Mountain Biking and Related Topics!

I have ridden mountain bikes for many years. Here are some recent highlights.

Alum Creek I 2025 ▲

Here's a quick (2x speed) highlight reel from the Alum I mountain bike trail. This is my first real ride after major knee surgery on January 6, 2025. I went slow and gently and everything worked as it should! This is a huge milestone given that it's taken about six months to (mostly) recover.

Alum Creek II 2024 - After the Tornado ▲

I've ridden the Alum II trail near us hundreds of times over the past eight years, and it's been a wonderful thing to have nearby.

In March of 2024, a tornado came through the park that hosts the trail and blew over a large number of big trees. This totally obliterated the trail and required seven months of heavy volunteer labor and $23,000 of supplies to re-establish. The Central Ohio Mountain Bike Organization (COMBO) very efficiently and effectively coordinated the rebuild. We were in Brazil so we couldn't help, but we did make a couple donations. The result is fantastic! There are lots of pieces of the old trail, lots of new things, and much improvement in general, e.g. drainage is greatly augmented throughout. The new trail officially opened last weekend, but we've been riding it for a few weeks. The video below is long, but it documents the whole thing; fast-forward through it to get a flavor. There's a phone dropping incident a bit past the middle that I cut out into a short clip. The iPhone survived completely unharmed! I used Garmin's "find phone" feature on my watch to locate the phone after my music stopped coming over bluetooth about 30 yards up the trail.

USA Trip 2023 ▲

A daughter, son and I went on a trip to beautiful places around the Western USA to ride mountain bikes, hike, fish, kayak, and do other fun things: mainly Wyoming, California, Arizona, and Utah.

Overall summary of the trip:

• 7,200 miles driven
• States visited:
• Ohio
• Indiana
• llinois
• Wisconsin
• Minnesota
• South Dakota
• Wyoming
• Utah
• Nevada
• California
• Arizona
• Colorado
• Nebraska
• Missouri
• Google map: 2023 West Coast Trip Map

Alum Creek II MTB Trail - Highlights ▲

Here's a 9-minute highlight reel from the Alum Creek II trail that I ride about 100 times per year.

USA/BR/AR Trips 2022 ▲

My son and I went on a trip to beautiful places around the Western USA to ride mountain bikes, hike, raft, and fish: Colorado, Utah, Arizona. He, his mother, and I also went to Brazil and Argentina.

USA Trip 2021 ▲

My son and I went on a trip to beautiful mountain bike trails around the USA: Arkansas, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming. I'm not in any of these, but my son is.

Overall summary of the trip:

• 7,100 miles driven
• States visited:
  • Ohio
  • Indiana
  • Illinois
  • Missouri
  • Arkansas
  • Oklahoma
  • Texas
  • New Mexico
  • Colorado
  • Utah
  • Idaho
  • Oregon
  • Washington
  • Montana
  • Wyoming
  • Nebraska
  • Iowa
• Rides: 11
  1. Devil's Den State Park, AR
  2. Twin Buttes, Durango CO
  3. Klondike Bluffs, Moab UT
  4. Navajo Rocks, Moab UT
  5. McKenzie River, Sisters OR
  6. Mt. St. Helens, WA
  7. White River/Skookum Flats, WA
  8. St. Edwards Park, Seattle WA
  9. Duthie Trails, WA
  10. Horseshoe Prairie/Umatilla Rim, OR
  11. Local trails, Lander WY
• Cummulative:
  • 120.4 miles (194 km) ridden
  • 12,488 feet (3,806 m) elevation gain

Miscellaneous ▲

Some pictures and videos from 2021, 2022, and other odds-n-ends.

Strava Heatmaps ▲

Here are my global and USA Strava heatmaps, updated about once a year.