In staying true to my vow to not let this lack of snow get me down, it was 2 days of riding in sedona. Yesterday I headed down by myself, and did a nice little 2.5 hour ride. I went out on the Jim Thompson-Teacup-Thunder Mountain trail until it ends, and then rode a mile or so on the road down to the airport loop. Let me tell you, if you haven’t ridden the airport loop, it’s pretty gnarly. Loose rock on some pretty stiff climbs, and a few nice little narrow off-camber drop offs. I went over a few times, but luckily some nice cacti broke my fall, so at least I didn’t hit my head or anything….. yeah…….

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I also had the pleasure of finding out how TOTALLY AWESOME “Stan’s”:http://www.notubes.com system is. If you take a look at the enlarged version of the picture on the right, you’ll see one small section of my rear tire after the airport loop. I counted that night as I was pulling thorns out of my tire, and I had 36 mini-thorns, and one about the size of a toothpick sticking out of my tires at the end of that ride (no, that one larger one in the picture is not the big one, it was even bigger, I had to use needle-nose pliers…). I never noticed a thing during the ride. No loss of pressure, no leaks, no problem. When I got home, I pulled them all out, and after each batch of small ones, I would just spin the wheel for a few minutes to make sure it sealed, and it sealed right up. I put the pump on my rear tire after pulling out the one biggie and the 4 groups of small ones, and the tire lost exactly 5 lbs of air when all was said and done. If that ain’t a good testimonial to ride stan’s out here in cactus country, I don’t know what is……

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Went back to sedona today for a bit longer ride with Cody and Mark. A good time was had by all. We did about 20 miles when all was said and done, including some little side x-scursions off some sweet little drops. No blown up parts (bike or body) this ride, so it was a success. Picture to the left is cody dropping a ledge, picture on the right is cody again, rockin’ out a sick little steep roller coming down from chicken point.

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Mark and I did the first drop as well, but left the second one to cody. If you look closely at the pic on the right, you can see that his fork has about 1-1.5 inches of travel left. Considering it’s a 6″ fork, which means he used up about 4.5 inches of it, and my fork is a little over 3 inches of travel, it’s probably a good thing I didn’t try that one…….

On another note, if there are any downhillers out there looking for a super-sick 8″ travel bike, cody just put his “Foes”:http://www.foesracing.com/ Fly up on Ebay along with his “Troy Lee”:http://www.troyleedesigns.com/ D2 Helmet. Check them out:
* “2002 Foes Fly, Almost Complete (missing wheels)”:http://cgi.ebay.com/2002-FOES-FLY-Large-Marzocchi-Shiver-DC-5th-Element-Ti_W0QQitemZ7202209412QQcategoryZ98083QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
* “Troy Lee Designs D2 Carbon Helmet”:http://cgi.ebay.com/Troy-Lee-Designs-D2-Carbon-Helmet_W0QQitemZ7202181350QQcategoryZ42325QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Also check out the “ebay sale to benefit steve garro”:http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:US:11&item=7201703902

Oh yeah, and Mark is the new poster boy for handlebarsandwich.com, at least until the ADD hits again and I change the title image. Go Mark…….