Bunny Hop

Oh, yah!!!

Preparing for a trip to the bike trails Saturday morning, I discovered that Quinn's bottom bracket was out. The stock part was rather low quality, lacking decent seals, and most likely the bearings were destroyed by the entry of sand after being submerged in muddy water a few times this summer. I was glad that his bottom bracket shell was a standard size, so getting a replacement was easy enough. I had him perform the installation himself, with some assistance from me.

Since we had to pull the cranks and pedals to install the bottom bracket, Quinn thought it would be a good time to try his SPD pedals, which clip to cleats in his shoes. He's been using them on the tandem for the last couple of years, but has stuck to flat pedals on his mountain bike until now. He very quickly got the hang of clipping in and out, and was pleased by how much the clipless pedals improved his bunny hop. He pretty much spent the whole weekend bunny hopping. Let's hope that the new bottom bracket and crankset, as well as the rest of his bike, are tough enough to handle it.

Rainy Ride

Abbey wrote this story about our ride last weekend:

“Must push on, keep going, must climb hill.” These are the words I say in my head as I pedal up a large hill at Brighton State Recreation Area near Howell, Michigan. My family and I are doing the Torn Shirt Loop. Or as we now refer to it: The Wet Shirt Loop. The trail is rocky, and has many roots that twist and turn across the trail. So far everything seems fine. It’s only five miles, so how hard can it be?

(Ten minutes later)

Okay, enough of this crap. I wanna go home. We heard thunder a few minutes ago, and it just started pouring. Like, dumping on us. Imagine the clouds went on a really long car ride all the way to the other side of the country. They stopped on the way and got three large Pepsis. Five minutes later, they let it all out. We got stuck in the middle of it. Whoa! A huge bolt of lighting just flashed in front of us! We go along as fast as we can. Mud is splattering our legs, and it looks like our bikes are getting a new paint job. “This is a mess!” Dad keeps shouting and Quinn is on the verge of tears. I am freaking out, and Mom isn’t talking much. I look ahead just in time to see what might be… Lake Michigan? No, wait a minute…ohhhh, it’s just a huge puddle! Splash!!! Water is seeping through my shoes, and into my socks. I will be so glad to get back and change into my nice, dry clothes. Aaahhhh, sit in the car and listen to some music….. WHOA! ROOT!!!! That was close! I almost hit a super big root. I should probably pay more attention to what I’m doing. I tend to get off task sometimes. Maybe a lot. I’m kind of getting cold. I wish I had a sweater. Oh! I have this really fuzzy sweatshirt -- it is soooo comfortable… See what I mean! I just got off task! Again! Gotta shift… bigggg hill… go Abbey go! Pedal! Go! Eewww, rain water doesn’t taste so good. I just got a mouthful that must have dripped of the tip of my helmet. Done with the hill, finally. Hey, a road! That should lead us back to the parking lot! Wait, did Dad just say we need to get back on the trail? Oh, no, we can take the road. This should be fine.

I can see it! The parking lot! The car! Oh, the sweet, warm car. Well, that’s it for today!

Pump Track in the State News

We attended the grand opening of our pump track last night. The MSU State News crew was there, and wrote up an article and posted a little video.

You can see the article and video by clicking here, for now, anyway.

If you watch carefully, we're all in the video. I'm the very first rider you see on the track. Abbey is on her orange bike, but only her bike and legs are in the video. Quinn is riding the track in the background, and Cindy was caught standing in the background, but is never seen riding.