Idaho? Udaho.

Life brings you to some weird places and you get to just roll with it. A 22,000 acre private cattle ranch in Nowhere, ID was the last stop. And it was brilliant.

No Idaho visit would be complete without a cabinent of ammo and an AR-15. While the AR-15 was pretty impressive, I much preferred the cowboy action Colt .45, shooting clay pidgoens with an over-under, and a really fun .25 Auto Pistola.




You think that I have a thing for mountain biking and Nordic skiing? When I was a kid I was obsessed with horses. I begged my mom and dad for one. I would spend nights awake, concentrating all my energy on willing a horse into my life. Somewhere along the way I moved on to other obsessions: girls, punk rock, caring about my GPA, and a career. Bulls Eye the horse re-introduced me to the 11 year old Dave. Smiling, connected, living completely in the moment. This was no nose-to-butt guest ranch ride on "safe" overly broken horses. This was a full on into-the-sunset, across the range ride on an extremely capable horse. Every time I slowed down to a walk or gallop to try to regain my composure he would snort and throw his head. This horse wanted to go. Bulls Eye and I came to a power-sharing agreement - I suggested some direction and kept a stern grasp on the reigns, and he got his yayas out and was twitchy without being scary. I smiled so much my face hurt.

Helena, How Do I Love Thee

Helena. I'd made assumptions about Helena. I'm suspicious of any mountain town that doesn't have its own ski area. How exciting could it be? A couple of my fit testers from work kept mentioning the trails in Helena and how awesome they are. I didn't expect that the trails are bona fide ride from town single-track. You could theoretically introduce some unconstitutional legislation or squander tax payer money with some foolish branding iron veto sideshow in the morning and then ride straight up into a patchwork of city land, BLM, and Forest Service in the afternoon.

Municipalities around the Mountain West listen up: Helena is your public recreation archetype. The quality is incredibly high and the access is as good as it gets. I stopped in Big Sky Cyclery for some good, friendly advice. I know the dance well - ask about the trails and where to eat, then buy a tube or a map. I'll tell you, skip the map (unless you're a mapophile) and spend the eight bucks on tacos or something. There's been a lot of trail construction since it was published, and it's tough to get lost. Head out of downtown a few blocks on Davis or East Main and you'll see trails. Start riding up. Generally ride in a clockwise direction. Even with the map I kept dumping out a little farther up or down the road than I expected. A few of the intersection are marked. The system has three sections: Mount Ascension City Park, Rodney Ridge, and Mount Helena City Park, each divided by a major drainage and road. Ascension and Rodney are fairly uncrowded (even on a beautiful, warm Saturday), and Mount Helena has a few more hikers and dogs. There is plenty of room to spread out. I only saw about a dozen riders and 5 or 6 hikers. Almost every group of riders stopped to say hello and chat. I met a lot of very friendly folks from Helena and a couple groups of riders who made the trek from Bozeman (and who were nearly speechless on one of the descents). Thanks to all for the advice, conversation, and company.

The trails are mostly single track and run through timber and meadows. There are great 360 degree views. Good, stiff climbs no matter where you go. I was off my bike a bit but nothing obnoxious. I rode for 3.5 hours without doing much retracing of trails. The Entertainment Trail was a spectacular descent. There is a lot of ground to cover. I imagine that if you lived there and rode 3-4 days a week you might be itching for some variety toward the end of the season, but at times I lost sense of time and geography. It was just ridiculously good riding.

Go Pro

Happy Spring everyone. I hope that your neck of the woods has a bit more sunshine than Bozemanistan. We have rain. Lots of it; but everything is starting to green up as a result.

For some reason I never fixed up my blog settings to display comments. Not sure why. I do see them and it's crazy sometimes to know that people actually read this stuff; and there are some of you from other continents that read this. Weird. Cool that the Google leads you to this very small corner of the internet. The biggest source of comments was the very brief mention of a Yeti Bigtop. That bike has a rabid following. I wish I would have written a more comprehensive review of it. The other request that I get is for information on the video on the site and what I use to get it (anonymous responder from today, I hope you come back to read this). I bought a GoPro HD at a tradeshow about 18 months ago. It was too good of an offer to pass up. Here's some basic info:

1. You can get a lot more out of the camera than I do. My use is very rudimentary and I use a low quality setting. I do this for a couple of reasons, primarily that I can't be bothered with changing the settings and I have a smaller SD card; secondarily, Blogger.com has limits on the size and resolution for video. If I shot in true HD it doesn't really make that much of a difference in the blog-sized format. I promise to explore the issue this summer and see if I can milk a bit better resolution out of the process. Also, using a bigger, HD specific SD card will remove the glitches and herky-jerkiness; and it will record a massive amount of footage.
2. All that being said, the camera is amazing. It charges quickly on a USB connection; has a million different secure mounting options (though I think I would get more use out of a chest harness and handle bar mount); takes a lot of abuse; has a built in battery heater for cold weather; is fun; and can be set up to take a pic every few seconds; is a lot of product for the money; waterproof casing.
3. The downsides: can be obtrusive; can make people nervous when you're cruising around with it sticking off the top of your head (or can make people ride fast); isn't equipped with a standard LCD screen (you can buy an attachment), so I'm never quite sure if I'm shooting a good angle or not. My best advice with that is to just use it a lot. You'll throw out a lot of footage, but eventually you'll get it. Even so, I still get it too vertical sometimes. It's not as sleek as a Contour but I was surprised at how much it "disappeared" given its size.
4. I've ridden with this thing a lot and I tend to not be affected by it - the weight is pretty insignificant. I don't ski with it as much - I'm a pretty slow skier on the uphill and down and I feel like it makes me even slower; it's hard to remember to take off my skins, switch my bindings to downhill mode, lock my boot cuff, adjust my poles, close all the zippers, buckle my waist belt, take a pee, and get the camera ready. Half of the time I'm skiing with my boots in walk mode on the downhills because there's just too much to remember. If you're a bit faster on the uptake than me then you should be fine. Most of my skiing this season was squeezing in a few hours on a powder day before work so that caused me to leave the camera behind in favor of streamlining the morning routine.

I edit in iMovie which is ridiculously easy (though I still can't figure out how to fade music). The footage that you get is the footage that you get. iMovie will let you zoom in on the frames a bit, which helps, but generally what I post on the site is fairly raw. Like I said, I could definitely be getting more out of it. Questions? Fire away. Hope this is helpful.

Lewis and Clark Caverns Mountain Biking

I certainly didn't expect to do much riding on dirt this early in the Spring. It's been warmish here but two weekends ago brought a fresh 2 feet up high and we just had a 5" shot of wet, heavy snow in town. Folk keep telling me about Pipestone which is about 45 minutes west of Bozeman and a lot drier, but last weekend there was a huge MX race happening out there; so I decided to check out Lewis and Clark Caverns State Park instead. The Caverns themselves aren't quite open yet, but the park is open for riding and hiking and has about 10 miles of single track. I decided to make the 45 minute drive to check it out. The drive alone is completely worth it - along the Jefferson River, through wheat fields, with the Madison mountains in full view. I stopped in at the visitor center and they gave me a trails map and a bit of advice. Apparently some hikers are sensitive to mountain bikes so I was cautioned to take it easy and be polite. I started at the lower visitor center and mostly climbed for 45 minutes up the east side and topped out at the upper visitor center and cavern entrance. It's a lung-burner this early in the season, but nice and steady. Then I pointed pointed it west for the downhill back (you can ride it clockwise or anticlockwise - I like the wide open, fast descent on the West side). The trail had a few squishy spots but was 95% dry; it's a mixture of wide open, twisty single track and side-hill bench cut (yes, with the cactus and the bench cut I had to actively remind myself I was not riding SMT - the similarities are eery). The grades are nice for climbing and descending; could be single speedable if you have iron lungs; very nicely built with a backslope that's not too obnoxious and with nice grade reversals. Mostly smooth with a couple rock features - one in particular on the West side that is really fun and rewarding. Folks put some time, love, and thought into the design and layout. The only bummer to report is the switchback construction. They are tight. I pride myself on being able to get around the tightest switchbacks even on a 29er, but I could only make a couple of these on my 26" bike. It really interupts the flow of the trails - but, they are beautiful trails in a beautiful spot that was ice/snow free...so thumbs up. I can't wait to go back. The park gets great southern exposure and I actually climbed in short sleeves!I saw some bike tracks, two hikers on the way up, and three hikers and a dog on they way down. Not too crowded for a Saturday.

YNP Road Ride

Yellowstone National Park does a really cool thing for cyclists during the transition from Winter to Spring. While the road crews are out plowing to allow for maintenance and supply vehicles to get in, they let folks run, skate, ride, roller ski (or whatever form of human powered transportation you choose) while the roads are closed to cars. We had a lot of snow, cold temps, and generally unsettled weather during this time. I kept chickening out when I saw snow/rain in the forecast or temps below 40 degrees. The magic time period came and went but I did get the consolation of riding on the first day the Park was open for the "summer" season. It was on a Friday so the traffic was minimal. I saw maybe 30 cars, most of them pretty friendly; I sensed that they were employees getting to their seasonal posts.

I parked in Gardiner and climbed up to Mammoth Hot Springs, then on to Swan Lake Flats toward Old Faithful. It's a steady climb that took a few hours with lots of stops along the way for pics. The ground and road were clear all the way until Swan Lake Flats, where there is a definite snow line around 6500 ft. It was a pretty special experience. What an amazing way to see YNP. No Bison jams or half-mile lines of RV's. Just lots of solitude and scenery, miles of good road, and tolerable temps.

You may be admiring dogwood flowers or watching little green shoots pop out of the ground; I think I'm a long way out from that, but the consolation has been blower pow.

First Ride

Got on the bike for the first time since November. All systems go. Made it home 10 minutes before a torrential storm. The roads around town have been mostly dry for a week or so, but the temps aren't always cooperative. The Bridgers have a ton of snow. Full coverage at the ski area with nearly continual snowfall above 7,000 feet for the past few weeks





MOA Inspired Shot