The new campfire thread...ooooh purrrrty!!!!!!

[Alan Wood]

The getting up real early two days in a row is getting to me.. I am starting to get pretty groggy.

I did work on some bikes today. I got new tires mounted on each of our newer Fuzes… a little more aggressive tires.

I then switch out the wheels on the Ice Cream Truck. I put the original 5 wheels back on. I put on the different tires.. and set the wheels up tubeless. I did let some more air out of the fork to soften it up a bit. This should be a fun set up. The tires should be a bit faster than the originals. They are still pretty knobby.. but the originals were Setting them up tubeless should help also. Less weight.. and less rolling resistance… and this will be the first time with a suspension fork on a fat bike. I think that is the one I will use for tonights ride.

You do seem to almost always be working on trails ot your bikes.

[Fenlason]

Hey I was beginning to wonder what happened to Kerry.

who...

[Fenlason]

The getting up real early two days in a row is getting to me.. I am starting to get pretty groggy.

I did work on some bikes today. I got new tires mounted on each of our newer Fuzes… a little more aggressive tires.

I then switch out the wheels on the Ice Cream Truck. I put the original 5 wheels back on. I put on the different tires.. and set the wheels up tubeless. I did let some more air out of the fork to soften it up a bit. This should be a fun set up. The tires should be a bit faster than the originals. They are still pretty knobby.. but the originals were Setting them up tubeless should help also. Less weight.. and less rolling resistance… and this will be the first time with a suspension fork on a fat bike. I think that is the one I will use for tonights ride.

You do seem to almost always be working on trails ot your bikes.

You should have been here this summer. We did a lot of crazy work here this summer.. doing no trail work.. and even much less biking. We really like trail work.. so have had to get out to do some before winter.

[Fenlason]

I was a good part of the day working on the bikes. Setting up the Ice Cream Truck tubeless was a little more work. We had our hike / ride last night. I used the ICT. I did like the set up. It rolls faster/ easier than it did. It was a great set up for night rides this time of year. It is getting more slippery.. and even after recent leaf blowing there are a lot of leaves out there.. and of course the darkness.. make for a more challenging ride. I didn't ride any of our real technical trails, but things went pretty uneventful.

I was quite tired before the ride.. so I didn't try to ride as much as I could with the hikers out.. but I still got a bit of riding in. I did see a deer early in the ride. Later on I saw a bobcat.

House work today.

[toypusher]

Hey I was beginning to wonder what happened to Kerry.

Yeah, I am still around, just don't post as much these days.

Back to mowing today and it will be a long day due to NOT mowing yesterday. Hoping to get done this week, but might have to work a couple days next week.

Still have projects to get done around here too, but most of them take more than one person. So, kinda have to wait until my buddy Mark can come over and help me.

[toypusher]

Hey I was beginning to wonder what happened to Kerry.

who...

Yup!

[toypusher]

I was a good part of the day working on the bikes. Setting up the Ice Cream Truck tubeless was a little more work. We had our hike / ride last night. I used the ICT. I did like the set up. It rolls faster/ easier than it did. It was a great set up for night rides this time of year. It is getting more slippery.. and even after recent leaf blowing there are a lot of leaves out there.. and of course the darkness.. make for a more challenging ride. I didn't ride any of our real technical trails, but things went pretty uneventful.

I was quite tired before the ride.. so I didn't try to ride as much as I could with the hikers out.. but I still got a bit of riding in. I did see a deer early in the ride. Later on I saw a bobcat.

House work today.

I am guessing that the bobcat was more afraid of you than you of it!!

[Fenlason]

I was a good part of the day working on the bikes. Setting up the Ice Cream Truck tubeless was a little more work. We had our hike / ride last night. I used the ICT. I did like the set up. It rolls faster/ easier than it did. It was a great set up for night rides this time of year. It is getting more slippery.. and even after recent leaf blowing there are a lot of leaves out there.. and of course the darkness.. make for a more challenging ride. I didn't ride any of our real technical trails, but things went pretty uneventful.

I was quite tired before the ride.. so I didn't try to ride as much as I could with the hikers out.. but I still got a bit of riding in. I did see a deer early in the ride. Later on I saw a bobcat.

House work today.

I am guessing that the bobcat was more afraid of you than you of it!!

At first.. we were all at least on the same side.. I was up where I could see him.. Laurie and her hikers were a little further down a double track trail. The trail we were headed toward.. came in behind it.. and it tight in the woods. I was semi afraid.. with people on one side of "him" and me coming in on the other side.. it might feel trapped and threatened… and the trail I was on was also fairly technical.. so I really had to focus on what I was doing.

[Fenlason]

While it was cold out [earlier] I went out in the woods to do some digging.. sort of an early morning work out… and doing something easier to do in the cold. I worked a couple of hours smoothing out the new trail… Not trying to make it flat.. but to make the dips smoother. There is nothing particularly challenging about it.. but wanted to at least make the dips and such smoother so that one's wheels rolled through more efficiently.

I then came back to work on the house. I had earlier.. in putting up strapping for some metal siding.. hit a wire with a screw. So I had to cut into the wall and redo some work. I have a nearby outside outlet.. that I was going to have to cut the siding around. Where I had an outside box.. it reminded me.. I could surface mount the box. It took some time to cut into the wall and "fix" the wiring. I have cut out the bad wire.. patched the hole.. and put the siding on. The box is surface mounted.. Although I have to yet finish rewiring it. It is a real pain trying to cram 12 gauge wire into a box.

Tomorrow I will probably head out to the woods early.. then hopefully finish the wiring..and then Laurie has the afternoon off.. and we will head for the woods again.

[Alan Wood]

Better luck tommorow the fenalson. I have the holiday off myself.

[Fenlason]

Better luck tommorow the fenalson. I have the holiday off myself.

Thanks.. I had not labeled the wires when I took the it apart… and I didn't get it hooked up properly… it was getting dark.. and cold. I did get the volt meter out.. and I think it should go back together better today. I will short the wires some [to make them fit better].

I was out before sunrise this morning. It wasn't cold.. maybe 40 or so. I headed to the woods for some trail work. I wanted to start "polishing" our Dirt Reynolds trail. It a newer trail. I don't want to make it less challenging, I just want to make the easier sections smoother.. so that is faster. I got out there and there were so many leaves.. I had to leaf blow it again to see anything. I worked about 3 hours.. I will work on that wiring… and head back out when Laurie gets home.

[Fenlason]

I got my wiring back together. I like the outlet surface mounted vs the way I was going to do it. I also mounted it up a little higher off the ground, which I like better. It was gotten rather windy today.. 40 mph.. We went back out to do trail work.. and we had trees down on the new trail already. We had walked in with the earth tools we thought we would need.. and had to walk back out to get the saw. We have this new trail polished fairly well. Our end of it is a little rough and off camber.. but it is all ledge under the dirt.. so there is no digging I can do to level it. I have one other spot I could use a 5 gallon pail of dirt. It will just need to riding to break in it.. and pack it down now.

I was going to head over to the trail I was working on this morning.. but I was too tired. My arms and shoulders are pretty beat. We did walk around and scout a couple of new trail areas. I will let all that percolate… I think I would like to polish some other trails before we built another. We have 3 others.. to do a bit of digging on.. to smooth out. We also have a couple of other trails.. that need some work to be finished..Getting some of this work done before we build more.. might be a good idea.

[Alan Wood]

So just how many trails do you have there?

[Fenlason]

So just how many trails do you have there?

I have no idea how many trails we have.. MANY. I don't even know how many miles we have. It is well in excess of 20 miles. It is constantly changing. All to often we loose some to logging.. some of that is recovered.. some not. We are also quite often adding more. It is kind of like a spiderweb maze of trails intersecting all over the place, so that makes it hard to measure.

The downsides to the lay out. It's harder for others to learn their way around. It is also easier to lose people. At times it's a pain deciding where to go. Although there are days.. that it all comes together rather effortless.

The good you can completely change the feel of the ride.. by connecting differing trails together. We have such a variety out there. We have pretty tough trails.. alongside easier trails… so people can split… and then come back together.

Most of the individual trails are shortish. An example.. we have these few trails in an area, and if we put in this little trail over here.. to connect this trail to that trail.. it improves the flow.

[toypusher]

Good Morning!

27 degrees this morning and frost covering everything. Well, should only have one (maybe two) days left of work this year. Going to Cabela's with Mark tomorrow. Would like to get that AR that I want, but doubt that will happen. Been trying to sell some stuff for the money, but not going well so far.

Guess I should go to the grocery store today, but not sure what else might be up.