07 Aug 2010, Riding near home

It may have been a short ride but with the wind and the climbs it was a great workout. I like my Tricross better every time I mount up. The "roadie" in her makes for good speed with less effort and the "mountain" in her is surprising. It's like being torn between two jobs or two places you want to be, and she differentiates well.

We can cruise along a gentle greenbelt, hammer down a highway or backroad or get pretty serious in the dirt and rocks. She really surprised me in the rocks last Monday at the volcanoes. I was working way too hard and going way too fast that day to bother with many pictures. The only one I shot today was with my phone.

But regardless of where I want to go or when I'm ready that baby is always sitting in the garage chomping at the bits to go play. I've not got two sets of two wheels that ARE my sanity and my health all wrapped up in two.

Sunday 18 July 2010 New road bike

WOW!! I've been head-over-handlebars in love with my Scott Scale 50 mountain bike for over 2 years now, but yesterday I finally added a badly needed mount to my stable. Specialized TriCross Sport cyclocross bike.

Cyclocross is a sport of its own. The bike is built in the style of a road bike but the geometry is between a road and a mountain bike, closer to a roadie. The tires are much more narrow than a mountain bike, and still have some tread to them, but not as narrow and slick as roadie tires. The frame is somewhat beefier and what made me go with the TriCross is the fact that they use mountain bike components. The rear derailleur is LX, not bad stuff.

But the minimal asphalt resistance, the more-road frame and somewhat lighter will allow me to get out and stroll and build cardio and upper body for riding more. Not to mention I certainly will lose weight. The mountain ride Monday kicked my butt terribly. I could tell I had been hiking instead of riding. But that's all changed. NOT that I will quit hiking by any means.

As nextstop.com, my favorite ever of all internet sites, revamps as it is acquired by Facebook I looked back and found an interview they asked me to do as one of their early contributors. The links to the articles it mentions do not work here. I really hope Facebook does them justice.

nextstop Q&A with wanderingpops

One of the best parts about working at nextstop is getting to know different members of the nextstop community through their recommendations and guides. We noticed a couple epic guides by one nextstopper, wanderingpops:

Geologic, geographic, cultural, historic sites or just doesn't fit any other category! | nextstop.com

Hikes | nextstop.com


Every now and then on the nextstop blog we like to take a moment to do a quick interview with a top nextstopper to get to know them a bit better. The following is a Q&A with wanderingpops:

nextstop: So tell us a bit about you, your background and how you got into traveling around the U.S.

wanderingpops: I grew up in a small town in TN and never really gained a desire to travel until I was married and had the opportunity to travel some for work. Then my wife and I began taking our kids on bigger and better vacations. But the travel bug really grabbed me after we moved to WA state. While living there my wife and I did a 6732 mile road trip loop from WA to TN and back for our 20th anniversary. We traveled through 20 states, camped, stayed in KOA kabins, stayed in a casino near Vegas because 2 storms were coming and Jodi wouldn't camp and a couple nights just stayed in hotels. While living in WA we also visited Canada a few times and just before moving back to TN became certified divers and spent a week at Scuba Club Cozumel in Mexico. The more we see and experience in the world the more we want to explore.

NS: You've got a website barefootroadtrip.com, what was the inspiration? How does it fit with nextstop?

WP: I started barefootroadtrip after Sara, that I work with and is our webmaster, took my suggestions for a couple of trips, had a wonderful time at each place and suggested I start a site. She has the expertise and I have the gift of gab and a lot of stories and photos. She wants me to turn it into a "trip suggestion" blog and I will be glad to if we can make it work. We link my nextstop guides on the front page and on each linked page. Nextstop was really my inspiration. I found the site through the scuba challenge popping up on Facebook and fell immediately in love. I have spent more time on nextstop since I found it than I have traveling.

NS: From looking at all your recommendations, it's clear that you've been all over the country. Do you have a favorite moment while traveling?

WP: That is the easiest of all questions to answer. I LOVE mountain biking and I have hiked all my life, but the single most memorable moment in my travels happened at about 1:30 in the a.m. in October 0f 2002 while on the anniversary road trip I mentioned before. We were camped, in the rain again, at the KOA in Williams, AZ just south of the Grand Canyon. We were sleeping comfortably in our tent when all of a sudden we both sat bolt up and realized that what startled us awake was a bull elk in rut bugling [ns: We didn't know what this was either. Here's a great example] less than 150 yards from the tent. I have never forgotten what that sounded like.

NS: So what's next on your list? Where are the places you can't wait to go?

WP: Mountain biking in Utah, backpacking in AK (the only of the US states I haven't yet visited) and diving off the northern coast of South America (Belize, Bonaire and Aruba for example). And I cannot wait to do all three and get to my laptop so I can post them on both sites. See you on the road.

NS: Well, you just might be able to find a few great places around here for just that sort of thing!

We wish all the best to wanderingpops on his roadtrips, and look forward to checking in to see all his travels in the future. For more on wanderingpops, you can find him on nextstop and at his website: barefootroadtrip.com.
Posted by Kevin S. at Tuesday, June 23, 2009
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Mountain biking Placitas

It's been a while. Since the crash in Placitas in the spring that hurt my knee and kept me off the bike for so long I have used mostly hiking to strengthen my knee. I could tell today that has worked well. BUT, hiking isn't nearly as good for cardio as biking. I could tell that also. This made the climbs seem brutal. But I was thrilled with the knee and my 2-wheeled baby performed flawlessly.

I am still working on finishing the trail map out here. I can't find anyone that's ever heard of there being a map for out here. But someone has done such a good job of building a great network of trails that it will take a very long time to get it all mapped. I keep running into so many intersections that I've only been one or two of the legs. I will eventually get it all put together though!!

The important thing is, I had a great day off and a great ride and it's within 20 miles of the house.

To read more and see several photos click here.
Hmmmm, next????

Paliza Canyon hiking near Albuquerque

What better way to spend a 4th of July afternoon than hiking in a new area!!! Jodi and I had a great hike. Quite easy really but still plenty for a good work out. Hopefully tomorrow we'll get in a good bike ride but I wonder what we will do next week.

Read more of the story and get directions here.

Another of Albuquerque's paved bike paths

My poor two-wheeled baby was thinking I had totally forgotten her so I decided to let my hiking boots rest today. As little as I've ridden this year, and as hot as it is, I decided to ride where I could keep up my speed and create some wind. Great theory, unfortunately the "you have to ride hard and climb hard to build biking legs" side of my brain kicked in and I did not park conducive to a lot of speed.

I knew the bike path along Tramway lost elevation as it travels from north to south so obviously this is not what I want to do. I drove to Indian School Rd and parked. Now, had I parked at any one of several businesses and just hit the bike path that would not have been a big deal and I could have finished with lots of speed and little climbing. But OH NO I can't do that. I drove to the top of the hill to the parking for the Embudo Trail. This means I started on a short but quite steep climb,then dropped for a mile and a quarter back to the bike path, turned right and headed to the high point at the end some 6 or 7 miles or so away.

That same &^$% brain kicked in at every single overpass I saw across Tramway. Bike and pedestrian overpasses that is. I climbed, descended, turned around climbed and descended again. Some of the path itself was steeper than it looks when flying by at 60+ in a car.

On the way back I stopped at a pull out for the High Desert Landscape. Apparently a community planned, signed, walking path part on the bike path part in the sandy area between the highway and the walls. I stopped again at the south corner of Rover Ave when I heard a Gunnison's prairie dog calling. But I wasn't expecting what I saw next. A three and a half to four foot long snake, about the color of a corn snake but I did not see the pattern, laying in the sun checking out the prairie dogs. As I stopped the snake darted into a close by dog hole where it stayed for just a matter of several seconds. He popped his head out and looked around for a long time before emerging and crawling rapidly across the open to another bush to hide again. I stayed there quite some time hoping for him to pop out again and sure enough just as I was about to mount up and leave he crawled across again, this time more slowly, so I could get one more photo.

Then on to Indian School with a sense of dread. I knew the climb was my fault and would be good for me but that sunshine was getting hotter by the second it seemed. Along the 1.25 mile, 600' climb I did have to rest a few times and was lucky enough that some residents had planted some shade trees the shadows of which made it to the edge of the street. Remember now when you think of a 1.25 mile bike ride that this is the only the second time I've been out on my bike this spring.

It was very well worth it, feeling butt-kicked or not. What' next?

For other bike stories of Albuquerque's paved bike system as well as some off road rides in and around ABQ click here.

8500' hike in the Sangre de Cristo mountains 28 June 2010

WHAT A HIKE!! Parked at around 7,500' and hiked to 8,500' and back in 8.8 miles. It was Jodi's and my first ever hike in the Sangre de Cristo and her highest hike! Very shortly after the hike started the sky darkened and the thunder rolled. We discussed and came up with a couple different scenarios should the weather get worse. Later we had rain, hail, and more rain. But we've hiked enough to know when we head into the mountains always be ready for changing weather so on went her rain jacket and my poncho and no more worries.
The first sign for this trail tells the tale of what waits at the end. "Gost (spelling intentional for the effect) town" seems a bit much but there are abandoned cars, sawmill, cabin, mine shafts and at the end the old hotel.
And to finish off a great day we used GyPSy (my Garmin GPS) to find a new restaurant.



For hike description and photo slideshow click here