Weather behaving badly

My friend Ryan and I had been scheming to destroy some sweet southern singletrack for a majority of the winter.  Our time finally came and we piled all our stuff in my car and pointed it toward North Carolina’s Great Smokey Mountains.  About 16 hours later and a scoot up the legendary Dragon’s Tail, we arrived in the general location of our adventures.

Out of all the great trails in the Pishgah National Forest Area, we decided to ride Tsali as this was our first real mountain bike ride of the season.  The weather called for two straight days beautiful weather.  After spending the night at the trailhead, we geared up and headed out on the trail. 

We marveled at the grand sights offered up by the mountains and savored every second of riding the sweet singletrack.  We weren’t even bothered by the amount of climbing we had to endure.

And then the weather started.  We were setting up a shot with our cameras when out of nowhere, rain drops started falling from the sky.  It didn’t last long though.  This happened several more times before we were finished with our ride.  Then, in the last mile or so of the ride, a brief down pour hurried us off the trail.

Our evening ride was rained out so we spent the night hanging out at one of the coolest coffee shops/bars in the mountain town of Franklin, NC called the Rathskeller.  It’s amazing how things work out sometimes.  Instead of riding like we had planned, we spent the evening conversing with the owners and other patrons and taking advantage of the wifi and electricity to charge our gear and check out the media captured from our day on the trail.

In the morning we work up early to sunshine as the last of the night’s rain hung from the leaves and grass.  We took the opportunity to take some amazing photos and explore the campground a little bit.

The sun warmed and dried things up quickly and we headed out for another ride.  After our ride we tore down camp and headed up to Indiana to ride the trails at Brown County State Park.

It was in the 70’s when we left NC and in the 40’s when we arrived at Brown County where according to weather.com, it was supposed to be beautiful and sunny the next day. 

We were awoke in the middle of the night by thunder and lightning.  It rained all night and completely soaked the trails.  So we broke camp and headed home early. 

Moral of the story: never trust the weatherman and bring all the gear you will need for all conceivable weather conditions.

The Wisconsin Bike Summit

A few days ago I had the opportunity to participate in the Wisconsin Bike Summit. It was a great chance to meet with state bicycling leaders as well as the legislators in our respective districts. We sat in on bicycling related seminars and learned how to effectively present information to our representatives.

The two issues to discuss with our legislators were the support of a vulnerable user law that would help give prosecutors options when pursuing charges against motorists at fault in incidents involving vulnerable users such as bikers, walkers, motorcyclist and anyone else traveling on the road legally that is not surrounded by a 3000 lbs steel cage.

As the situation currently stands in the state of Wisconsin if a motorist is at fault in an incident that injures a cyclist (or other vulnerable user), prosecutors only have two options on opposite ends of the spectrum. A normal, everyday traffic ticket like a speeding ticket or inattentive driving; or on the other extreme they can pursue vehicular homicide which can be very tricky to prosecute. This vulnerable user legislation gives prosecutors some middle ground where the punishment would more accurately fit the crime.

The other issue was a consistent, dedicated source of funding for bicycle transportation and other bicycle related projects. Something that is currently lacking from the state budget.

First up was a visit to my State Senator, Neal J. Kedzie. During our visit we were informed that both the Senate and Assembly were in session, so we met with staffers instead. It was a little disappointing not to be able to speak to the representatives themselves, but at the same time the staffers are the ones who do the research and get stuff done.

At Senator Kedzie's office we met with staffer Doug Wheaton. We had a very engaging conversation about the issues we came to discuss. Doug was very noncommittal, but he was willing to listen and engage in dialogue which I took as a positive sign. When it came to funding, of course there was no money in the budget. But like I said, he did listen to our concerns and at least managed to seem concerned with our situation. So I walked away feeling like we had a good first meeting.

Second up was a trip to our Assemblyman Stephen Nass where we me with his Policy Advisor Mike Mikalsen. When the issue of vulnerable users legislation came up, we were told that Rep. Nass does not support the bill. He was not willing to consider our point of view and throughout the whole meeting never asked a single question to show he was interested or fully understood what we were trying to ask him to consider. I asked him several different times to reconsider his position using several different approaches, but he was not willing to budge from his stance. So I urge you to email (Rep.Nass@legis.wisconsin.gov) or better yet call him ((888) 529-0031) and encourage him to make your safety a priority, because based on my conversation with his office, I feel he currently does not. When the issue of money was brought up, we were given a speech about the current financial state of the state. In other other words, nope.

In retrospect we probably didn't do a good enough job of selling bicycle infrastructure as an investment rather than just another bill for taxpayers. Oh well, live and learn.

My follow up plan looks something like this: I will write a follow up email to Senator Kedzie thanking him for his time and encouraging him to continue considering the issues we discussed. I plan on writing weekly or monthly emails to Rep. Nass thanking him for his time and urging him to reconsider his support for a bill that will help to protect many of his constituents. Perhaps I will call or email his office every time I finish a road ride and share every time I almost get taken out by a motorist (which is more times than I am comfortable with already).

We wrapped up the summit with two mingling sessions where I met quite a few interesting and influential people, including Kevin Hardman (Execute Director of the Bike Federation of Wisconsin) and Bridget Brown (the Wisconsin DNR trails czar (exact title may differ)). The last session of the night was hosted at the Trek Bicycles Mansion where I got to meet the owner of Trek Bicycles and a few other leaders in the industry. It was a beautiful house and I'm glad I had the opportunity to visit and mingle was such great folks.

I want to thank IMBA and the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin and all the other sponsors of the summit for coming together to put on such a great event. Also I want to thank Trek bicycles for opening up their house so that we could continue to build relationships after the summit had officially ended. It think it was an excellent success and I look forward to attending in the years to come.

The Upcoming Season

We just go back from the Bahamas and I've had a chance to think about the upcoming mountain biking season. Which direction do I want to go for this upcoming mountain bike season? Last year I had a tremendous amount of success in the Wisconsin Off Road Series which consists primarily of XC races while participating in only 2 DH and 1 one Super D race. So successful in fact that I am a mandatory move from the sport class to the comp class. I worked hard and had a great time, but I've been wondering if I want to pour all that energy (and then some) into XC racing again this season.
I've always defined myself as a rider who races and not a racers. And I'm a rider who all kinds of variety that mountain biking has to offer. So with that in mind and the recent surge in regional downhill races, I've been thinking about making the gravity events priority over the XC races (with a few exceptions, of course). I'm also considering traveling out of my region for a couple gravity events. Going down to Snowshoe in West Virgina to hit up a race there fellow flight crew member Dan Lucas and Airborne Bicycles Customer Service Czar Eric McKenna is an option.

I'd really like to do well and continue to progress as a XC racer, but I know I can't have everything. Since I'm never going to be a pro mountain bike racer, does it really matter if I don't do as well this year and just have fun enjoying the sport in it's many different forms?

What say you and what are your plans and goals for this upcoming season?

While we are waiting for warm weather riding check out this video and look for a new video review of the Bikeray USA Bikeray III light.