Hmmm… where to start. It was definitely a great weekend!

Original plans were for Ryan and I both to leave Friday afternoon then camp to nights at Lake Sylvia and meet some folks at the Womble trail on Saturday and Camp Robinson trails on Sunday. However, I couldn’t find a dog-sitter, and I accidentally let the dogs get past due on their shots (read- they couldn’t be boarded), so I ended up leaving Ryan at home.I also left my sleeping bag at home and had to sleep under my giant changing towel Friday night. Oops!

Saturday was great. I met up with some local guys and we did about 3 hours worth of trail riding out on the Womble.

Pre-Ride:

Overlook on the North end of the trail:

Stopping to talk to some other riders along the way:

Afterward, we visited a nearby pump track:

I managed to get “good” enough to barely make a non-pedaling lap on two separate attempts. I found it to be much easier on a rigid bike than on my full suspension. Needs more practice!

In the midst of this, my phone ran out of batteries, so it wasn’t until I arrived back to my car late in the afternoon (I’d left it in Perryville and carpooled to the trail) that I got a chance to plug it in and give Ryan a call to let him know that I wasn’t dead or in the hospital with multiple broken bones. My plan was to go pull up camp from Lake Sylvia and drive back to Conway to spend the night in someone’s RV since it would be more comfortable (especially since I’d forgotten the sleeping bag)

I became frustrated when the call to Ryan dropped a couple of times. I figured I was just driving through a spotty service area, so I switched to text messages:

A: “Service is spotty. I will call you in a couple of hours once I am at Lance’s in conway”
R: “Conway is lame.”
A: “Yeah, I know”
R: “Lake slyvia [sic] is a better place.”
R: “Much more private.”
A: “?”
R: “Probably pretty quiet out there I bet”
(after a minute….)
A: “Be there in a minute”

Yeah… turns out that Ryan had left Memphis earlier in the day to bring himself, the dogs, and my sleeping bag out to the campground. That was a pretty awesome surprise.

The next morning, I wasn’t meeting up for Little Rock trail riding until around noon, so Ryan and I drove/hiked to a nearby overlook (North Fork Pinnacle for those of you that know the area) to watch the sunrise/clouds over the Ouachita Mountains. It was great to be able to show him one of my most favorite spots to visit when I’m out that way… (photos on his blog)

Afterward, we packed and headed to Conway for lunch. From there, he went back to Memphis and I followed someone to the Camp Robinson trails in Little Rock to preride for a XC race coming up in October. They were pretty easy compared to what we’d encountered on the Womble the day before, so I didn’t stay for too long (I was especially ready to leave following my run-in with some nasty greenbrair vines that made me feel as if I’d run head-on into a beehive).

Monday (Labor Day), we had breakfast then headed out for a couple of laps around Herb Parson’s Lake. We probably would have gone for a third, but we had to get back to civilization and help my dad with some packing…

He and my mom just bought a cabin in Arkansas… about 4 miles from the Syllamo Trails! From what I’ve heard, the trails are not in the best shape, so I guess I’m adopting a nice 50 mile chunk of singletrack to tend to (with a little help from my friends, hopefully!)

I want to do this:

Anyone know of a bike/ski hill in the Greater Memphis area that I can use???

Edited to add: Here, too! (thanks to reader “notthedroids” for the link!)

I’m dead serious when I say I was being retarded and trying to do the same thing on a 3″ travel bike w/no protective gear other than a helmet. I can’t even imagine the fun I’d have on one of those beastly DH rigs and some proper body coverage other than “spandex.”

Bored with all 30 miles of trail we have here in Memphis? Take a trip to Arkansas, but visit this site first to get the lowdown on the multitude of trails: Mountain Bike Arkansas

I’m gonna put a permanent link over on the sidebar for it. Enjoy!

I was putting my bike in the car after a ride a few weeks ago when I noticed something very disturbing. The body of one of my brakes (Avid Juicy Ultimate) was cracked at the clamp. I took it up to Bikes Plus, and Chris took one look at it and got on the phone with SRAM to talk to them about fixing it under warranty. They said they would, but that the parts were backordered, so it would be nearly a month. That’s a loooong time to be without a brake, so he kept my bike and hooked a spare brake up to it for me a couple of days later. Rock on!

A little time passes… Chris talks to SRAM some more and it turns out that the replacement brakes they want to send are black- not white/red like the ones I’ve got. I let Chris know that if that’s the only possible solution that I’ll deal with it, but that the white ones were an extreme vanity purchase and that I’d be pretty dissapointed (in SRAM, not in the shop) if I had to have black brakes. He said he’d see what he could do.

So, a few days later, Chris calls me up. He’s been pestering SRAM every day about my brakes. They are going to send out a set of the brand-spankin’-new Elixer CR brakes… in white/red! Monday morning, I take my bike up to the shop, and he hooks up the new brakes. They are freakin’ SWEET!

I’m incredibly appreciative of this. They could have easily just left it at “you’re getting black replacement brakes, and that’s all we can do,” but they went above and beyond the call of customer service to help me out. You guys are great!