out to ride the Colorado river trails. Riders were camped right before Trail Head (TH) ( Betty). A few rigs in parking lot. Overcast & comfortable. Forecast is for high winds maybe 40mph and I didn’t want to be riding up on exposed ridges being buffeted by gusts. Climbed rock ledges @ early Mary’s Loop. Rode Horsethief loop. Chatted w/ a couple from Prince Edwards Island enjoying their 2nd ride of the season. Moved on to Lion’s loop for more exciting technical stuff and I made almost all of it. Great suspension and skills learned from all previous rides. I rode several 2′ drop overs where just letting the front wheel roll ove and the fork compresses to keep the bike from endoing. Great!

Lots of riders out but trails never got too crowded sort of. I sat down on a trail side rock for a snack & 4 riders went by that I joked w/ as they climbed hill. Continued around Lion’s to jeep road uphill to Mack’s ridge. By now I am running bonky low. I pushed a few steep places. Strong head winds as I climbed. I met 4 guys coming down who had just ridden up Mack’s and when learned that the downhill was a jeep road they turned around to ride down what they rode up. Rode out onto mesa edge on Mack’s to full brunt of wind. I drifted off the trail in sand and had a tough time correcting back onto trail because of wind. Trail is quite technical. The wind in exposed places was really buffeting me. I stopped 2 times to walk because of the wind and the fear that it was going to blow me off a move and crash in the jagged rocks. Did some good riding for me on downhill. The 4 guys and I talked @ the lower TH and they recognized me from the picture on my van.

I hung on and slowly pedaled back along Mary’ & last big road climb out. I made it back w/o collapsing: 30 miles, 3 1/2 hours, 3650′ climbed.

On the way back I ran into quite a few riders heading out. Trail ettiquette is out the window. Rules say yield to uphill rider: Not. The thing w/ bikes is they can go up as well as down. Skiing everybody is going downhill. Not too keen on festivals. Have the socks, time to move on.

Back @ TH there are 3 VW campers in a row behind my van. It turns out these are guys I passed earlier @ snack break. They finsished way earlier than me and were enjoying beer rewards and team green. They wanted to see my van so i swapped for a buzz.

Drove back into town for a shower & visit expo. Great to wash off sweat & sunscreen.

Spoke w/ Moe @ Turner. I told him that I am impressed w/ the DW link and want one but to ride one would be putting me 1 step closer to buying one and @ this point it would be $ follish. So there, all you doubters who say i can’t curb my bike spending!

Bought a Fat Tire beer and sat @ a table sipping it just beat. There were 2 labs laying on the ground nearby that were on a stay & didn’t move even w/ other dogs around. I finished my beer and went over and petted them. Minutes later the owner, Gary, showed up. He said pet away. I enjoyed it & so did dogs. I stood up to go and my left leg cramped where it never cramped before and I didn’t know how to strech it out. I was standing among many people walking around but nobody came to my rescue. A woman working a barbeque stand a few feet away came to my rescue and asked of my well being She offered & I accepted her electrolite replacement to long term relive cramp. She said that she & her husband work the stand in hot weather w/ wood fired stove & sweat so badly, hence the cramp reliever.

The dog owner, Gary, returned & we chatted. I learned that he is a retired firefighter who moved to Bend, OR and has a toy hauler trailer that he takes on the road for 3 month stints. He passed me today on Lion’s loop but took a different route back. I shared ride ideas w/ him. He, too, agrees that traveling  by himself is more rewarding.

Don’t care for festival environment.

Parked behind grocery store for dinner & internet.

Forecast tomorrow is for possible T-storms. One of the VW guys, Danny the window guy from Sedona, AZ, said that if it rains here or is strong possibility he will head to Moab. I might do same. Fruita has 2 areas to ride & I rode them both. Not eager to ride either a second time.

Plan is to spend a few days @ Moab and then make a clockwise circle into N New Mexico stayin in upper 1/3 of state.

Bought a pint of Haagen DAzz ice cream.

I am hammered.

Mouse not working, not eager to use keys to navigate.

Slept in PUSH parking lot. Garbage truck woke me around 5:00. Long after I was up & about a train went by.

PUSH planned on starting on my shock & fork after lunch. I decided to drive down to Boulder to pick up my warranty shoes in the historic Pearl Street section. Driving down I had good views of snow covered front range peaks. Got hot also. Weekend snow was all gone. Boulder where I went is a hoping place, could be cool people place to live but very expensive. Found a Whole foods market & splurged on prepared food. treated myself to a beer as I drove back to PUSH. When I arrived after 2:00 my work was completed. I taked to Darren a bit about suspension issues. He gave me a set of rebuild bushings that they make that are made to like .002″ tolerance which will make for an even more fluid rear suspension. He told me of Devil’s Backbone ride area just W of town. I thought I could time manage a short ride and still drive back down to Denver to meet DOn @ 5:00. The ride @ 5000′ damped the sweet ride. The suspension rides even better than first tune. Darren said as they learn more out getting more performance out of suspension parts, they incorporate changes in new overhaul. Hey, you Turner riders: get PUSHed.

Cousin Susan and her husband Don live in Denver. I visited them last fall on my way east and arranged for an overnight on Tues. Unfortunately Susan flew back to help her parents. It was 2 guys talking guy thoughts. Don prepared salmon which i had not had since b4 leaving Spokane. Wonderful evening.

Don and I walked the neighborhood block and then he left for work and I turned the wheel West on I-70 to Fruita over the Rockies divide. Snow on N facing hillsides as I climbed up. Not much depth. Drove past Copper and Vail ski areas. Melted out down low. And brown from wind storms during the winter blowing dust onto snow. Sunny, windy, hot drive, temp hit 84 in Fruita.

Over the Edge bike shop has a King bottom bracket grease tool. I rolled in to have them grease it. And it is greased.

Learned about festival operations. Was told good luck finding a camping spot out on road 18. I drove out looking for whatever. The gravel road is stutter bumped and just shook my van contents. One round trip is all I will do. The bike trails mostly take off from the end of the road which also is a spread out free primitive XG. And it was crowded. I found the same spot I used last summer. Bikes everywhere. People everywhere. CXT outhouses. This area is known as Book Cliffs area where there are miles of hand built ST. Fruita’s other area is out along the Colorado River along I-70.

Picked up brake & pads from Single Tracks shop. Great cooperation.

Dateline: Loveland, CO, PUSH Industries parking lot.

Made Wilson State Park out in back roads Kansas. Empty XG, no water until next weekend. Washed bike w/ake h2o, all the clingy mud is gone. Only camper in subloop right on water. Walked a bit before dark. Found perhaps a heron skull & some beaver cutting chips. A brisk on shore wind but in early evening the wind died & then picked up w/ an incoming thunderstorm. Van was rocked by the wind and thunder. Not a bad light show but most intensity went somewhere else.

I checked out Wilson town to see what was downtown. Just a community that has lost it’s economic engine.

Drove out to park. Entrance is on a hill and the road drops down to cross the lake on a high bridge. Controlled burn made the trails stand out. What a fantastic trail system. One of the best i have ridden. Just a few technical rock problems but all about riding. The designer, Bob Nicholson, the park’s trail coordinator, used the topography very well. 14.6 miles & close to 2000′ vert all on short climbs, lots of climbing switchbacks. And it was not kansas flat. It’s worth making a stop on your way somewhere.

I joined the central kansas mtn biker club and linked up w/Jon Shank for a guide to meet at noon on Sunday. While waiting for him I rode 5 miles of trail. Wow.

AN adventure race was going on while I was there. 16 teams, they mtn biked, paddled a canoe or kayak, ran 5 miles & finished w/ more mtn biking. I recorded gusts of 35 mph. Several of the canoers capsized.

I learned that an Army Corps of engineering XG was nearby w/ year round water & showers so I split for it. Nice shower and then off to find the world’s largest ball of seizal twine. Have pictures.

I drove furhter north to the geographical center of the US and spent the night in the middle of America.

Today I worked old US highways to Loveland, CO to PUSH Industries who will overhaul my shock & fork tomorrow. Drove past maybe 5 VERY large cattle feedlots. Wouldn’t be surprised if there weren’t a thousand cows wallowing in their own waste fattening up for your dinner table. And the stench!

GPSd the post office & picked up my mail. And then found PUSH back on their cul de sac. While my suspension didn’t jump up & down, I smiled. Talked w/ Jimmie & master mind Darren who all remembered me from my Labor Day visit. Spent time learning from Darren what he is getting & future able to get out of suspensions. Very talented & intense but fun guy. I am more impressed. To those of you who have had your suspension PUSHed, be sure to return them over time as they will include the updated parts for an even better performance.

Darren is stoked on his Turner Spot w/ the DW link. He is friends w/ David Turner & Dave Weigal, the DW link guy. Best Turner yet he said.

In mountain time zone, fall back but I am tired.

The snow covered mountains finally revealed themselves well into CO as they were hidden by scattered clouds that blended w/ snow. 72 degrees after snow last weekend.