Mt. Bike Journey

Well if Covid-19 has taught me anything it's that 30 years of sitting behind a desk has caused me to get into shape - if you consider Round a shape...

With help from fellow biker and friend Michael, I have taken up mountain biking as a new hobby.

This past Saturday, we drove about an hour over to Danville, IL to ride Kickapoo State Park.  The bike trails there are set up really well.  We will be going back over there, but not this week-end.  They have an endurance race this week-end where riders will log 3 - 5 laps (LAPS) of the entire 17 mile course.  Nope.  Not me.  I had no "go" left after about 10.5 miles.

Locally, we have also ridden Hoffman, the Amphitheater, and the Wabash Heritage Trail.  I'm getting better, but still have a long way to go.  At least I'm doing more than just sitting behind a keyboard now...

 
We rode trails 2, 3, 4, 5, and 10.
I blew out a bead on my rear tire and crashed into a creek.
Yep, we had a great time. 
That "saw" at the top - those were 3 very long climbs!
That giant arc on the left that looks like a poor letter 'C' - 
that's the relatively flat Haul Road that takes you back to the truck (and cooler)!

 
From the left:  Michael, Brad, and Me.
This picture was taken about 3 minutes before I blew out a tire.
Yes it was chilly Saturday morning - like 42 degrees F (5.5 C)


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cleaning Winchester SX3 / SX4 Shotguns

Image
The Winchester SX4 is my Go To shotgun for everything - clays, doves, ducks, geese, pheasants, whatever.  It is an awesome firearm.  The drawback?  There are multiple moving parts and a few of them like to collect carbon.  And this carbon sticks as if it were put on those parts with super glue! Specifically, the magazine tube and the gas piston are the main carbon collectors.  Those parts come out more black than silver & gold. The inner components of an SX3 / SX4 with highlights where carbon will form So what is my trick for cleaning those bits?  I drop the gas piston into my Hornady sonic cleaner.  Inside the cleaner I put in about a cup of Hornady's One Shot Sonic Clean Solution for gun parts, add some DI water, a couple squirts of Dawn liquid dish soap, and then top it off with a dash or two of the citrus version of Dr. Bronner's pure castile liquid soap.  I have found that the citrus Dr. Bronner's is awesome at removing grease and oil....
Read more

Winchester SX4 Trigger Assembly Update

Image
First, you need to read the post immediately before this one to understand why I had to take my Winchester SX4 shotgun apart - all the way apart - specifically the trigger assembly. Second, my bad.  I had neglected to clean the gun after returning from last October's pheasant trip.  I had about one bale of grass seed inside that gun, which in the end, may have kept the #8 pellet from getting out on its own.  Shame. Finally, I did not give up.  I watched four different YouTube videos on how to disassemble and reassemble the trigger group.  Sadly, no one did the SX4, only the previous version, the SX3.  Close enough.  Why did it take 4 videos?  Because no one explained HOW the damn sear goes back in.  Everyone either ASSUMED we all know how OR in two cases, the reassembly process was out of the camera frame.  Aggravating! The key, and this is more for me to remember, was on the fourth video, the author said, "The sear kinda slides down int...
Read more

Determine Sex of Deer from Tracks

Image
It IS possible to determine from a set of tracks whether the deer you are tracking is a doe (female) or a buck (male).  And, it's actually pretty simple if you know a few facts about deer. First, you have to know what a deer track looks like.  Deer leave a track that looks like the outline of a heart. Next, you have to know the direction of travel.  Deer are moving toward the "pointy" end of the heart.  So in the above example, the deer is traveling toward the top of this post, or up. Here is an actual photo of deer tracks in the wild so you can get a better idea.  Again, this deer is traveling up, or towards the top of this page.  (It is also clear that this deer was STANDING, not walking - well clear enough to me.  Read on to find out why I know that). Sometimes if the ground is soft or if the deer is traveling really fast (jumping), the track left will show the deer's dew claws at the rear of the direction traveling, like so: The ...
Read more