MOMMMMY!!!

I had the distinct pleasure of riding with a beautiful crew of calm-cool-collected, uber-talented and beautifully-masterful riders this weekend (LW, DH, MC and his L, EDE). I don't know how I lucked out. I promise a full weekend report at some point ... soon.

Until then, one little story from the Sprite of Over-Excitedness (me).

MC made sure to point out every last possible "roller line" on both of our rides this weekend. In my hyper-excited state of wanting to up my technical riding game, I put myself on everything that didn't require 'air time.'

Sunday, mid-day, MC pointed out a super-sweet, double-pitched, slightly-gapped rock line that was right at the edge of my 'steep' and 'big' experience thus far.

I lined up, pre-rolled the entry point a few times... while DH and LW looked on in complete horror. Ed could barely watch, and I'm not sure exactly what MC was thinking. But, I knew I had it in me.

So ....... Zen state locked ..... and down I rolled ....



And what word involuntarily sprang from my mouth in that first attempt, as I rolled in a little too hot and a little too over-excited???

"MOOOMMMMMMMYYYYY!!!!!"

Yup. Mommy.

I did not roll off the end of that line particularly "clean" the first time. The second time, however, I rolled it without a sound, and rolled away as casually as I could.....

Phewwww!!!

More pix and stories later!!! I promise!

JJ

sparkler hunting

Anyone who knows me knows that my energy levels are not the most ... consistent. A lot of the time I'm flying HIGH. But there are times when the light from within is quite overwhelmingly mellow.



Siiiggghhhh....

So. When the uber mellow takes hold of my spirit, and I'm feeling and behaving dark, I have to really consciously and delibertely go out and look for my sparklers.

Yes. The sparklers can usually be found at the top of the mountain.




The thing is, usually just the endorphins from riding and playing hard will help to ignite the inner fires. But sometimes, a little adrenaline is also required.

Towards that end, Michelle and I set up a ride date so that we could hit my mountain before the next storm arrived. The goal was to suss-out a new 29er pony for her, to clean a rock she had to nail, and for me to find a box of stinkin' sparklers SOMEWHERE ... out there.

We found ourselves on the top of the mountain, and I was still funked and moody. WTF? Really? Michelle told me to stop thinking.


Thanks, M.

Our little sparkler-hunting route found us climbing in gorgeous light, and on empty trails. Really? Along our way up the mountain and through the woods, M found a whole BOX of sparklers!

She started by just showing up looking as Hawt as humanly possible,


... then proceeded to absolutely NAIL one of her nemesis rocks:


See the bolt of brilliance pouring forth from that soul?


Yeah, one happy woman! And yes, we scream a lot, and loudly, when we clear the challenge. Wait til I get the vid put together... you will fall over laughing.

Me? I've already cleared everything on my mountain, riding it in both directions. I've cleaned it up, I've cleaned it down, I've just not cleaned it all in one smoove move.

So, I decided it was time to up the game a little and take an 'alternative line' that was 'bigger' (i.e., more committing) than the 'normal' line. And no, I didn't have to make new trail to accomplish this.

Scott M, this is for YOU! I know you wanted this line last time you were here. So now, you have to come back and ride it ;-)


First, I had to stop and look:


My hands were shaking a little! That felt good. The fire had finally started.

Then, I had to figure out how to line up the front wheel, because the second that front wheel got committed, I got committed: there was no easy way out after crossing the line.


A step to either side would have sealed the deal for both of my ankles.


And, walla!


Screaming and hollering ensued. So much so, I had to calm myself down by riding it twice more. Truly, it's just a move that required commitment -- more commitment than skill. But still. It was a lovely moment.

My little box of sparklers found, we rolled back to the trailhead illuminating the shadowed woods, which, oddly, we had all to our happy little selves.

Thanks, M. For a lovely ride date and sparkler hunting ride. Much needed.

Jj

honestly ...

... there really are no excuses for missing out on the gifts from the universe.




jj

Grace

My man,

He is a world of power and grace.



And I love him. Endlessly.

jj

a darn Good Friday

With a whole day of Free Friday time, why not go out and meander around on the pony all day long, eh?

The yellow line is the route, clockwise ;-)

Slide show at the bottom with descriptions ;-)

Started from the house:

1. Up Bergen Peak Trail to the top.
   From the top, saw a fire that had just started over off of Parmalee Gulch Road, which I would be passing by later in the day. Didn't think much about it. See the pix for the fire shot!



2. Down Too Long.
   Saw ONE rider. And he was taking a pp break right in the middle of the trail. Icky.



3. Connector trails, roads, and back roads over to the upper Apex TH.
   Fun stuff, linking it all together.



4. Apex Trails
   Started down the main trail, turned up Hardscrabble, up SleuxBox, down-around-up Grubstake, down PickNSledge, down the remainder of Apex.



5. Connector road over to Matthew Winters.



6. Matthew Winters proper: the mellow, enchanting, flowing way.


7. Connector road thru Morrison, up to Falcon TH.



8. Up the grunt of Falcon, to the tippy top.
   For some reason, this climb killed me ;-) These were my internal implosion miles.



9. Connector road to Lair of the Bear (LOTB).
   Ran into the fire-cops at the top of Parmalee Gulch road. Yup, the road was closed due to the fire that I saw earlier. Talked with the nice fire guy and he let me thru the line and onto the LOTB singletrack! WOHOOO!! That could have REAAAALLLY sucked.



10. LOTB singletrack in all it's swooping glory.


11. Connector road: Kerr Gulch back up to Evergreen.



12. Connector singletrack to Bergen meadow.
    One of my faves. Too bad it's so short. Did the extra little loop at the top;-)



13. Blaze the Bergen Meadow back to the house.

A lovely, meandering 60 mile, 8,700'. A nice all day affair.

jj

4.13.10

730am: dentist. dentist chair. needle. drilling. joy.

845am: office. monitor. 3rd cup of coffe. it's the only thing with taste, so why not have another.

945am: starving. left side of face still falling off skull. more coffee.

130pm: FOOD. finally.

230pm: motivation extinct, completely lost in the univrese, somewhere. brightness down the drain.

330pm: start asking for help finding motivation and energy.

345pm: receive clear directions to The Place Of Motivation. and if it's not there, then i'm there, and that is all that matters.

500pm: 37 degrees. little frozen flakes darting to the earth. in the saddle, and begin. EMEast. fresh tracks.



530pm: first summit. huh,imaginethat - 20 mins faster than expected.



545pm: EMWest. fresh tracks. torched. hit the ranch trail.

600pm: hit the golden whisper trail. 615pm: switches. cleared.

627pm: fresh tracks still. fourth and final summit reached. have a little chat with the universe. wet, heavy snow starts pounding.

646pm: frozen hands, pony packed, heater full blast in the car. recoverite. grin.

730pm: mineral salt bath.

830pm: hot thai food. pajammas. tea.



jj

I am not lost. I promise.

Everything below is a link... click it = get pix!

Click here for final WEDDING PIX!!!
this fine, wonderful work all done by jen, at jenjudge.com

All of the honeymoon pix i took can be found here!

a.) Ed will post his someday ;-)
b.) i lost half of my pix.
c.) i didn't take many pix to begin with.
d.) we enjoyed 3 hikes, 2 runs, 3 days of nothing but beach time, sunblock, boogie boards and books.
e.) we enjoyed at least 2 days of nothing but books and relaxing.
f.) we consumed more than our fair share of sushi. and wine.

In addition, I have had a few handfuls of ride dates between the wedding, the honeymoon, and now. Thus, a bucket full of pix. Click any one of the links below for albums full of ponies, rocks, and happy people.

Jason and M: The Day We Introduce M to 29er LOVE.


TechWork: The Day M Masters the 29er.


Entirely Way Too Much Fun.



Michelle put up a most masterful post HERE.

OK. Now that we're all caught up. What's next? What did I miss? ;-)

Jj

TimeOut

This kind of place, with this kind of time, gives me a different understanding of ... TimeOff.



Sending all of our loved ones -- friends and family alike -- warm and loving light.

Peacing, Out.

Jj

Blessed...

when Right-ness strikes,
the energy flows
-- freely, pure
--- and wild

from the heavens
to the earth
--and back
--- with grace

directly through the agent
of love
-- where spirit and body meet
--- deep in the heart



ed and i eloped this weekend. wwwhhheeeeeeee!!!

Photo Credit: Jen Judge

we escaped to the MagicalWhiteMesa, we met-up with our soul-friends Jen and Aaron, we prettied up ourselves and the ponies, and we all galloped across the land. we stopped in the middle of the desert world to honor the love and trust that unites our partnership ... with a soulful, sunlight ceremony ... and we rode on!


Photo Credit: Jen Judge

i WILL have a world of the most incredible pictures to share with you -- but i won't have access to THOSE until later next week.

meanwhile, i can give you a little teaser of photos (these photos NOT from our soul-friend jen who labored with deep love to capture our MagicalWhiteMesaMarriage on film), these are photos from Ed and I... our random, point-and-shoot, hyper-manic, camera-flinging point of view.

my starling, my husband ... on our way to the MagicalWhiteMesa...


and after The Big Kiss:


where we tied the knot... out there, on a ridge line, in the succulent desert light:


our soul friends: jen the photo-goddess, and aaron, our deep and poetic master of ceremonies, riding brilliant single track:


aaron was all business when he needed to be:


which was often, today:

ever need a pair of scissors, a rock, brute man-strength, and the sacrifice of a steel tool to change a tube? yeah -- that kind of fun!

it was a most beautiful day ... the most beautiful day i've ever had the luck to live through.



a quiet moment, before the ceremony ...


Jen worked INCREDIBLY hard, all day long ...






riding with her pack of camera and lenseS ... and other surprises and goodies...

not only as photographer ... but as my deep soul-friend and spirit sister.


Jen and Aaron surprised us with the most divine cake and champagne at the end of our ride. They made this cake -- made it and decorated it and completely managed to SURPRISE us with it all:


they also managed to completely surprise us by kicking us out of their house ;-):


I wish that I could share with you the depth of the love, light and energy that was flowing and aligned and brilliant ... as well as my experience of my soul-friends, my soul-mate, and the wildly graced world we inhabited this day... but i am finding that there are sincerely no words for these things. not a single one.



Thank you, my starling, my love, my beautiful partner in crime.
Thank you, my spirit friends -- thank you from the core of my very being.
Thank you, family, for your love and support and energy!!!
Thank you, Universe -- thank you for every breath, for every drop of light, and every ounce of energy.

jj

the long and winding road

I've taken a rather huge break from riding for the last few months. Sure, there have been the random little rides -- but I've not taken this much time off the pony over winter in a handful of years.

So, Ed and I are back at it. Time to log the long smooth miles so the singletrack smiles are bigger, deeper, more magical when our world dries out. Unfortunately, winter has left a rather lingering, sopping wet blanket on all of the trails around. So, we take it to the back and dirt roads.

Not such a bad place to be on a 60 degree day in February!

Ed, leading us out. And up. And up. And up. He eventually dropped me -- in his freakin' little 14 tooth cog of a walt works commuter. The man is ... stronger than he will dare admit. Stinker.


Even Ed cheers when we top out on the last biggest climb. Wwwhhheeeee!!!!


And, of course, Ed ALWAYS drops me on road descents. HOW? WHY? I have no idea. I can pedal and pedal and pedal in my big ring, tuck all neatly into the tiny pony bubble -- and he just tucks in and rolls away like he's attached to some sort of vehicle pulling him down the hill. I just give up and let the camera take pix of the view. Not such a bad view ;-)


I know it's a dirt road, and I know it's relatively flat as a pancake... but I love winter riding this road. Today, we were lucky to have a few miles of velvety frozen-packed snow. We also had a solid 20 miles of muddy, slush-flinging fun. It was so warm today that the slush spray actually felt refreshing on my bare legs. In February. Hum.


By the last 10 miles, my sit bones were hurting SO BAD. I was really uncomfortable on the bike. And for some reason, when I pushed down on the pedals, I had less than nothing? Likely not a good sign on a flat, dirt road. Pooie. Ed dropped me like a bad habit and sauntered off to finish the loop in speedy and powerful style.

Me, I hung back, watched the river flow by, and put one pedal down, and then another. It's supposed to hurt, right? Right. And so it goes. Brilliantly.


Obviously, no one wants to watch video of riding a dirt road. Not very exciting -- not of me, anyway. I will say that the audio is quite hilarious. Apparently I had pressed Record on the GoPro -- only to completely forget that it was recording. What did it record beyond the flat and winding road rolling by? Well, as I finished the ride and I got slower and slower, this is what the recording captured (about 20 times): "really, team? really?" Apparenly I was so slow I could hardly believe it ;-) HA!

Ed:

We finished the ride and felt really stinkin' good about it. 2 days out on the roads is a good kick-start. I think I'll go run today.

Thank you, starling, for a lovely weekend of riding around in the sunshine. That's really what it's all about -- right?

Wwwwhhhheeee!!!

jj

random

a handful of random blessings...

my new trailtech toy, from my blessed partner in crime:


a blessing from the sunshine:


a blessing of a friend:


a blessing from afar:


and, it's still SUN-SHINING -- so go out and roll around in it!

jj