Day trip to Denver, to go see the daVinci tandem. VERY nice concept, we’ll see how the real deal stacks up. First, went into town (Fort Collins) to get breakfast – The Breakfast Club again, and I got what I really wanted this time – Corned Beef Hash and eggs. Mmmmmm. Delish.

Ok, got to daVinci, and got to see the system, and ride a tandem. WOW! What’s so great about the daVinci? A few things – number one, either rider can coast while the other one pedals. Yes, this is actually HUGE. One of the biggest pains on a tandem, if you use clip less pedals (and you should!) is that when you first start from a stop, the stoker (the person in the back) is already clipped in, so they have no problems, but then, the captain either has to pedal not clipped in for a while, or has to pause the pedaling until he gets clipped in, and that causes some unbalance, and also does not let the bike accelerate smoothly – you have to coast for a bit, and sometimes clipping in is harder than at other times. With the daVinci, the stoker can get the bike going, and the captain can take his (or her, to be fair) time getting clipped in, because the stoker is providing power. On a mountain tandem, this is even more important, because some trails require proper placement of the pedals to avoid a pedal strike on a rock, well, on a regular tandem, where the pedals are tied together, the captain may not move the pedals correctly for the stoker, and those pedals will hit a rock – with this system, each rider can independently move their pedals where they need to be. Again – HUGE.

The second thing? TINY chainrings, and four of them! Equivalent to a spread of 22(!) to 60(!) teeth conventional chainrings! Which means you can have a gear so low that you’re barely moving even while pedaling quite rapidly, to one where you are moving quite fast, while not pedaling very fast. Means big hills are easy, and a top speed of maybe 40-50 mph, easy, depending on how fast you can pedal! Can’t wait to get it – it looks kinda like this:

but ours will be grey, with a 26-inch rear wheel for strength, and a 27.5-inch front wheel, for easier obstacle roll-over. Sweeeet! Delivery is in 6-8 weeks. Can’t wait!

Oh, yeah, did I forget to mention it? It’s a full-squish bike – full suspension, front and rear! Woohoo! Look at that ground clearance, from the tiny chainrings!

What a day!

Today WE RIDE!!!

We are going to Lory State Park, West of Fort Collins a couple miles or so. Beautiful park on a beautiful Reservoir (we call them lakes in Texas). Here’s a pano:

We were going to do an “easy” trail. About a quarter mile from the trailhead was a split, Lakeshore trail left, Mill Creek Link Trail top the right. I wanted to go left, but The Bear decreed we would go right. I don’t argue anymore, so I went with it. Right off the bat, there were poles 10″ in diameter laid across the trail, as water brakes. So it meant popping the front wheel up as much as ten inches to clear them. At this altitude, I could do one or two, then it was hike-the-bike for a while until I could re-mount, after catching my breath. We’re over 5,000 feet here – lower than we’ve been, but I’m still not used to it. Here are the logs:

Then more logs – it’s crooked because it’s a video capture:

It got better – the logs went away! To be replaced by big freaking rocks! Like these:

Then Roots and Rocks:

Then a huge slab of rocks:

Yeah, that’s a switchback to the left, on the way back. I’m about ten feet above where the trail disappears left. Maybe more. These are BIG rocks!

We went back to the EASY trail, and had a blast, getting in over seven miles, short day since it’s been eleven days since we last rode. Back at the truck, I look at the trail guide. The trail we were on? DIFFICULT. No kidding!

Ok, what do we do after riding? WE EAT! Pizza Casbah’s Grand Central (Supreme):

Pretty good pizza, though not near the best we’ve had. After, to Stone Cold Creamery for a milk shake! Then, off to Payless to get The Bear some socks. Two interesting factoids about that particular venture. First, on the way to the truck, we see this:

The Screaming Peach – A Waxing Studio. I don’t think they wax philosophical, and I DO know what some women call their “peach” … It hurts just to think about it!

Anyway, get to the truck, put the address into the GPS, and it pops up with this:

I’m not gonna say a word!

Tomorrow? A break. We’re going to Denver to look at the DaVinci Tandem factory. Thinking about a full-suspension mountain tandem. We’ll see how that goes.

Taking Junior to the doctor today. Set the alarm for 7:00, but I need not have bothered – some insensitive jackass on a Harley (imagine that!) with loud pipes (imagine THAT!) decided he was too cool to push his bike, actually just COAST his bike out of the campground, but needed to start it shortly after 6:00. Not just START it, mind you (that would not have been TOO bad), but let it idle for about ten minutes, before he left. Nice. Quiet hours runs until 7:00. Guess he can’t read. Or just doesn’t care. Probably the latter.

Anyway, in to town, hit the dealership, put junior in, and go to breakfast. A nice lady who also had her vehicle in for repairs suggested The Breakfast Club. We were going to go to IHOP, but hey, I’ll take a local, non-chain place any day, if I’ve heard it’s good. She called it right! I wanted to try their corned beef hash, since I got burned at the last place, but that’s a menu item, and their special of the day was a German Skillet, so I had that. Tasty! Potatoes, peppers, german sausage, cheese, all under two eggs over medium – yum! And biscuits. Soft, fluffy biscuits.

Well, my fears were unfounded – I thought we might need to replace the right rotor. Nope! Needed to replace BOTH front rotors! Oh, well, I’m not surprised, with almost 200K miles on the truck, they should be worn out. I guess it will be the rear ones next time. I might do that job myself after we get home, now that I have a place to do it (love that new fence!).

So, truck done, it’s about noon – bike shop time! We go to Peloton Cycles (were there last year as well) and met a very friendly and helpful guy whose name I did not get, unfortunately, but he gave us some great trail tips, and also what I hope are going to be great eateries tips. But right now, it’s haircut time! Find a Supercuts (only there best for my hair!), get the job done. Next, of course is food, so off we go to find “the place with the cannon out front, it’s right on the corner of College and Laporte Ave – you can’t miss it!”. Except it’s not on that corner, because BeauJo’s is on that corner, but that’s another place he told us about, so we turn down Laporte ’cause I’m already in the turn lane, and then of course do a U-turn to get back the way we were going, HEY! There’s a cannon! Not on the corner, but about 1010 feet down the block. It’s Called Washington’s Sports Bar. Hmmm. I hate sports bars, because they’re into … well … sports. BUT, he did say the food was really good, so we’ll try it.

This is the inside of the place, by the bar:

And if you look up:

That plane is at least 15 feet long. A bit of an eclectic place. I got the Philly Cheese Steak and a Milk Stout:

Pretty good, I must say! Groceries on the way home after lunch and then … RAIN!

Damn.

Wow, bad things on top of bad things – go to the store, front brake starts grinding, caught it late yesterday. And guess what? NO repair shops are open Saturday OR Sunday. Great. Well, we’re leaving tomorrow no matter what, so the fix will have to happen in Fort Collins.

Guess what we woke up to?

RAIN!

This is really getting old, and there’s really nothing else to look at. Not a lot of breweries (maybe two we could find). Not a lot of places that have decent beer. The food we’ve had has been so-so. Well, it was very tasty at Mahogany Ridge, but it was expensive, so that’s out.

Not very impressed with SS.

Another thing that bothered us – all the trails in town seem to start with about a 10% grade, straight up, for over a mile, maybe two. And the downhills don’t look all that great. Here’s a shot of one trailhead:

That road up front, that goes behind the sign? It comes out above the sign, then look at it as it gets steeper and steeper to the left. Doubt it? Here are the Trail Profiles:

Eight trails – five of them go straight up, no breaks. No fun. There are other trails that look really good outside of town, and there’s camping near them, so if we come back, that’s where we’ll go, but SS? Nah, don’t think so.

Another wet day. No hail, so that’s good, but really?

Had to do something, so drove out to look at trailheads again, and campgrounds.

We saw one campground that was ok, it had a few workable spots:

And then, on the way back, we got a great overlook at a local lake/reservoir:

Got some deja vu on this one, and we realized we may have photographed it last year, when we came throughout here. We didn’t go all the way through Steamboat Springs, just skirted it, which may be why we didn’t recall it at first.

Then, more rain.

Really?

REALLY?

Ok, no riding today because of wet trails, so off to town we go. I do see something funny as we’re about to leave the campground:

I call it “cars on the fence”. It just looked funny to me.

Well, skies are clear, so hopefully the trails will dry out and we can ride tomorrow. Off to town to see the place, and walk around, to get SOME exercise. We lunch at the Tap House – 21 beers on tap. Try the Nitrogen Porter, and it’s almost as good as the one we had the other day at Mahogany Ridge. Also had beef nachos (so-so), and fried mushrooms, which were pretty good. Our parking was almost up, so we headed back to camp to plan tomorrow’s ride. Around five, we hear some sprinkling. Then rain. Then hail. Then BIG hail. Well, big for here – The Bear said she saw one golf-ball size. And it was LOUD. I had the TV cranked up pretty loud, but could hear none of it, and talking was only possible if shouting. Here’s what it looked like:

And here’s what it sounded like:

Be sure you turn your volume ALL the way up, to get the right effect.

Bottom line? At the very least we have a busted roof vent in the living room. The one in the bedroom seems to be ok, as is the one in the bathroom, which has a cover. Tomorrow we’ll have to look from the outside. Hope nothing else is wrong.

Oh, yeah – so no riding tomorrow, either, thanks to the new rain. Damn! This is NOT good.

Exploring day. Back up high, and breathing is an issue for me a bit again, so we’re going to go looking for trails and campgrounds.

Found a really nice State Park – Steamboat Lake SP:

Drove around a bit mrs and found a little campground hidden in the woods:

Here’s a shot when we were leaving the area:

Then we went to another lake, and saw this:

My point? For ten bucks a night, you can camp where it’s BEAUTIFUL. I think at least one of these was National Forest, maybe both, no facilities except the sites and pit toilets, but hey, ten bucks!

Might have to stay here a few days someday …

So, late afternoon, there”s a women’s ride, so we head back, The Bear gets dressed for it and we head downtown. And it rains. Boy! Does it rain! Huge lightning, dark clouds, high wind. The ride is off. And so is riding tomorrow. Apparently the trails here cannot take rain well. Great.

Rest day, wrap things up day, go shopping for stuff day.

Should have been an easy, good day.

It was, actually, until we got to City Market. Life was good, then we walked down the aisle with the powdered drink mixes – you know, Koolaid, Crystal Lite and such. There was a display, much like this one:

Except it it was full of these guys:

Probably 50 of them, at least. I needed to turn the cart around, so I swung it left … And the nose of the cart, the last quarter-inch of it, just barely grazed the display. It happened in slow motion. I reached over the cart, The Bear tried to go around … And the display just fell, front side down, and crap went EVERYWHERE! Ten feet of aisle, covered in MiOs. Oh, the embarrassment! Luckily there was a gal close by who offered to put it back. I was doing it, but acquiesced. Glad to get as far as I could! And you thought it only happened in the movies!

Ok, got home unscathed after that, and prepped to leave in the morning. But first, two more thoughts:

Saw this in fronton the Dinosaur Museum – I call it the DynoVan:

And, we were treated to a beautiful sunset:

Sad day today. We lost Richard. No, no, he’s not dead! He started for home this morning. I think he had fun, we certainly tried to entertain. He did ride his butt off!

And for us? Rest day. GSD day. G a lot of S done today.