Monday, June 30, 2008

Wilderness Work, Birthday Parties, Bacon... It was a great weekend...

13 riders showed up at 6am for the Bacon Ride Sunday morning -- that's a lot for 6am, but we were treated to a beautiful tailwind-dominated ride out to Platte River State Park, and plenty of sweet bacon once we arrived...
... as evidenced by my plate. JP looks on as I dig into my first helping. I can't tell if that's a look of humor or concern for my health on his face. Don't worry buddy -- I'll ride it off.

Attack of the 8-pound wiener dog!!! Oliver and I are amused, if not the least bit scared. Image: Cornbread


Without a doubt the coolest thing we saw all day -- a B-17 Flying Fortress, at low-altitude and low-speed over Murdock, Nebraska. SWEET! The primary strategic bomber of WWII, there are only a handful of airworthy B-17s remaining today. To see one flying on a random Sunday was just amazing... Image: Cornbread

On the way home, stopping at Elmwood for snacks and supplies. Mike Madcharo was hangin' loose. Image: Cornbread
Saturday, Laura and I spent most of the day out at Wilderness Park with a big group of like-minded friends from THOR and the Friends of Wilderness Park. The recent rains and storms have left the trails out there in dire shape. Flooding, downed trees and overgrowth are the rule of the day, unfortunately. It's going to take a lot of work to get the park back, but we took our first steps towards that end this weekend. Above, a section of the bike trail North of Old Cheney that had received significant attention last year has been flooded. After putting our heads together, we made the tough call to abandon the line and reroute the trail to a higher, less flood-prone line about 20 yards to the West. The reroute gains the trail about 18 inches in elevation, which at that point in the park, is an important 18 inches. Image: Cornbread

THOR Webmaster and super good guy, Tom Winfield made the trek down from Omaha to help out with the trail work on Saturday. Thanks Tom! It was his first visit to Wilderness Park, and the fact that he got lost trying to find us spoke to our need to adopt THOR's awesome signeage system at Wilderness Park ASAP, in my opinion. The sooner the better. Ultimately, Tom found us by following his ears to the sound of JP's weed eater braaaaaping away. Image: Cornbread

Saturday night we helped Monkey Wrench Cycles' Nate Woodman celebrate his birthday with a small get together at his house. It was a super fun time, and the food (especially the cake) was absolutely incredible... I didn't have my camera with me, so no pictures, but man, thank you to everybody who was there, especially Nate and Ellie. To be the birthday boy and host the birthday party, well, that's a really nice thing to do. Thanks again.

I hope everybody reading this had a great weekend too!

6 comments:

GNAT said...

Sweet weekend MG. Glad you made the most of it. 6:00AM morning rides. Perfect for me. Darn I wish I could have been there.

I took a picture of bacon just for you and the lincoln crew. I'll send it to you sometime this week.

NaugaBike said...

It was great to visit with you, Cornbread and Jeese. I would not have been so lost if I had brought the information on the blog post. :-( Anyway - Did a LITTLE trail work, and had a good conversation. And I got a change to meet a couple others of the Lincoln Crew.

MG said...

Thanks for the comments guys.

Gnat, man, it would've been sweet to have you here, but I suspect you made the most of your weekend too. I look forward to hearing all about it soon, my friend.

And Tom, thanks for reminding me that I needed to get you the link to Chad Hawthorne's images from the Platte River, which is http://www.flickr.com/photos/chadhawthorne/sets/72157605495014497/, but I'll send it to you in an email too. We appreciate that you made the effort to come down and support the work we were doing. That meant a lot. Thank you.

BTW, did you see KLKN-TV's coverage of the B-17 on their 10pm news last night? You think they read either Cornbread's or my blog??? Apparently it's on display out at Silverhawk Aviation here in Lincoln. Pretty cool...

Have a great day, y'all!

Cheers,
MG

MG said...

...ummm, that link to hawthorne's photos is broken. scroll down on my blog page and there's a link to 'em.

i'll put a link to them on my right-hand nav bar too... how 'bout that? look there. that'll do.

super then. sorry for the inconvenience.

cheers,
mg

SingletrackM1nd said...

I notice that either you or (more likely) one of your homeboys, is riding a La Cruz. Do you think that frame will handle 35 mil studded tires with room for fenders?

Cheers.

Great site BTW.

MG said...

Thanks for the kind comments Singletrack Mind, and yeah, I'm a big fan of the La Cruz. It's perfect for the gravel road adventures I frequently find myself getting into, and it's a super commuter too. It really can be just about anything you want it to be, short of a freerider.

But 35c studded tires should pose no problems whatsoever. I've had 44c MutanoRaptors in it, and if it can swallow those things, 35s with studs should be no problem. I'd say you're good to go.

Cheers,
MG