Got the Itch... Spring Has Sprung

My By:Stickel frame & Waltworks Fork are at Powder finally

getting their blast of Candy Atomic Gold

Anticipation is making me wait!

i've got the itch!

speakin' of itchin'

Always Remember: Leafs of Three - Leave 'em be.

Yeah, still itchin' from all the damn poison Ivy... seems i didn't get it from the IMBA Trail Crew visit like everyone else did. I had one little spot on my forearm above the edge of my glove. Brian and Kip got it real bad, covered in it. Though it seems i should've washed my gloves because evidently the oil was all over the gloves. So my hands and arms covered in it from the following weekend doing trail work @ Duncan Park. I just want to scratch it!

Spring is Sprung here in the Dirty South

my dog love's it

my Sinuses not so much!

Only downside to the coming of Spring .... Allergies and.....

Had our Taxes done the other day. Once again seems i'm not giving the government enough of my money... been short on my quarterly taxes, getting blood from a turnip (just not gonna happen) Good news the $12K I owed in Medical Bills from the 10 ass surgeries i had in 2009-2010 are All payed off! YAy! Now if i can just pay Uncle Sammy his $7500. nothing like getting gang raped by the IRS.

- - - -

Last weekend was spent in Columbia for the Kid's (#16) Lacrosse Shoot out tournament.

Nothing but cool rain and wind. They lost their first game... the first half they let the other team out shoot'em by 7 points, second half they found their rhythm and had tied it at one point. Second two games their rhythm continued and they stomped on the other two teams.

Nice work boys

$15 @ the Door

Ride the Divide movie Tomorrow Night! Camelot Theatre 8:00pm

Short Alley Cat @ 7:00 prior to the Movie

This weekend Sunday is the Kid's Ride at Dupont hosted by Pisgah Area SORBA and Trips for Kids WNC. So i'm dragging the kid up to go ride! Should be great weather, and it's been a while since he and i have ridden.

-bRad

What's Playing: Little By Little - Radiohead

Awe Hail No

Good & busy Spring weekend + the Kid's 14th Birthday

this was H before the hair cut... he was going for the white fro, but the recent 80*+ temps and lacrosse practices, he gave up on the fro... don't blame him. It is so Hard to believe 14 years old...wow .

Busy/busy 'round here. Got Todd's BIKE Mag fullpage ad done for the Pisgah Stage Race, yay i'll finally have something published in a bike mag... i can now die happy. Thanks Todd.

got Stumpjump's stuff out the door. Got the GROM press releases done.

Assault on the Carolinas web, posters and billboards done

New design for the hood party coming up. It's a kids party - with the adults passing around the shine; listening to live bluegrass. The only way to have a kid's party.

Saturday morning was out diggin' in SparkleCity... I mean Spartanburg.. Eric Turner owns BikeWorx, received a ton of money for all of the good work(s) he's done in the past.... and now he's thrown it into New trails in Duncan Park right in the middle of downtown Spartanburg... Deno with Benchmark trails has donated his time and skills laying out the trails, and he and Eric have been knocking it out. The majority of the trail is all roughed in with machines, now requires the finishing / hand work/ clipping roots, deberming, and out sloping . The trails aren't open yet, till all of the work is complete. They're shooting for May to have a grand opening celebration for "Bike Month"; So every Saturday from 9 - Noon is a trailwork party. If you're not doing anything... give an hour or two or three give a little, receive a lot! This place is gonna be cool as shit. Full story about the place HERE if you're interested.

Thanks to Eric, Jeremy, MattG, Liz and the boys for coming out.

here was the Hail Storm that happened once i got back to Greenville...

pretty intense pea sized hail for about five minutes then tapered off to heavy heavy rain then bigger hail started to fall for about a minute

Yep it's official Spring has sprung. Rejoice

-bRad

What's Playing: Booty City - Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears

What Comes Around, Goes Round

A Good Weekend for Bike Advocacy.

lot's happening so here's a brief rundown of the Subaru/IMBA Trail Care Crew visit this past weekend. Steve & Morgan Lomelle the husband wife dynamic dou from Boulder came down from the National Bike Summit in DC to G'vegas to preach the gospel of better living thru bikes and bike advocacy. Thursday was the Club Care Presentation... "Learning how to run a club without your spouse hating your guts."

Learning how not to burn out?



just add more beer, oh and delegate... (can't wait to delegate)



Thanks Community Tap for helping sponsor this thing. you guy's rock!

Friday was out to Stone Lake Community Club for the Land Manager's meetings and Sustainable Trails presentations.

then out to Timmons Park to scope the project... what was the project? we didn't know, what we did know is something needed to be done at Timmons... but what could we hope to get done in four hours with a couple dozen volunteers? Why Timmons? out of all the great riding places around the Upstate of South Carolina. As a club we felt that Timmons Park is a cycling resource lost to our community. It used to be a nice little 1.5 mile loop which was ideal for a quick after work ride.

Several years ago the City Parks and Rec put in the Disc Golf Course, their goal being to bring more visitors to the park. Co-locating the disc holes along the Bike Trail was the easiest thing for them to do, not realizing the user conflicts it would create between the disc golfers and riders. A lot of area cyclists had given up on Timmons and today the original bike trail is almost completely unrecognizable.

We knew this TCC visit to Timmons wasn't going to rebuild the trails at Timmons Park in a day! It will however be a great start with a Training Program to get local riders involved, and with the TCC's input and instruction on rebuilding some of the problem areas at the Park. We were looking at possibilities of rerouting some sections where most user conflicts occur between the disc golf and cyclists, and eventually take the trail to the outer edges of the park property above the disc golf course.

Thanks Brian Graham with the City for giving us the chance to make a difference and create a sustainable "beginner trail" loop that we can build from to make Timmons Park trails rideable again.

The Greenville Spinners club at one time used to be the “Trail Stewards of Timmons Park” before Upstate SORBA ever existed. UpstateSORBA felt this was a great opportunity to create a partnership with the Spinners and with the City of Greenville, and hopefully this will be the first of many projects together.

Saturday morning was the Trail Building Class at City Hall





then it was on to Timmons for the Hands on Trail work

















the Kipster riding his fixie

Saturday night was the Social at Chicora Alley; Thanks Ben for hosting it, and to TCT for the Growlers of brew.

Sunday Group Ride at Paris followed by Beer & Pizzas at Barley's made it a perfect way to finish a weekend of mountain biking advocacy.

thanks to everyone that came out and made this weekend possible.

for the full lowdown go to our UpstateSORBA site or to Steve & Morgan's IMBA Blog
More Photos HERE

I had to miss out on the fun at Chicora Alley and Paris Ride because of my damn foot; which is getting better, it's no longer purple. it's just red and a little swollen. No i'm not going to gross you out with pics of my Hobbit feet, but Saturday it was everything i could do to get my foot into my keen sandles... It was so swollen it looked like a sugical glove blown full of air, round with little nubby digits. Damn i hate getting old.

What's Playing: Circles - JJ Grey & Mofro

Sloppy Seconds, Thirds & Fourths

Wet and wild out at Clemson over the weekend. It rained the night before and the entire day of the race...

Slopfest

"hey SORBA get the f*ck out outta here"

"Mr. Clean" Herndon

which is cool i got to help Chris and his Specialized GROM team in designing their Practice and Race jerseys. they turned out pretty cool

didn't get many photos , Chip and i didn't stick around long after confrontation with some of the Freerider club. See our group sponsored their race with poster art, printed posters in all of the local shops, website promotion and printed, laminated number plates and then we were asked to take our banners down and pack our shit up.... i don't have to be told "go Fuck yourself" more than once.... before i get the picture....

It was good seeing friends out there regardless of the shitty conditions and crazy high gas prices. Full Set of Pics HERE if you don't see a picture of yourself in that set; then i didn't get one of ya.

I think Clemson Freerider's inability to do a race with accurate timing is going to be their biggest downfall for future events . This makes two years in a row, they've had issues with timing and posting results ... saw on Facebook where they're telling people hopefully by the end of the week they'll get results posted... Note to self , if we ever do another Paris Mt. DH Race (accurate timing is the first priority)

What's Playing: My Name is Mud - Primus