Crafty

When I was young, and it does not seem the case today, crafty was a word that could and would be associated with a negative connotation.

You know, like those crafty fellows of the Tour de’ Fraud, or rather France, with their custom cocktails of PED’s and the little electric motors hidden within the bike frames.

Or crafty could convey a softer implication of deception; like finding that the deal wasn’t as good as what that man with the slicker back hair told you it was.

I mean I can Ride Across Wisconsin (RAW) without registering and paying the Bike Fed a hefty fee.’ But I guess some people need to buy friends to ride with, if they cannot handle riding alone. It was last weekend. It’s over. But Metro Mountain Bikers still has their Odd Tuesday rides, and that wont cost anything to make some friends. Hoyt Park, this Tuesday.

Sorry for the long lapse in posts. I had a birthday recently.

I go to most Metro Mountain Biker meetings and hear of activities past and planned and though I have connected to all the recommended sites, it is all new news to me. Could there be some craftiness going on, or is it simple oversight, another word that can be perceived differently depending on context, that leaves a long time member like me out of the loop, and will definitely leave all new members out of the loop, because they will most likely not go to any greater extents than I myself have to make connections. And new membership, big numbers, appear important to the new generation of leaders rising to fulfill position and destiny.

Am I sounding a bit too much like I am on my writer’s blog right now?

Crafty may describe someone who can always get the best end of a deal. Metro Mountain Bikers has been dealing with Ball Park Commons, or The Rock, from their beginnings. A long awaited pump track seems to be agreed upon due to the work of Wheel and Sprocket’s representative. Not sure how much craftiness was required there or if it is simply the result of working together in good faith. Metro Mountain Bikers is considering holding a fundraiser to help with the costs.

Nowadays crafty appears to exclusively denote some skill in a craft. Trail building may be considered a craft and there are no better examples of skilled craftsman in that field than at Minooka Park in Waukesha. The trail maestro in this case likes to run what he calls Dirt Church, trail work days on Sunday. Nature is a wonderful cathedral and if your Catholic you can always go to church Saturday evening. Otherwise, watch for lightning.

I doubt Dirt Church a crafty way to undermine another’s faith, and there is no Cool Aid involved so I will deem it an otherwise wholesome event.

Aha! You cry. Now you are being crafty Phillip. You just want to open a door to tell us about your faith in the Second Coming, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the third Adam. Pishposh, not the case at all but also a Cool Aid free organization.

The concept of me proselytizing here is just silly. I have a different blog for that. This blog is about my mountain biking, garden and crafts and anything else I decide it to be about. Another Cool Aid free zone.

Yes, nowadays crafty conveys a level of expertise in some craft or crafts; like making pizza. Wisconsin has three pizza farm to table operations in the southwest. They are in Cochrane, Galesville and Athens (actually I know of one other in the northeast of the state). Now that would make a great ride: Ride Across Pizza (RAP). You could work your way to the growing mountain bike trail systems of Wausau; Granite Mountain, the best Winter skiing in the state.

Here is an example of my wife’s craftiness. She restore this tiny dresser. Bought herself a sander and everything. I made sure she wore a ventilator.

My wife also cans. Something we used to do together but she never tells me when she is going to can anymore.

But she craftily got me to do the drawer pulls for her project.

I made new holes for the drawer pulls in the dresser drawer faces. I used an awl to depress where the holes should go in the jig so as the drill bit would not drift before it bit into the wood. Of course test that the pulls fit in the jig before using it on the drawer faces. A jig is a guide to ensure repeatable results.

Some may call my kombucha a craft. Just look at that SCOBY. The tea variety in my latest batch turned out just awful for kombucha. The kombucha tasted like cold bacon with emphasis on the preserving agents. So I let this batch go all the way to vinegar (hence the great thickness) hoping the taste profile would become something delightful or at least palatable. Otherwise my wife uses vinegar to clean things.

I got this hat for Father’s Day.

The $164 question: What were my three most favorite WORS races? (some may no longer exist as venues have changed) Keeping the same question. Check out the Charity Jackpot Page link in the sidebar to possibly triple the amount.

Lights, Camera, Action

Loose the dogs of the peloton. The time has come. The season is near. Grease your machines and stretch your extremities and prepare for battle.

It is time for the annual Wheel and Sprocket Bike Expo.

But there is more!

The WORS Racer Handbook has been out for a while, and if you are not racing mountain bike on May 6th, the La Crosse Omnium is open for registration. I wont hold it against you if you are a road biker.

And do not forget about WEMS, though most due. They begin in less than four weeks.

The Chequamegon Fat Tire Festival, a September event, is of great popularity. It may already be too late to register.

Emery’s is already in sales mode, now through the end of The Bike Expo. They are more your road bike people. Known for not being big financial contributors to the Mountain Bike Agenda.

Registration for the Bike Fed’s RAW (Race Across Wisconsin) is open. The sooner you register the more you save.

Otherwise all local trails are closed. Do not ride wet trails please.

With my father approaching the end of his life here, I did not volunteer this year for the Metro Mountain Biker’s booth at the Bike Expo.

Catalogues; this one in particular brightened my Winter. They come from everywhere and according to the Nightly Business Report people like to look through them.

The yard and garden will be going through great transformations this year. I will be re-firing up our YouTube channel to cover my exploits here and on the mountain bike trails. And you may find some of our security video playback, particularly of our neighbor’s dogs peeing on our front yard trees and berry bushes, threatening the lives of our greenery.

The $163 question: What were my three most favorite WORS races? (some may no longer exist as venues have changed) Keeping the same question. Check out the Charity Jackpot Page link in the sidebar to possibly triple the amount.

The State of Mountain Biking

The State of Mountain Biking is strong here in Wisconsin.

Not so for IMBA; International Mountain Bike Association.

Ironically Metro Mountain Biker’s joining with IMBA in the recent past, cast a wide attractive net for membership. Metro Mountain Bikers is flush with younger up and comers, movers and shakers, that will push local mountain bikers to newer and greater heights.

Mountain Biking will be great again.

WORS and WEMS, the mainstay of mountain bike competitiveness in our state are hanging on strong with solid participation numbers. Though attendance may be down for these events, it is only due to the rise of High School Mountain Bike Leagues driven by NICA.

My mountain bike has been domesticated. I still need to change the pedals, if they will come off. If I ever race again it will be on a new bike.

Mountain Biking is primarily a family event and only so many races can be attended annually. A percentage of past WORS participants with children in High School have been putting their energies towards the High School League events. But fear not. They wont be in High School forever. Eventually they will be racing WORS because they have no reason to leave, there are plenty of great jobs rising in Wisconsin. No drain of any kind here.

Maybe an idiot drain, but that shouldn’t include mountain bikers. The beer in Wisconsin is too good.

Minooka Park, with paid parking, is overrun with High School mountain bike teams on certain nights. The demand for good trails is higher than ever.

Magnificent trails are being designed. Minooka is a high benchmark for our state; built by loving hands.

The current trend is to pay for professional builders to design and build fantastic trails in short order. No more weekend gatherings of club members toiling with hand tools to cut paths of enlightenment through the wilderness. It is all mechanical equipment driven.

Returning to the irony, the increase of funds that makes local trail building possible may be attributed to the IMBA name, that wide net. But IMBA has been making some bad decisions that are driving members away; like supporting the government’s stand to deny access to mountain bikes in National Parks. IMBA also stands against any e-power assisted bikes on trails. This is a growing issue. There are several levels of power assistance for bicycles of all types.

The velodrone In Kenosha has been plagued with issues. A crack in the new construction, no funds for painting the track, and when all that was resolved seasonal thunderstorms highlighted the fact that proper drainage had failed to be included in the design, producing a small lake. I could go on, on how poor design of every type infests our lives and points to the downfall of civilization as we know it, but I digress.

Cyclocross rolls quietly on as a shoulder season activity.

All the fervor is now with Fat Bikes for Winter riding. Grooming cross country ski trails for fat bike riding seems the obsession of the up and comers. They ridicule the funds spent on cross country ski trails for a dozen skiers, or at least for the dozen they see.

Of course you cannot mention Fat bikes, 4” wide treads, without mentioning Wisconsin being awe struck by the Hugh Jass Fat Bike Series.

The economy may have had an influence on the perceived decline of the number of cross country skiers (and mountain bikers). Now the economy is coming back in line along with a Winter Olympics. Ski on.

Did you know that all the ski venues and facilities for the Olympics were built by the late Reverend Moon? And still owned by his family.

It’s the economy stupid. A famous line, and though I joke about Colorado’s legalization of marijuana contributing to the downfall of IMBA, headquartered in Colorado, the economy may have played an even bigger role.

IMBA now provides only membership management services. They offer other services on an ale carte basis.One of the first services they dropped, as they suddenly went from way black to way red in their finances, was insurance.

I made the association, at one Metro meeting, between insurance costs and Obamacare, Obamacare hence the reason for IMBA’s decline, and the room went silent.

The Wisconsin Bike Fed appears, according to the irate tone in response to a question posed by me to a Bike Fed representative, to have no interest in overseeing integrated bicycle access in road design as the communities around Foxconn have all been in the process of redesigning their roadways.

Though Metro Mountain Bikers have been talking about installing a pump track locally for at least three years, not one has materialized.

So the State of Mountain Biking is strong in Wisconsin, stronger than any other cycling sport, though not perfect.

God Bless you all. God Bless the United States.

The $162 question: What were my three most favorite WORS races? (some may no longer exist as venues have changed) Keeping the same question. Check out the Charity Jackpot Page link in the sidebar to possibly triple the amount.