Celebrate!!!

Great celebration dinner the other night at Bistro Enzo's. This Veal Picata was insane, maybe my best ever.
What to celebrate?
Hmm...
New bicycle. New car. New job. New board position as a volunteer. Rose finishing 4th grade way early. Rose going to a new school next year. Shrek back in action. Lots of rain out here (gonna be a great summer).
Gonna be a hell of a year as a matter of fact.
Already is.

Van Gogh: I Get it Bro

Tons of misconceptions about Van Gogh. Tons of things we don't know for sure. Also tons of things we do know and don't seem to talk about even though it's fascinating. One of them, the wind.
He lived in southern France for a while, as have I, and he also subdued Le Mistral. Le Mistral is the wind that blows through the region. It's sucked by pressure from the North, funneled through the gap between Le Massif Central and Les Alpes, and released onto the South. It's a constant presence. The reason for the ubiquitous lines of cypress, so scenic and striking, is to shelter crops and houses from the constant assault of the wind.

It's been like that out here this spring. This ride I took a few days ago, it looks so beautiful in the pictures. And it was. It was great. A helicopter doing deer counts ghosted me all day long, tons of wildlife, great roads, little traffic.
But what I'll remember was the wind. Constant at first, then worsening. And I swear I'm not making this up: headwind both ways. Seriously. I even felt it shift.
Anyway, looked good though:

My Kind of Board Meeting

So, I'm getting much more involved politically this year. Specifically, I'm on the board of Pedal United.
It's awesome so far. How bad could it be when the board meeting starts like this:

Taking it to the Next Level

One year of classes she missed when she left for Malaysia. Now that she's back, it only took her a few months of classes to catch back up, and she just passed her Level 3 test a couple days ago.
So proud of you Rose!

Cold Gray Valleys

Spring training in Stillwater County: 

Head out into the cold, bitter, gray wind, 

with the cows, calves, and teenage deer as support. 

Repeat. 

Beck Lake (still) Hates Me

Go to Cody; Don't Bring Me

I've already talked about the new trails in Cody. I took Shrek there a month or two ago. Had a crazy, windy, futile day that gave me a tease of the amazing trails at Beck Lake, but left me high and dry with a nasty, tire-killing puncture and a long walk back to the truck.
So, now that I've got Lucy, and we had a day where Cody was supposed to be calm, I headed back down.
Started off rough with the wind. The wind. The wind. The wind. I can't escape it this spring. It was probably only 7mph, maybe 10mph, but it was just constant, unrelenting.
Otherwise, great start. Lucy, the new girl, she is insane. So fast.
Feeling more comfortable on her, I really let myself go on the big flow jumps. Caught the most air I've ever caught. Sailed it, over and over. It was really fun. As close as I ever got to BMX.

Then, of course, another flat. Same thing. There are a lot of geometric, sharp rocks there, and I got the tire sliced. I was way too big for sealant. Even Stan's Racing. It was also getting late, so I hoofed it back to Wolf, and headed home.
Go to Beck Lake.

Hidden Donkey

Trippy Trip

For a training ride the other day, I went to Reed Point, the back way, from Absarokee, These are roads I take a lot, but nobody else does. Nobody. It's always a trip being out there: half god forsaken country and half God's Country.

The first sort of weirdness was the weather; I had so looked forward to this ride, because it was supposed to be a good day, the first really good day this spring. 70 degrees, no wind. And it looked the part in the morning.

Our garden had a vibration from bees. I counted four distinct types. But I had to put off leaving because the wind, it just wouldn't stop. Forget about zero wind, I was waiting for it to drop down to 10 mph or so.
Finally, around noon, it did. I left, but from Absarokee to Reed Point, it was solid, steady, bludgeoning 10 mph headwinds. All the way.

This is what the wind does out here. Over the course of a century or so, you can see it blowing down these houses.
Then, on East Jack Stone Creek, I saw a real trippy scene:

Three dead adult porcupines. Lined up next to the road. Not a soul around for at least two miles in any direction. Three dead porkers.
WTF?
Why?
So, you kill them, because you're a rancher and they eat your sheep feed or whatever the hell, but then why stack them next to the road? Or you shoot them for fun, but, again, why stack them there? Just effing weird. Crazy creatures too.
Then, I get looking at them, up close, and one of them is covered in weed seeds, those nasty ones, and I mean covered.

Which just adds another weird level to this thing. It looks like it happened when the poor guy was alive, and he just couldn't get them off. But why only him? Why so bad? Was he running scared from a car or a wolf or something, and dove into the wrong bush, and wriggled in deeper? Was he already sick somehow? How come he couldn't clean them off? Not a single burr on the other two.
Crazy.

Puts an average training ride into perspective. I always think of it as a dangerous place in terms of crashing my bike, or having a mechanical late in the evening. But I forget, it really is, in a very visceral and wild sense of the world, a dangerous place. It's a goddamned wilderness, and the only people around are some hard core local 4th generation redneck ranchers. It's as close to the wild west as you can get in the lower 48 probably.
In fact, I was eating about halfway to Reed Point, talking to two new horses I had just met, one of whom had the worst case of equine burps I've ever encountered. A local ranch lady came up, in a classic MT truck, with a heeler / collie mix in the flatbed. We talked a bit. It took her a while to understand that I wasn't lost. Seeing a biker out here, her only possible scenario was one involving rescue. When I told her I was going from Absarokee to Reed Point, she didn't believe me; when I told her it was round trip. she was straight up incredulous. Drove off a bit miffed frankly, I think she thought I was lying.
Trippy encounter.
The horse burped again. An avalanche-inducing mega burp.

When I finally crested the divide, around the Cow Face Hill / Jack Stone Creek / Hump Creek junction, I got the most amazing view: the Crazy Mts, from Stillwater, with the Yellowstone valley spread out in between. Classic Montana:

After a long, fast downhill, I pulled into Reed Point. It's always kind of a strange, sleepy town. It's like an old western ghost town, pinned in between a busy interstate and a great, peaceful stretch of the Yellowstone. Only thing open was a gas station. I went to the river, and admired the view:

Went back to the gas station, grab a sandwich or something. And I ran into an old friend, one I hadn't seen in years, a good family friend from Cooke City. I catered this girl's wedding. Went to the hubby's bachelor party, were pretty good friends for a while. Then I hadn't seen her in years. Didn't think she traveled to work either, figured she was in Butte.
Then all of the sudden there we are, in shock, staring at each other. WTF!!!? Another trippy turn in the day's events.
Then, the cruelest turn of all. After hours of fighting the headwind, it just died down. No tailwind on the way back. I hate it when that happens.
At least it was stunning scenery:

Walk the Dog

As I get into better shape, Kip becomes less of a training partner, He's supercanine, for sure, but canine nevertheless. He can only do so much, and 40+ mile rides are tough when it's hotter than 50 degrees or so.
So lately, we do a lot of smaller rides, just for him, before my big training rides. It leads to some magic moments, some good bro time in the woods with my dog, like this one the other day:

Fight Up; Sail Down

The other day, I took Lucy out for a training ride. The goal: easy miles. One of the things I'm doing with my training this year is to go easier than I used to for my easy or medium rides. I'm trying to skew my mix more to each end of the curve, and stay out of the middle. So, the goal was a very easy long road ride up to Nye or so.
Windy Spring
As usual, however, the Stillwater Spring Winds changed my plans. The way up, it was a bluebird day, and it wasn't too gusty, but it was a very solid, sustained, 10mph wind right in my face. The whole way from Absarokee to Nye, just a constant, face and ear numbing, spirit-sapping, body-chilling, momentum-sapping wind. Constantly, for well over an hour. At least it was scenic:

Heaven on Earth

The way down, it was bicycle magic. The wind continued, with zero let down, and I got to reap my reward: not only was it 20 or so miles of downhill, I had a 10mph tailwind the whole way. There were miles at a time where I could just coast with an occasional spin of the pedals. It was an hour of bliss, heavenly, earthly bliss. One of my best rides in a long time, and something I'll always remember.
It was also so beautiful, I stopped for some pics:

She's a Girl

We've Named Her!

If you know the Johnsons, you know we name our vehicles. We have Wolf, our Golf TDI; Obelix, the Nissan Frontier; River, my daughter's bike; Shrek, my fatbike; etc.
It's important to name your vehicle. It's a well-deserved recognition of their role in the family and how much time we spend with them.

Cannondale Carbon FSI 2

So, we've been working on naming her since we got her, and we've got it.
The new girl's name is:
drum roll . . . . .

. . .
Lucy!
Lucy Johnson
Here she is:

The Problem With Fatbikes

As a disclaimer: I love fatbikes. A fatbike (Shrek, a 2014 Trek Farley) was my only bike for two years, and I've raced and ridden it all over three countries. So, in general, I love fatbikes.
Having said that, while I was backing up some photos, I came across this one I took a few weeks ago, which perfectly sums up the problem with fatbikes:

See it? It's in two spots:

$900 worth of tires, around 1200 miles of front tire usage between them. Not a single functional front/rear combo out of the batch. It can cost more to keep a fattie shod than it can a performance car.
And in doing so, you become an expert in duct tape, and in sealants:

These aren't even all my sealants. It's crazy. The result of all this searching by the way, is that there are only two sealants in my book, two good ones:
1) Stan's Racing: This new product is simply the best ever. By far.
2) If you can't find it (some shops aren't stocking or ordering yet) then mix 1:1 ratio of Stan's and Slime. It's more cost effective than pure Stan's, and it's more effective as well. A bit heavier, but worth it.

Brotherly Love

Love these two guys:

Le Tour de Billings

As a Bozemanite, I was biased against Billings. I think most Montanans are. It has that reputation. Let's be honest, it doesn't put its best foot forward placing two refineries next to the interstate. 

Anyway, Billings quickly grew on me after moving to the area. It's a really cool town. I'm now one of Billings' biggest advocates. I've put it in writing in a few business plans and consulting projects. Billings simply kicks ass. It's a great town. 

I went on a huge bike ride the other day. All in Billings. One ride. 

It wasn't even a nice afternoon either, it was a pretty shitty day. But, that's a bit like Billings: shitty looking at first, and then you get out there and it's amazing.

This all gave me an idea. One of my inspirations for biking, William Martin, he always does this one big ride to honor the memory of his dog. Every year he does it. Sometimes people join him. He goes crazy, because the dude is an animal, and his rides are often legendary. 

I'm thinking of starting something similar, but different. Not so big. A small ride. A one day ride, but an epic one day ride. In Billings. Right around my birthday, because that's usually right around the best time of the year to start serious rides around here. 

So I'm thinking of making the Tour de Billings an annual affair. Slightly different path every year. We'll see. 

Hell of a town, Billings. . . .