FBC

 Mad FBC Ride tomorrow night.  8:30pm meet at the corner of E. Main and Livingston, get loose.

Mounder

Back from a weekend at Levis.  Good dudes, good trails, debauchary, bikes, swimming, beers, and more fun.

Can't wait to do it again.

MountainWeekend

I'm going to be out mountain biking at Levis all weekend. Good luck to all the people racing 24/9, don't end up like this guy.
.

Trapper

One thing I love about Wisconsin is the extremely high per capita rate of talented friendly folks.  Among the ranks of which is Trapper Schoepp whom I have had to fortune of meeting in two lives.  1. As a young BMX enthusiast I recall meeting the Schoepp bros on several occasions and enjoying their company.

(video stolen from North of Ten)

2. As a superstar media mogul listening to and then interacting with them in The Trapper Schoepp band and then Trapper Schoepp & The Shades, who recently signed to one of my favorite record labels Side One Dummy. 

RADIO DUDES!

 While my interactions have always been too few and far between it's always awesome to hear about local boys done good.  Especially when they end up in a band with Jon Phillip from Limbeck and are signed to a label that is home to Chuck Ragan, Briggs, Gaslight Anthem, Piebald, 7 Seconds, etc. etc. Anyway, these dudes are playing Madison on Thursday and ya'll should check em out. Good dudes, good roots, good tunes.

Weekend

 Crazy busy week and a crazy fun weekend.  Scott came to town and we rode bikes a bunch, saw Cloud Cult and Maps & Atlases, and staying out much too late.  I spent the rest of my evening eating ice cream and watching Netflix with the cat.   Living the high life!

Superweek

Superweek has been going on for half the damn month now and I finally got around to saying something about it. I'm not a road or crit racer so it really means very little to me.  Except it's an opportunity to laze around, eat food, drink some beer, and go shout at people while they turn themselves inside out pushing as hard as they can to win a race and then throw up all over the place from exhaustion.  Check out the Superweek website for more info on the races and dates here.  If you're around check out a race, or just go for a ride, see if I care.

Fixies

Some local dudes made some fixed gear edits for some sort of competition.  Not sure about any of the details, but still kind of fun to watch.  Check em out here.

All City Championships

I realize that this is a long hike now that I'm in Madison, but I did it last year and it is a really good event, to I'm going to peg it anyway.  If Riverwest wasn't full I would put up a flyer for that but whatever...

Quarry Ridge

 I spent the past couple days off the bike because I've been travelling for work.  After spending that much time in a car the first thing I did when I got home was get the mountain bike out and head over to Quarry Ridge.  Earl at Rev clued me into this place and it's just a quick jaunt from my house so I loaded up and headed over.

 The trail section is super short, but incredibly fun.  Tons of rocky climbing and descending, tons of cool features all over the trails, some absurd sheer face and downhill jump lines, and a fair bit of twisty fast single track.  

There is also a wide open section of sandstone that's essentially a mountain biking skatepark.  I probably spent 25 minutes just trying out different lines on.  

 Anyway, the place is awesome and it's an easy roll from the house so I'm sure you'll be hearing a lot more about it.  Or just check it out yourself you bum.

Capital City

 The Capital City Alleycat was on Saturday and it was a ton of fun.  I headed down fully expecting to race, get totally lost, and simply try to finish. I threw in for the start and got my manifest all mapped out when the organizers said they needed a hand on a few checkpoints.  Feeling pretty half-hearted about racing I threw in the towel and decided to man a checkpoint instead.  I rolled over to Olbrich park and waited for the start, within 15 minutes I saw a few riders running to me so I ran into the lake and made them come get their feet wet to get their manifests signed.

 After the initial rush I pretty much assumed everyone had hit my stop first so I retreated to the shade and laid low for an hour so until I got the call to head back.

 I ended up missing the finish line gathering and just headed over to One Barrel for a few drinks with some folks including one of the race organizers before rolling to Revolution Cycles for the after party.  While it was a bit smaller than what I'm use to after helping out with so many alleycats in EC the party was still off the hook and I don't think I got in the door at home until around 3:30.  

 I totally glossed over a lot of details, but it's bed time for me and  suffice it to say it was a killer time and hats off to the organizers.  Organize another one soon so I can race it and win some hot prizes.  

Greasy Fingers

Some of the folks who came up to the Valleycat are throwing an alleycat here in Madison on Saturday.  Should be a good time.  Form the oranizers: "Throwing down in a only way Madison WI knows how(Like a boss). Meeting at Reynolds Park for registration starting @ Noon and Race @2. Ale Asylum is Sponsoring our after party and the sponsors for Prizes and swag is growing at a scary rate. Spend your Saturday with the Greasy Fingers Bicycle Club of Madison,WI and you are guaranteed to have an amazing time and walk away with some swag." 


 Sounds like an excuse to drink some beer and ride some bikes to me.  Check em out on facebook here

Shoes

I tend not to be a hoarder of bike parts.  Partly because I have no desire to have a bunch of bike stuff I'll never end up using sitting around my house, but mostly because I cant afford to have a bunch of bike stuff I'll never use lying around my house.  The one exception to this is shoes and pedals. I have never had a single pair of bike shoes I've been 100% satisfied with.  Because shit like this tends to happen to every pair I own. 

Now granted I wear my bike shoes everywhere and I am a total powerhouse that puts a lot of miles on them but I feel like this is total garbage.  Mind you I will continue to ride with these shoes until the plate is ripped clean out of them, but now it's only a matter of time.  And the quest for the perfect shoe continues.

F.Y.I.  These are Diadora All Track and this is the last in a long string of problems I've had with them, I do not advise buying them.

explore

 A lot of things about moving are a total drag.  Some things are totally awesome.  Like being able to explore and get really excited about little stuff that everyone else is probably way over. Yesterday the heat finally dissipated some so I took the mountain bike out exploring and stumbled upon some short neat trails near my house.  

They were short and fun and awesome.  Kind of like Too Many Daves, my new #1 favorite band in the world.  How can you argue with lyrics like "I was just born great, and that's just the way shit works sometimes this is based on a true story the mother fuckin' end" I have no idea how it took me so long to find this band but as soon as I'm  done listening to their entire catalog I'm heading back out to go explore some more.  Go outside, have fun. 

Mad Mad World

 Well the Admiral Snugglepaws and I are moved in to our new digs in Madison and after a nice blogging vacation I'm running on all cylinders.  Which for the time being means sleeping in and then going out in stupid heat and exploring the city.  My place is situated a cool 5 miles-ish from downtown and most other stuff which in most other cities would probably prove a painful commute, but fortunately they built a bike superhighway not far from my house which rips through the awe inspiring parking lot landscape before hitting the pretty, well maintained, and well traveled trailscapes that are so abundant here.  

Besides being ungodly hot out the past few days have been a blast and it wasn't until today that the heat finally took it's tole and kept me inside all evening.  So what have I done so far? 

Explored our great states capital

lit off fireworks

Rode bikes

Rode bikes in my underwear

 Celebrated the 4th. Albeit in a bit more of a reserved manner than I am accustomed too.

And once again, rode around aimlessly exploring.  I have to say besides missing my family and friends a ton it's been a pretty good start to living down here, something I could definitely get used too.  Today I even stopped by the Dream Bikes community bikeshop to go wrench on bikes for a couple of hours. So all you regular readers need not fret, I am back in action and will be hard at blog work for many weeks and months to come.  If you are in Madison, lets hang out asap.

Alive

I'm still alive and have been settling in to Madison.  Went to meet up with Tyler last night and right when I was about to get lost I ran into Alex and was handed a beer right on the Capital Square, can't argue with that.  After about an hour I crashed hard and had to head home.  Today I met up with Ry for a bike tour of the city in this absurd heat we are having.  More stuff to come shortly.  But for now I'm hanging out in the AC reading up on this years Tour on the newly overhauled Tour de France Website.  Man I hate Mark Cavendish