Another Day in Paradise

"Santa-Fe,
Dear, dear, dear, dear, dear Santa-Fe,
My woman needs it ev'ryday,
She promised this a-lad she'd stay,
She's rollin' up a lotta bread
To toss away.
She's in Santa-Fe,
Dear, dear, dear, dear, dear Santa-Fe
Now she's opened up an old maid's home,
She's proud, but she needs to roam,
She's gonna write herself a roadside poem,
About Santa-Fe."
That is from a Dylan song named Santa Fe that I have always liked.
Finally got some snow here yesterday and this morning. Anthony and I rode in Los Alamos with Scott yesterday in the snow, it was a sweet ride.(more on it later).Last week we got a good ride in town here are a few pics from it.
Here is me hiking my bike up a steep climb, I know it doesn't look steep, but it is:).

Landscape shot (by Anthony)

the IF has seen a lot of action as of late cause I am waiting on a new 20 tooth cog from Surly to put on the RIG.

high above Santa Fe


A sweet section of ridge. I am off in the distance.

Anthony descending

Anthony stepping it up

Coming right at ya

Down a nice tech section on Dale Ball south


and a shot of the IF enjoying some down time

  Here is a nice pale ale I had the other day from Steamworks

  All right everyone have a nice one today. I am off to work :( . What is in your audio player today? I have Linton Kwesi Johnson-Forces Of Victory. I have always enjoyed Dub music.
  I think I need to get the Snowboard out soon, It has been tooooo long.

3rd Time's a Charm

Good day to you all. Last week Anthony and I went back to Glorieta to make good on a loop that has been alluding us. Well we finally did the loop proper and it felt good. The singletrack coming down from the fire lookout down to Glorieta center was incredible. It gave you a little bit of everything. On our way back down we met a older couple hiking up. We got to talking to them,They had been living in Santa Fe for 6 years now and had moved here from MD(Bethesda area). It Is amazing how many people Autumn and I have met from the MD- DC area since we got here. It was nice talking with them. They said after 6 years they are still stoked to be here.I guess now is as good a time as any to show some shots from the ride.
Here is a shot from the car at the bottom of 63A


Ohhh the climb

There are a couple of downhills during the pull up 63A that break up the 3000 ft of climbing that you do.


Then of course it is right back to climbing.

  You get to the top and rest and enjoy the good vibes of having just climbed 3000 ft. This is a guy we met at the Peak he was with his dog and a friend. Sadly he was saying that were we where there should be a few feet of snow. It is sooooo dry here below the 4 corners area. We need some precip badly. :(

  After talking with the couple and there doggy we decided to begin our journey downward. This time we made the left turn onto Glorieta Baldy trail instead of taking Baldy trail towards Apache Canyon. The first part of the descent is Very steep. Lots of loose rock switchbacks with stairstep ledges.After that it mellowed out a bit. This section I liked because it was little like east coast riding. Riding on a pillow of pine needles. Even a log pile or 2 thrown in.




After riding up and down along ridge line we came to a really nice spot to give thanks.

Everyone venturing into the back country should have a extra sock with them!



After a short break we continued on. The trail on this last part became real fun with big rock type of stuff





Anthony's cockpit

Then back to the car for a much deserved brew... Ahhh . We all know how biking makes everything taste better.

  I rented a couple more movies this week One was the Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou which was pretty darned funny. The other was Hell's Highway.
  What is in your audio player? After Hamad said he was listening to rosalia de souza I decided to bust out some Brazilian tunes as well with someGilberto Gil. K off to work , Peace

A foolish move

  Well well. I finally did the bonehead move that seems like a lot of bikers do in there lifetime.Maybe I am just saying this to comfort myself. These couple pics should tell you.


  If you haven't figured it out yet I Got back from that ride I had at Atalaya the other day and I couldn't go into our ally so I parked out front of our house. Later on after they were done in the ally I decided to go ahead and park in the garage. I pulled around back and went to back in when I heard a HORRENDOUS sound. I knew right away of course what I had done. I could barely get out of the car to look.


  So there ya go I broke my frame by backing into the garage. What a BOOB!
 I all ready got a new RIG frame from Gary Fisher. They sold me a new frame for 300 bucks. I thou ght that was pretty decent of them.
  I got a new rear tire for the IF it is a old skool WTB Moto Raptor 2.4. I rode it yesterday and it felt grippy as all get out compared to my bald Conti Vert Pro. I also got a new bell for the IF because when you ride the Dale Ball trails there are usually a lot of people on the trail and it is narrow in a lot of places.


  the Temple of Tone

  Here is the new GF RIG frame

  What is in your audio player today? I have Sonic Youth-Daydream Nation in my player today.
  Autumn and I watched a good movie the other night it was called Henry Darger: In the Realms of the Unreal
I also rented Bukowski at Bellevue It was him doing a reading at a college in Washington. It was very good if you like Bukowski. It was cool to see and hear him read his writings.
  All right everybody have a great day. Me and Anthony finally did the Glorieta ride properly yesterday it was KILLER. Anthony took some really good shots too. I will post em up soon.

Atalaya over to Picacho

  Ohhhh My! Jay and I had a sweet ride the other day. We decided to finally tackle the ride from ST. Johns college. It is a ride that you can do right from town. I love that there are a number of rides that you can do right from your hotel if you are visiting Santa Fe. So I met Jay at the trail head at St. Johns and we departed

  The trail starts out in a arroyo, but then splits off and starts to ascend Atalaya mountain(9121 ft.). The riding is steady climbing from here all the way to the Peak and gets steep as a muv in places.
  The ride in the trail book I have suggests a out and back at around 8 miles up to the peak and turn around. But when we got to the peak we consulted my Map of the Mountains of Santa Fe and the Pecos valley and saw that you can connect Atalaya with South Dale Ball right at Picacho peak. That sounded more fun and turned out to be a real fun decent to Picacho peak(8577 ft). Then we got to ride Dale Ball south out to upper canyon rd and I took the road back to my car to finish out the ride.
   Another sweet Santa Fe ride under my belt. and the first one of 2006.
  What is in your audio player lately? I am going old school and listening to X- Wild Gift. I love that about the ipod you can have it on random the whole library, and it brings up albums that you might not of thought to put on.
   Here are a few pics from the sweet ride
one of a couple rich people dirt roads we had to cross.Looking back at where we had just climbed up from.

Jay on a sweet section of trail




View


Looking back down the trail


Finally at the peak...Phewwww
the RIG R.I.P


A nice spot to rest your tired legs.
and give thanks.

Me at the peak


At this point my book says to turn around and enjoy the descent. We decided to go on to Picacho peak and down to upper Canyon.


Here is a view from Picacho Peak




Lets all have a Sweet 2006! Full of goodness.
Here is some goodness Ella made.



More later on that being the RIG's last ride........