Mountains!

Golden, Colorado















Ahhhh, the ticks are dead and the mosquito bites itch no more. It's amazing what a shower and a clean bed can do for a guy. By the way, that crap view above is taken at the top of the climb on the Matthew Winters Trail.

I almost puked several times on the way up... Here I am below, pretending it doesn't hurt.

What do you mean smile? I am smiling... god I'm out of shape.















This one is taken a couple of feet down the trail just before the fun.















One of the most fun trails I've ridden in a long time. It rolled along for a while longer, heading up and down, before it shot strait down for more than a mile with a really tech line. There were huge boulders everywhere. So much fun.

Then the trail crossed over and came back up the other side of the road. There was another steep climb followed by a long, but this time flowy, wide open decent. The kind of wide open, not too steep, completely run out of gear decent that gets you going so fast your eyes water.

Didn't take too many pics because it was just to much fun to stop and take out the camera... except for on the climbs that is:

How much further is it anyway?



















You mean we have to go all the way up there?















Sounds like a good time to stop and take a picture then... Here I am!



















There is one other shot I wish I would have gotten.

One of the few switch backs on the trail back down to the parking lot had a flat faced, upright boulder about 6ft tall and 8ft wide sitting right in the apex of the corner, with just a hint of slant to it. The line into the corner was absolutely perfectly set up to throw in a little bunny hop and ride this rock wall. The exit to the wall was a smooth little bermy thing. The move absolutely rocked my socks off.

Unfortunately no one was there, waiting with camera in hand, to get a picture of it. And I wasn't about to stop and ruin the flow. Oh well, I guess I've got a reason to make a trip back there some day.

Kansas Days 6-7, or... Kansas has had enough of me

I hope it doesn't sound like I'm down on Kansas. I'm not. The parts we visited were beautiful, we really enjoyed them. I for one will probably visit again some day.

But, on this trip, there was definitely an unseen force trying to move us along. Remember yesterday I mentioned ticks and mosquitoes but only told you a tick story? Well, today, you're going to get a mosquito story...

But first.. We meet up with Jason on his private land. Today this trip officially starts to pay off in good riding.

Jason is one of the Kansas City Freeride crew and he's a ripper. He's built a little freeride oasis in the middle of a shimmering field of corn. There isn't much else around these parts.

As you can see here in this picture of my truck in "the parking lot"...















Let the games begin...















Here is Jason's giant wall ride...














and his even bigger step-up, step-down move...














From what I understand only a handful of people have ever hit it. I declined... as I was still feeling light headed from my run in with the army of ticks. Hey, that's my story and I'm sticking to it...

Jason on the other hand made it look easy.



















Here are some highlights of the line, in sequence:








































































The skinny stuff he was working on was very fun. I love stunts like this.



















But I think I rode it backwards.















While us men were busy risking life and limb Kristi was busy photographing all sorts of little critters.


































My guess is that this little guy is a pretty successful hunter. Hellooooo there....















A few hours of shred and a couple of bails later we were spent. There's alot of pedaling in order to hit those stunts... kind of reminded me of Florida in that way. But that's about the only way.

We were so stoked that we got to hook up with Jason and ride his trail. He's very passionate about riding and building and it shows.

So, how do you cap off the best day of riding you've had thus far on an epic journey that you're just starting to settle into? Three words:

Guns...














and fire...














And perhaps some sort of a ritualistic fire dance... Aw shucks, I bet you do this for all the tourists.















That night we decided to sleep under the stars. It was warm and there was no chance of rain. So why put up a tent, when a sleeping bag will do, right?

Wrong. Kansas has large aggressive mosquito's that aren't put off by the smoke and heat of a pretty impressive fire.

No problem, I'll just wrap myself up "a-la burrito style" in my sleeping bag.

What's that?

Oh, these things will bite your ass right through a down sleeping bag. Exellent.

Plus I drank a fair amount of beer that night and it was pretty warm outside so every couple of minutes the sleeping bag needed to be opened up for some, ahem, "fresh air". That's when the mosquito's would pounce.

Add a high dew point to the equation and you get night of restless sleep in a wet sleeping bag full of angry mosquito's and a wet pillow.

Well, at least we were already on our way to breakfast when the rash broke out on my face...

Some pictures of my stop sign stop-sign-red, braille textured face and the baseball sized welts that covered most of my upper body would have really tied this post together but once again... at the time I did not find any of it funny.

Days 2-5 or Kansas is Crazy

Kansas is like a relative time warp, the relativity being to Florida where there are so few open spaces and large rolling fields of grass in which to lay.















Kansas seems to have plenty of places to just hang around...















It also has beautiful wooded lands that aren't slated to be developed into condos next month, friendly strangers, lakes with open access and, yes, long flowing mountain bike trails carved into hills of tightly packed trees and vines.

The trail we rode had just the right amount of elevation change for us two Floridians... which is to say not all that much. The terrain was technical and rockier than expected but still "flow-able". The trail climbed, twisted and wound it's way around the lake with plenty of opportunities to gaze.

And, unlike in Florida, the trail builders seemed familiar with the concept of momentum. That's to say that the down hill sections flowed well, encouraging you to stay off the brakes and enjoy the speed. Sometimes it seems a common held belief among Florida trail builders that any steep downhill should be followed immediately by a 90 degree (or sharper) turn or some loose sand in order to discourage any sort of fun or thrill seeking.

Here's a couple of examples of typical terrain around Clinton Lake. This creation looked like it was a living trail feature, not just a pile of deadfall. there were little buds sprouting up on the limbs:



















There were also a bunch of easy features sprinkled throughout the trail. Easy, but definitely fun


































And sometimes skinny...



















While we were camping at Clinton Lake it was warm but not too hot. Humid but not stifling. Sunny but not intense. Breezy but not windy. It was just... comfortable. Comfortable to the point that it almost felt like you are nowhere-erehwon. I would describe Kansas as the womb of the United States.

And if the comfort and the general friendliness of everyone we met were the reasons we stayed for so long, then the tick infestation and baseball sized mosquitoes (that could lance you straight through a down sleeping bag) were the reason that the time between when we decided to leave and when the car was packed and ready to go was so short.

We left Clinton Lake State Park after four days of easy living at a beautiful campsite. We were compelled to leave because of the thousands of barely-visible-to-the-naked-eye ticks that made us there home after we rode through their nest.

They were too small to get off with tweezers, which didn't matter anyway because there were way to many to try. We had to scrub them off... with a nylon bristled brush's in open air showers. Guess how much fun that was?

In retrospect, I should have snapped a few pictures, but I didn't find it funny at the time. Looking back, my tick speckled legs, butt, chest, back, neck and arms would have made a great addition to this post.

Next stop? Jason's private land... Home to the KSFreeriders.