Breaking Into Heaven

I finally got something done that I've been planning on doing for a long, long time. If you click on this link, you'll be taken to my YouTube page. There you'll find the first series of what will hopefully be several riding videos that will feature Indiana mountain bike trails as well as trails in Idaho, Colorado, North Carolina, and more. The "Mountain Biking Brown County" videos feature the mountain bike trail system at Brown County State Park in Nashville, Indiana. Choosing a trail to use as my first subject was an easy choice. Brown County State Park is home to some of the finest trails in the Eastern United States, and it is poised to have much more growth in the next few years. With the trail inventory being doubled in the next calendar year, BCSP will become a regional and national destination for mountain bikers. Each foot of the BCSP trail has been built by mountain bikers with mountain bikers in mind. I think that the video really highlights the incredible terrain, feautres, and flow of this very unique trail system. Over the next few months, I hope to create more videos for other Indiana riding destinations. Videos such as these will hopefully inspire more people to get outside on a bike and enjoy our wonderful selection of Hoosier singletrack. Sit back and enjoy the ride!

Back Home Again (Mountain Biking) In Indiana

I put together this short video last night using some snippets that were "laying on the cutting room floor", so to speak. As I was cruising through my files and files of photos and videos, I realized that I had all of these video clip "orphans". I figured that they weren't very useful sitting around on my hard drive, so I pieced them together in a rough fashion to make a little piece that showcases something that is very near and dear to my heart...Indiana mountain biking. Indiana mountain biking is enjoying an amazing boom right now. That might come as a surprise to some, but to those of us that have worked to gain momentum for off-road riding in Indiana it is the inevitable payoff for some really hard work over many years. But alas, the best is yet to come! As you read this, the HMBA is building new mountain bike trails and planning for much more. Now is a good time to be a mountain biker in or around our fine state. Get out and enjoy it when you can. For now, just hit "play", sit back, and enjoy the ride.

Also, who can be the first person to tell me who is the artist behind the rendition of "Back Home Again in Indiana"?

Crash, Burn

Sometimes when you are realing flying high and feeling good but then you get a "correction". You are flowing like water one moment, and then the next...you're lying on the ground wondering what just happened. These are definitely some of those moments.

Zoom Flume

One of my favorite rides this winter was one of those that didn't even seem to have much potential when it was conceived or as it began. Like so many things in life, you don't know until you go. Ron and I parked at the east end of Hickory Ridge Trail #19, also known as the Nathan Avery Trail. The trails were soaked with a combination of snow melt and late winter rain. Only the truly ambitious (or completely insane) were out on bicycles on this particular evening. It could be said with certainty and fortitude that we were most likely the only souls on two-wheeled human propulsion machines within the National Forest boundaries. The solitude lent to the different feeling of this ride. On rides like these, you feel something deep, something good. Something that just might separate you from those poor saps sitting at home. The tires made that soft rush of sound that can only be created by large, knobby tires on a cold, lonely gravel road. After a few miles the sound begins to lull you to sleep. No other noises exist in the trees on a wintry night such as this. We traversed west on Tower Ridge Road. When we reached 446 we headed north down to Lake Monroe. This was not a planned diversion, but it seems as if we decided to do it without speech or discussion. Sometimes decisions are made on a ride through an unspoken telepathy. The decision is so obvious it just presents itself. We made our way to the lake, and the water had a consistency of chrome. Not an imperfection could be seen across the huge expanse of its volume. As we made our way back up the road climb to retrace our steps, Ron turned immediately in front of me and dodged down an abandoned driveway of some sort. All the while exclaiming, "Zoom Flume, Zoom Flume!" In my morbid curiousity I followed him, and we came upon a relic of Indiana summers past. It was a dilapidated, extinct water slide that ran in a meandering fashion towards the shore of the lake. Ron had spent days there with his brother many years ago, and the rememberance had injected itself into his brain at the moment we rode by. Out of the corner of his eye, he spied the run-down ticket booth just off to the side of the road amidst the dumped appliances and underbrush. I hope that someday, a long time from now I will struggle up that climb again. My legs may tremble a bit, not quite so strong as they were that evening long ago. I'll meander by that long-forgotten relic, and I'll remember Ron and his stories of the place. I'll also remember that night where we shared memories without even knowing that we were creating new ones.