It's All About the Bike » 29er

New Blogroll Link: Twenty Nine Inches

moto — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:39:30 +0000

I was going some serious searchin’ using the Google, and I came across a cool blog dedicated to the Niner way of life. Niners, 29ers, what’s it all about? All I can say is, I don’t know why it’s different, but it is. 29″ wheels aren’t really that much bigger than 26″ wheels, but then again, they are. It’s like on Spinal Tap When Nigel is talking about his amp going up to 11, “this one goes to eleven.” It’s just a little bit more of everything when you are riding a Niner. Anyway, check these folks out at Twenty Nine Inches.

by Jasonwg

Warm Before The Storm

moto — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 05:21:46 +0000

This weekend in Park City, Utah was a pretty typical March weekend, where one has a hard time deciding whether to do something for fun on two wheels or two heels. On Saturday, I was hankering for a bike ride, so I pumped up my tires hard and took my 29er single speed out for a pavement ride, the first bicycle ride of 2009. While riding past the White Barn, the nordic tracks looked delightful, and I was left thinking I made the wrong choice, but it was a fleeting feeling, and once I turned right on Old Ranch Road, it passed. Sunday was a different story. After a morning session of skiing at Bambi Basin with my wife and daughter, I spent the afternoon getting the KTM fired up and ready for spring riding. Unhooked the battery tender, stripped a bolt putting my fuse box back together, replaced the bolt, put the seat on, rolled the bike out of the garage, eased the choke lever back slightly, turned the key, pressed the starter, started right up on the first try. Hmmmm. Me like that sound. I let the bike warm up, then took it for a little 20 mile spin up to the Jordanelle reservoir scenic overlook and then back through town. Saw a few other motorbikes out there, including a spitting image of the original Blue Angel, Darth Nater’s BMW F650 GS Dakar. What this all means of course, is there is a big storm rolling in overnight, with predictions that we’ll get up to three feet of Utah’s GSOL (Greatest Snow On Earth®) over the course of the next few days. You can’t count on much these days, except for unsettled weather in the Wasatch Mountains. Be flexible in your recreational plans over the next few weeks, and you might just make it to April with your sanity intact.

November 1 Single Speed Ride, Park City

moto — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 16:52:28 +0000

What do two Utah ski industry marketing guys and neighbors do when it’s Indian Summer in a ski town like Park City, Utah, on November 1, with opening day less than a month away, and nobody is booking expensive ski vacations because the nation’s economy is in the crapper, and people are losing their jobs left and right, and a graph of the last 60 days of the swings in the stock market looks like a topographical map of the Rocky Mountains, and the only thing that can save us is a big snowstorm, and we’re not even really sure that will get people to start booking expensive ski trips to Utah? What if those two same guys drank a brazillion (that’s George W speak for a shitload) beers the night before while their kids were out collecting little bite size candies from neighbors and/or perfect strangers, which means doing anything productive around the house with a hangover is pretty much out of the question? Why, go for a single speed mountain bike ride in our backyards, in Round Valley, of course. Thanks, Jay, for kicking my butt and exorcising the liquid devil right out of my bloodstream. Let’s hope the temperature drops, the snow starts to fly, and that’s the last good and dry mountain bike ride in these parts until after ski season.

Jay Burke, holding the Round Valley Trail, Park City, Utah. Photo by Moto.