There and back a biking tale

"You ever notice Kevin's rides on the Kenai NEVER involve a shuttle???" - Brant Grifka, 2014

My day started with meeting Kevin at Carrs on Huffman, donuts in hand we set of for the trail head where we would be meeting up with Roger to make a party of three.

On the way down to the peninsula we noticed that a Boretide was in progress, Kevin and I decided a hasty stop was in order since neither of us has seen one close up( I think that is what you said Kevin).

Snowy mountains and a bore tide 

Bore tide passing us

On reaching the trailhead where Roger was already waiting for us, we geared up and set off up the trail.

Johnson pass from the north side is a fairly undulating trail for the first five miles, then the climb gets a little steeper to the lakes at the summit which is approximately ten miles into the trail. Once at the summit the trail drops fairly steadily for the next three miles, followed by another short climb, then more descending down to Upper Trail lake. We turned around at mile twenty one to head back, even though the trail extends another 1.5 ish miles to the Seward highway. 

Kevin had already ridden the trail to Johnson lake just past the summit on the previous Sunday and had mentioned that the trail conditions were pretty awesome.  He was not wrong.
As can be seen in these photos, even my camera can't keep up with the speed my companions were climbing.

Kevin enjoying the climb

Roger enjoying the climb, not as much as Kevin

perfect trail conditions

Due to the sheltered north facing slopes not getting a lot of sun at this time of the year the hoar frost was spectacular.

Hoar frost

Big mountains surrounding us

After around two hours of riding we arrived at this...

Bench Lake

 And then continued on to Johnson Lake just past the summit of the pass.

Looking back down the trail at Johnson Lake

After passing Johnson lake we were breaking trail and the conditions were a little soft in places.  Luckily fatbikes work pretty well and we were at least able to ride most of the trail.  We continued our descent with the snow becoming more infrequent as we got lower down the pass.

Fun descending from here

We continued moving for another couple of hours until we reached Upper Trail Lake which was our turn around point, food was eaten, beer drank and we took a moment to take in the view.

Upper Trail Lake

We started heading back up the pass, by this point I think it is fair to say that Roger and I were pretty tired, Kevin seemed to be sucking all of our energy from us as he bounded up the trail, I think his definition of a mellow climb needs to be revisited!

After about 2hours and 40 min of climbing we were treated to a spectacular golden hour at the top of the pass.

Johnson Lake on way home

We checked lights put on jackets and started our descent back to the trail head.  I stopped at the pass summit sign for a photo since we had missed out on the way up.

Johnson Summit Sign

I then proceeded to try and catch the less tired riders in front of me.

Chilling out and waiting for me

Trail by river

After this photo was taken It became a little to dark for photography and besides which we all wanted back to trail head.  We arrived back a little over ten hours after we had left.  Tired but happy with the day's riding.   Thanks again guys for an AWESOME ride.

Garmin plot of where we went

"........we shuttled to the trailhead........" -Kevin Murphy, 2014

Daddy bought a new bike and this one is carbon.......

It's been a while since I have posted anything here, this is the brief update of what has been happening in the Blades household.  I managed to fluke a 1st place over all in the MTB series single speed category, I also managed a 2nd place overall for the road hill climb series intermediate category.
Amanda has a new bike

New bike for Amanda

We have been re arranging the garage.

Garage improvements

 Fiona has turned four already and is growing up faster than I can believe.

my not so little girl anymore :)

Most importantly I have to say thankyou to my amazing wife for staying with me for four years.... I really am pretty obsessed with bikes and she puts up with an awful lot of my riding and talking about bikes all the time, Love you Amanda.

10-10-10 first dance

We are now well into October I can safely say Summer and Autumn have passed at this latitude. Well Autumn may make a come back but its looking unlikely as we have received our first snowfall.  The official measurement was 1.5 inches however that is over by the airport, where we live it was between 3-4 inches and on the hills between 6-8 inches which was a lot of fun.  Hopefully the snow will stick on the hills. Though as I still haven't gotten around to fitting studded tyres to the car, snow melting from the roads is not really an issue for me.

Back to the title of this post, yes I bought another bike.  Although my old fat bike has found a new home and hopefully the second wheelset I built will too.

Why a new bike?
A couple of reasons, the main ones were as follows;
It was getting pretty embarrassing parking the competitions bike outside of work, especially as the competition is across the road from where I work,
I really wanted a lighter bike that could take bigger tyres (Old bike could pretty much only take a 4" tyre).

What did I get?
I bought a Borealis Yampa X01 build  but added carbon cranks to the stock package and bought some carbon rims direct from china.  I also purchased some custom orange items to brighten up the bike.... thanks to Becker gear for the great frame bag

Bike Build in progress

Carbon rims

Frame bag

What does it weigh?
My bike weighs under 25# with Specialized Ground Control tyres (4.6"), If I put on the Dillingers I have from last year I think I should be sub 24# which is 6# lighter than my 9:Zero:7 from last season.

What am I planning to ride this season?
My goals are to build mileage and get comfortable riding longer distances and overnights in winter conditions.

And that is pretty much it well apart from some nice photos of the bike out in the snow right :)
More posts when I get around to it.

Fresh snow

Blue sky day riding with Kevin