Outdoor Travel Geek

  • the seven P’s plus one

    There’s an old British army adage that’s called the Seven Ps. The seven Ps stand for Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance. I guess the seven Ps are useful for both battle and bicycling. To those seven Ps I will add one more. Pasta. What does pasta have to do with getting ready for…

  • bye bye bianchi

    Since I bought my Specialized Tricross my Bianchi has been sitting in my garage gathering dust. I decided it was time to sell my trusty old steed. It’s been my trusty bicycle for the last three years, and with it I had cycled over four thousand miles. As I looked at the bicycle I thought…

  • moon over mendocino

    This weekend I went backpacking at the Mendocino National Forest. It’s a pretty easy and short hike, which was good because there were a bunch of kids who were going backpacking for the first time. They had mostly grown up together in church. It kind of reminded me of when I used to be a…

  • biking cool

    Summer’s here. Summer = barbecues. It was good to be back on the grill after laying off for so long. After the barbecue I felt like a fatty, so I decided to go biking. Today’s rides were near a town called Cool, which is just up the road from Auburn. I went to this trail…

  • foresthill divide

    After demoing bikes last week I came away with the revelation that the new bikes out there are nice. But they’re a little too expensive for me to justify buying one. But I figure if I ride at least twice a month I could reward myself with a new bike at the end of the…

  • korean junk

    There are some things that just can’t exist in healthy form. Kimchee fried rice is one of those things. I tried making a healthy version before, using brown rice and nitrite-free chicken sausage but it just wasn’t the same. A good kimchee fried rice uses a liberal amount of spam. The thing is, a few…

  • biking, burgers & bros

    The rain has been crazy this past week. Originally I had planned to go mountain biking with some friends at Santa Cruz but those plans got shelved because of the rain. The weather forecast said it would be sunny, but we figured that after a week of rain the trails wouldn’t be in great condition.…

  • some perspective

    Found this on Google reader today. It reminded me of how blessed we are. I am thankful for all of these reasons.

  • resurrection and road rash reminder

    When I was a kid it was easy to remember when Easter was coming. Easter more or less correlated with spring break. Now that I’m an adult I don’t have a spring break, so it’s harder to remember when Easter is near. Well I guess there are all sorts of reminders, I guess I just…

  • watery wonder world

    This weekend I was in Monterey finishing up my open water scuba certifications. Apparently Monterey is the place to go for scuba lessons. There were several other classes out there even though the weather wasn’t all that great. The class I was a part of was pretty small, just me, my buddy Tim, and a…

  • the plunge

    I have liked watches for as long as I can remember. Ever since my first job out of high school I’ve been sort of shopping for a watch, but haven’t gotten around to buying one until now. I finally made the plunge and bought one this week because of my scuba class. It’s not a…

  • merry mondays

    Today was my first Monday off. It’s nice waking up with absolutely no plans at all. My only goal was to fix this bike. It had been sitting on my workstand for almost a month. When I had bought the bike around a year and a half ago, it had a broken front shifter. Originally…

  • racked up

    The weather has been incredibly nice lately– unusually warm for February. I’ve been taking advantage of the weather by going biking, if you couldn’t already tell from all the biking posts in February. This weekend I went biking out at the American River Parkway with Jiro and Ray. I’d forgotten how nice it was out…

  • cycling mix

    I knew Mix Canyon was a tough climb. I’ve attempted the climb three or four times, but still haven’t made it to the top. I made it almost to the top once, but that was on a motorcycle (http://outdoortravelgeek.com/2011/05/the-mix/). On a bicycle the farthest I’ve gotten is about three miles. So yea, I knew it…

  • granite bay

    Today was my second time mountain biking at Granite Bay. I came out here once before with Dave and Jason, but we ended up not being able to ride all that much last time. The scenery is nice at Granite Bay, even at the parking area. That being said, I don’t come here often, partly…