Pretty View

Erika and I went on a bike ride yesterday from Buffalo Creek. It's a little closer to Denver than to us, but was a very nice ride. We wound up getting a little lost and climbing for a little longer than we'd have liked to, but it was worth it. We wound up at Wellington Lake with this view:



We also started pulling some of the lettuce from the garden...it looks tasty. I grabbed a little sprout to try some and managed to find some of the only mustard greens in there. So my mouth tastes a little funny.

Pump Track update #2

I decided to change up the layout a little bit. With the old layout, you could easily get stuck going in one direction. You'd always enter going clockwise, but if you took any of the center lines, you'd get turned around and be stuck doing a nascar, with no way out.

Here are some pictures.




The new set-up should allow for a figure 8 run, or just an s-bend that lets you change direction. It will take some doing, but I'm up to the challenge.

Long time no post

Okay, back to it. With the weather being so nice, I've been out riding a lot and hence, not updating the blog.

Enough with the excuses here is some stuff. I carry a good amount of crap in the trunk of my car. Jumper cables, bungee cords, tow straps, 20mm fork adapters for the roof rack, wrenches (10mm, 12mm, 14mm, 17mm), a reverseable screwdriver...you get the idea. To my credit, I've never been stranded anywhere and can help anyone who might be.

But I also really enjoy the occasional canyon carving session and all that crap makes a TON of noise. Solution? Foam in the spare tire well.

Check it:


And the resulting empty looking trunk.



Also, Erika's garden is shaping up nicely. Her tomatoes are coming along. We put up some plastic wrap to protect them from the harsh sunlight (we live at 6000' elevation) and all the hail we get in the spring.





Besides tomatoes, there are onions, some hot peppers and some other tasty stuff.

Garden Time

Erika and I spent most of our day digging in the dirt. We built a raised bed for her vegetable garden and couldn't have had a nicer day for it. Here is the completed product:



It's untreated wood, with some stakes sunk in for stability. It's not pretty, but it's functional.

We also got a peach tree and planted it in the center of the pump track. Hopefully, this time next year we'll be eating some tasty peaches between pump track sessions.

Pump Track update

Here are some non-spy photos of the track. I spent about 4 more hours on it today. A view of the track from the fire pit:


A views of the 180 degree berm. I rode this a couple times and it's pretty awesome.


In the front of the picture is a really tight, 60 or 70 degree turn. I'm going to bet when you hit this right, you'll have to make a real effort to keep your head up. The 180 degree berm appears in the background


Erika also got started on her garden. She's going to have tomatoes, lettuce, fennel, garlic, zucchini...and loads of other stuff, too. I'm going to be eating good once I build the box for it. I snagged some 2x12s and 1x2s to build a box. She spent a good portion of time ripping up old grass and turning the soil.

Yard work...kind of

I have, hands down, one of the coolest ladies on the planet living with me. "Why?" you ask. Two words: PUMP. TRACK. If you don't know what that is go here. Yes, Erika has consented to me ripping up a large portion of the lawn.

I started building it this afternoon and kept going well past dusk...I spent almost 5 hours on it. It's a 40' x 60' area that's going to be a figure 8-ish layout. It will have a few cool features. First will be a 180 degree berm. Second will be a diagonal line option. To be honest, I'm crossing my fingers on how this all turns out. The goal is for it to be loads of fun for both Erika (less experienced) and I (more experienced) to ride for a few hours.

Here are some spy pictures Erika took from the back porch.

Something not related to the house

For anyone out there with a Subaru they want to make a little faster and learn a lot about, go here.

Romraider is an open source tuning solution for Subaru engine management. You can change nearly anything in the stock ECU. You can totally blow up your motor if you want! Your investment is a $70 cable from a company called Tactrix. Additionally, you can log data from your ECU to understand what it is doing. In the case of my 02 WRX, I can see when the turbo is making what pressure, what ignition timing looks like and what duty cycle the fuel injectors are running at. See pics of maps below:


Then, when you really want to have fun and risk spending serious coin, try some little changes...baby steps. So over the last year or so, I've gone from a motor pulling in 137g/sec of air at 5k rpm to a motor that pulls about 160g/sec...about a 17% increase in horsepower. Having my oil analysed has shown no adverse wear on the car...just tons of fun.

House update - Moved in!

Well, we finally are settled in the new house. I put most of the shoe moulding down:


I only skipped the mudroom. I'll probably do that on Friday when the TV guy comes during his 4 hour timeblock. Otherwise the mudroom is looking good.


I drilled a 2x4 into the studs with some deck screws and then just threaded some hooks in to hang bikes from. I could do a chin-up on it, so I figured it'd hold a couple DH bikes.

The living room looks nice as well, lots of open space. We cleaned all the window treatments and re-hung them. It will help a lot in the summer with all the sun the house gets.


I also got a new bike, one of these. I rode it yesterday and today and it rides great. Pictures later.

Finishing touches on the floors

So I spent the last few evenings this week putting down tile and then fixing one that came loose on the edge. I made the mistake of just catching my toe on it...and the board to build up to the tile wasn't in place. Oops. Here is how the grout is looking.


I pretty much just have to clean today, put down some shoe moulding and I'll be done. If you recall from the photo of where the sink used to be on March 9, you'll notice there are no more pipes coming out of the floor save for the washer/dryer hook-ups.

Speaking of shoe moulding, with all the carpet removal, you can guess what the house has none of...that's right, none anywhere. So how much moulding is needed for a 1300 sq ft house? This much:


It's about 200 ft of it, I stained it all yesterday and will varnish it today.

Here is a without moulding/with moulding comparison. The photos only show it covering the mistakes in our edge sanding...which really doesn't do it justice. It completes the room in a really big way. The color is also a little better match than the photos show.



Also, Erika has done a great job with the paint. The bath room has a really nice earth/sky thing going.


Now I just have to move in so I can sit on the can for a while.

More on the electrical outlets

Here is a link to how I replaced all the outlets in the front of the house. It's really as simple as turning off the breaker, pulling the old one out and installing the new one with a grounding wire to the metal box. It's worth noting that if it's a home that's super old (like ours) that you should check every socket with a lamp before you work on it. Don't assume that because the breaker turned off one side of a room it turned off BOTH sides of the room. I almost found that out the hard way. Not cool.