into the bush, no, the wilderness bush perverts...

i cant take it, feels like the walls are closing in, i think i can make it to the grand canyon before dark if i get motivated right now. let you know how it goes, off to the land of no cell service, throw the ibis on top and in goes the dog... here skully skully skully....

MY 90 SECONDS OF FAME.....

-----Original Message-----From: Mountain Bike Action [mailto:mbaction@sbcglobal.net] Sent: Monday, April 14, 2008 10:07 Subject: Your story Hey Kevin. Hope you dig this...Jimmy Mac RIDERS WHO INSPIRE An Unlikely Guardian Angel Why Kevin Talbot knows he can end a lot of suffering ...

We met Kevin Talbot during practice for a Super D race at Bootleg Canyon in Boulder City, Nevada. While a number of competitors had driven from Colorado, Utah and California for the event, it is hard to imagine that any rider at this race had traveled as far as Kevin had to be there. You could say that Kevin’s trip to Bootleg Canyon started 11 years ago (1997) when he was arrested for possession and intent to manufacture and distribute methamphetamine. Hopelessly addicted to the narcotic, Kevin was sentenced to 42 months of incarceration in the federal prison system. “While in prison, I heard of the Residential Drug Addiction Program (RDAP),” remembers Kevin today. “I was out of my head. I didn’t know what I was doing. I wanted in the program because they’d knock time off my sentence. I didn’t want to get better, I wanted to do less time, get out and get right back into doing the same stuff again.” Kevin got a GED and met the other requirements for acceptance into RDAP. He was transferred to a federal prison in Minnesota where he began the program. It was during this time that an ex-addict spoke about how cycling helped him kick his addictions. This counselor spoke about those deep desires to start using again and how he could get on his bike and ride through the urges. “He made a giant impact on me,” explains Kevin about the encounter. “We had similar backgrounds, we had been to the same dark places and he was doing good. It may have been at that point that I no longer just wanted to get out, I wanted to get better.” Kevin was released to a halfway house program where he had to stay clean and hold a job or go back to prison. Kevin had the choice to be driven to work in a prison van or he could ride a bicycle. He chose the bike. Knowing nothing about bikes, he left the bike shop with a Diamondback mountain bike because, “I used to race motocross as a kid and this thing had a suspension fork and knobby tires,” Kevin laughs today. “I felt totally complete riding that bike,” continues Kevin. “I knew I could really get into it. I knew it would keep me away from the drugs. If I kept cycling,I knew I wouldn’t go back to prison.” Fulfilling his requirements to the halfway house program, Kevin moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, where he attacked the infamous Bonneville Shoreline Trail and quickly reached the limits of his commuter bike. Tim at "Wild rose mountain sports" got Kevin urgraded to a GT and he became totally addicted again. Not to drugs, but to mountain biking. Trips to Moab,Utah, helped him meet cycling friends who encouraged him to try some racing. He entered his firstcross-country race in 2003 and finished third. He won his next event and hits a podium nearly every time he makes it to a race. Today, Kevin only enters a handful of races a year, but 200-mile weeks are not uncommon for the rider who now lives under the shadow of Gooseberry Mesa outside of Hurricane, Utah. The recidivism rate for a methamphetamine addict is 87 percent in the first six months after release from aprogram. Of the 13 percent who make it past the six-month point, 90 percent start using again. Kevin and his mountain bikes have beaten these incredible odds.“I am not permitted to contact the counselor who first planted the cycling seed in my brain,” explains Kevin about the rules for anyone who has gone through RDAP.“I just hope he sees this story and knows that he saved a life.” Speaking of savings lives; Kevin sees the next step in his recovery as helping others who have fallen into similar situations. “I have a dream to go back to the prisons and speak,”says Kevin. “A program to get guys on bikes might not work for everyone, but if I only reach a few, it would all be worth while. I’m praying to God that someone will help me get to the prisons.” On a final note, Kevin’s addiction destroyed his family, but even mountain bikes have helped repair some of the damage. Kevin’s daughter, Kristy, who is no longer estranged from her dad, took the photos for this story. Photos by Kristy Talbot. Know someone who deserves to be featured in “RidersWho Inspire?” Send an email to Brad Roe atbradr@hi-torque.com

Should i shave my legs for this ?

hey, dont knock it till you try it. anyone out there who lives in a chamois 4 to 7 days a week and doesnt use the razor hasnt tried it yet. im an ex- motocross racer, from the 80's no less, there was no way i was ever going to shave my legs for god sakes, but then i met this cool chick from boulder colorado who was a cat 3 road racer. now i was riding on the road and had raced a couple times on the bianchi i bought from " the bike nerd", but i was not going to shave my legs, im a man, hell im an ex-con, no one is going to turn me into a cherry. that was the thought process when i met jaime, we hit it off really well and ended up having a whirl wind of a fling, it was short lived but burned bright as a supernova. anyway, shaving legs became four play, i shaved her,( if you could see me right now, i have a shit eating grin plastered across my face) and she would shave me,(still smiling)yes even the fella's, well i gotta tell you its the only way to go and man do the bike chicks love it, you should all try it sometime!

ok, before this turns into a porn blog lets get to the ride today. when i first bought the ibis i did have some reservation, i mean damn, i spent 4 g's on the thing, i could have bought a full blown mountain race rig for that. it wasnt long after though that i fell in love with the silk, i put 4000 miles on him before three months had passed, i went to moab and did the lance armstrong century, i went to boulder and did the sunrise century, i went to st george and did the tour of st george and i went to vegas and did the tour of fire. i was eating 7000 foot climbing days for breakfast, immigration canyon, big mountain, east canyon, millcreek, big cottonwood canyon, little cottonwood canyon, traverse mountain, and the alpine loop through american fork canyon over the top to sundance then back, that particular road is featured in the tour of utah every year, i wish i had gps'ed the altitude i gained. now today i thanked the bike gods for the ibis silk, the yeti is down for the count at the moment, my fork is broken and i havent the funds to repair it, i want to go mountian biking so bad its affecting my sleep, but the road saves my sanity on days like this, i wouldnt trade the ibis for anything at this point. see not only do i live in one of the best mountain bike spots in maybe the world, but the road riding is just as epic. there is a climb up the north side of zion national park called "kolob terrace", its such a grind, 28 miles with 4800 feet of gain, now its not mount evans in colorado, it doesnt end at 14,000 plus, however youve never seen a road like this i promise. it goes in and out of the park and the road is paved red sandstone, it has some easier miles but then will swing up to well over 15% gradient, mount evans dont do that, , its another place i cant believe that a bike race has never been held.

black label society blasting on the ipod, the click of my pedals, the crisp clean air in my face, and we are off. no where really special today, took the bike path to bloomington, climbed the hill and started off for bluff street, stopped for a minute to visit the guys at red rock bicycles and then headed for the red cliffs. there is this little road that goes from st george blvd up to the red cliffs, now its short, maybe 2 k, but that motha is so fucking steep, someone measured it for me once, ( thanks dad ) and it goes to 21 % gradient right before the top, my fat ass had to stand on the pedals to get up it today. from there i just took the back way out to washington and then home. the ibis is a saviour these days cuz i dont know for sure when i will get my talas fixed, shit i havent even received my first unemployment check so i dont know what will happen. i do know that there is a kickass race coming up on presidents day at bootleg canyon and i won there last year so i must defend. looks like i will be begging quentin and dj for a bike to race when the time comes, hopefully they will read this and i wont have to ask........

60 Rain soaked miles...

i couldnt take it anymore, i mean come on, this is the freakin desert right ? well, right ? i came here for the sunshine, lizards need sun, right ? i lived in salt lake for so long freezing my ass off, i just wanted to get away from snow. holly crap, does anyone have a cry towel ! its really not to bad here weather wise, it does snow up on gooseberry mesa a few times a year, but then it will also go dry and the conditions are stunning, ive been there in the snow and had to walk a bit, that day kinda sucked, had to rebuild the king hub after that weekend. its just that we get spoiled, the sun shines so much that when it goes away you really miss it, at least i do, i think that i have that seasonal depression thing, but damn, i have been wanting to ride for days now and its been crappy, wet roads the whole time. now with much respect to my friends of the tribe that live, and dig the great north west, ( jeffro and sher' in eugene, paul and roxy in ashland, THE tony p tony@pereiracycles.com; in portland, and my new bud' in OZ, jill kintner, yeah that bad ass chick with all the jerseys !) i think rain bites ass, the desert is dry, thats why lizards live in it people, i would have moved to eugene along time ago jeffro, you know that, the town is very cool, very good vibes, and green as a swimming pool of cronic, but how do you keep your head straight with all that rain man ?

my legs just couldnt take it any more, i decided the route with the least traffic would be the climb up utah hill over into nevada, i was right, traffic was a car every 10 or 15 mins. this ride is an enduring one in that when you return from nevada its 15 miles up, not big up but incessant up, and if you do it late like i did you get a head wind that will blow you backwards if you dont fight it the whole way. so except for the light snow on top it basically rained on my head the whole way, but know what every body ?, it didnt matter, i may have bitched a couple of times when a car went flying by and sprayed me, and i yelled then cursed the snow once or twice, and it just didnt matter, know what i mean ? yeah, i know you do, thats one of the reasons this life style works for me, the people ive met because of bikes seem to be the most complete humans around, some thing rarely seen by us lizards, even those who make and shape our sport seem more down to earth than others of your race, they seem to give a shit about others involved in this lifestyle no matter how they got in or what their place in it is. how many of us have come across a pro bike racer out there in our journeys ? or someone involved in the media ? all they wanted to do was talk about bikes or the coolest trails or ask you where your favorite rides were. thats real man, this bike thing can have a connection for people who might other wise be lost,may the bike gods bless us all !!!

in the past couple of years ive been fortunate to meet quite a few influential people in the industry, its been a gas, and they all have been so cool, so real. it all started at the fruita fat tire fest in april of '07. years ago i made some friends from las vegas in moab ( racin j' & brake my arm jen') well i went to the fruita jam to meet them and it was a riot, we met troy rarick of over the edge sports in fruita, http://www.fruitamountainbike.com/ troy has become a great friend as he is in hurricane often at the other OTE, more about troy later. ended up partying at his house with jeff lenowski, hans rey and alison dunlap, rode with hans and his television crew the next day, i think we are in some video going around germany, that fest was one of the funnest times ive had, on a bike or not. later that spring i was introduced to josh bender, watched him at some secret stash in park city, then rode some trails with him and some friends. then in sep' 07 i bought my ibis silk from wild rose mountain sports in salty, i started doing group rides and have rode with jeff louder, and dave zabriskie. then on vacation in california i was riding the ibis down the pch and here comes neil shirley from jittery joes, rode all the way from oceanside to la jolla. every one of these people treated me above and beyond, and many have remained in contact. it was march '08 when i met jimmy mac from MBA magazine, great guy, cool van, and holly hell, he wrote a story about me, it was in the august '08 issue, we almost rode bikes and did a photo shoot on the goose, but we were snowed off the damn place, "hey jimmy, we ever going to do that photo shoot boss ?", hes californian, he got a little scarred and bolted when that white stuff came falling. then a while after he left he called me and told me about the fox yeti tests going on at the goose, i poached it but eventually when the lady running the whole thing found out i was a nobody she gave me the boot. no matter, i met and rode with mark weir, and the guys from yeti were cool as they ever was and let me ride the bike they set up for me anyway, anthony youre the bomb ! http://www.yeticycles.com/ mark has kept in touch and we hung out for a bit at interbike, great guy. then at the A.M.C stage race at brianhead i met ron and pua, shes the national 24 hr champ and he is the mastermind, perhaps the nicest people ive ever met, thanks for the hospitality guys. i also became friends at that race with tom and the whole big bear crew, i knew tom from years of racing his events, but i really got to know him that week at brianhead, turns out we have some things in common, love ya boss. in between i started emailing niki gudex, former austrailian national champ, who i met face to face at interbike, not only is she a cool ass chick and hot as hell, but she has some kind of soul about her, shes been really supportive with her advise about my goals to visit the prisons. now out of the blue jill kintner emails me to offer encouragement and to tell me shes reading the blog ( heres to mowing through europe again girl). one day i hope all my new friends will come to the desert and we can all shread it ! bikes, man, theyre beautiful .....

to zion, or not to zion....

im looking out the window and it does look better than yesterday, skully and i spent the day in the canyon, and i was glad i didnt bring the ibis cause it was epic up there yesterday, god i love springdale !!!! we went through the tunnel ( 1.1 miles long ) and to the other side towards mnt carmel, "I CANNOT BELIEVE" no one has ever ran a race through here, the road is amazing !

a dozen or so switchbacks and or turns get you to the entrance to the tunnel, i dont know the actual gain, but i would guess it to be about 1000, maybe 1200 feet. then when you get through the tunnel ( you have to make an arrangement to shuttle through because bikes are not allowed, i usually park at one of the turn outs before, go down, do the climb to my truck, go through, park at a turn out after, then ride out and back, ive also hitched through. ) its just one unbelieveable sight after another. i would say that another 1000 feet is gained to the ranger station, but i havent left the park yet, thats the plan today, im still eyeing the horizon.

it was so fun to hang with the skull , and it just wasnt a day to ride, we got rained on no less than 5 times, hailed on once, we got out and hiked up this big ass slick rock mountain, we went up the weeping rock trail, but there was a lot of snow still so we didnt make it to the top, and then we went into springdale and day dreamed about being able to find a place to live there. we drove around and looked at houses for sale, and it seems that you may not only need an arm and a leg to build in springdale but you will probably need an ear, two fingers, a couple of toes and a large chunk of ass!! it was a great day.... here skully skully skully>>>

is this a week, wait, what day is this ??

GUN LOCK LOOP, SORRY JACK ! sad to say that the giner came out yesterday, well not completely i suppose, skully had a lot to do with it, he cant talk but he is easy to read. when i was starting to get ready to ride he looked at me with these sad pathetic eyes, so we loaded up the truck and went to the red cliffs instead so me and "the skull" could go hiking. so i guess i could use this entry to blather on about things that may be irrelevant to anyone reading this but i am finding this blog thing a little therapeutic and as anyone who really knows me will tell you, therapy could only be a good thing when it comes to the "the bones". i got into bikes in a non conventional way you might say. what i will do is add the story that ran on me in the mountain bike action august issue when i learn how to work this computer that way i dont have to bother anyone with the gory details. however for information sake i can tell you that i was at one time a federal prison inmate. i was released in 2000 to a halfway house and was given the choice to ride in a van back and forth to my required job, or go buy a bike. im sure you can figure out which one i picked, after all im reasonably sure i wouldnt be here if i had rode in that depressing van. so it wasnt long after that i made it back to salt lake city and just immersed myself in the life style, i sold that first bike (diamondback apex with crap components) and started to buy better bikes and better gear. it was a great diversion to have something like mountain bikes to focus on, it allowed my brain to get used to living without all the pollutants i was putting in my body for so long. it gave my soul a place to be free and start to breathe again, when you spend the better part of 17 years drugging and dealing it takes a horrible tole on the soul, but mountain bikes returned the beauty of being alive, which is a fucked up thing to lose let me tell you. then came that first trip to moab, wooh, the best and the worst at the same time. i had been through moab a number of times in the past and always found it a pretty place, but since reading all the magazines and seeing how the press and the tribe its self touted my own back yard, well moab had become a spiritual place in my mind. so off we went to the halloween fest that used to run every year, one of my best friends in life had gotten her shit together also. "mia bergeson", i wont go into how we met 11 years earlier. so here we were flying through the desert to ride our bikes in a place we had no idea would be the way it was, fuckin cops, yeah we got pulled over and ticketed, mia how fast were we going that day 90 or some thing ? anyway, the sun was now going down and we were just getting off i-70, so we didnt really get to see much as we rolled in. to make this shorter lets cut to the chase. second day at the festival we had been out riding and had come back to town, it was getting on in the day and mia wanted to ride from the hotel to the poison spider bike shop to buy some stickers and stuff. on our way back to the hotel we were crossing an intersection and some stupid kid didnt see us, little bastard just missed me but mia was on my wheel, as i looked back all i saw was mia flying off the hood of that truck. so many things went through my mind before i got stopped and made it back to her, the worst being the urge to go right to that kid and choke the life from his useless skin, but when i saw mia lying in the street blood coming from her head and her bike all bent to shit i suddenly realized that me bleeding this kid out wasnt going to help her at that moment. every thing turned out, well, ok, it was a long legal thing that didnt pay her very well, she recovered, but the broken ankle still gives her problems and those creepy staples they put in her head wooh, whats up with those things anyway ? now you know what "the best and worst" means. the best was that i rode moab for the first time. mia was awesome and layed in the hotel the next day insisting that i go ride, what a soldier huh ? when we left the next day some of me stayed there, and that part of me is always waiting for me to come visit. moab, where part of my soul sleeps ! riding this weekend for sure, took my fork out to "over the edge", poor talas blew its seals again. the crew from fruita was all there, they are on the way home from a three week jaunt through the south west riding their asses off. got a chance to talk with troy, love that guy, and noah has to be one of the coolest guys i ever met, good to see you guys, looking forward to vegas in feb', by the way noah, that girl at the shop, who was that ?

IM A LIZARD NOT A DUCK......

well, for the third straight day theres a strange wetness on the ground, not something you see 'round these parts often. us lucky lizards here in the desert had an 18 day run of beautimus sunshine, until thursday that is, dammit i wanted to ride today ! oh well, i still havent got my fork back so shit, its a washed out day. "quack", ducks go to oregon, thats what ive been led to believe, isnt that right "mr flipper lipper ?" my other best friend lives in eugene, oregon, ive been out to see him and his wife sher' a number of times now but have strangely rode my bikes very little while there. not hard to do though, when i go to visit them we go out to the coast most times, being as "the red desert lizard" sees little water in his world. the ocean has always had a draw to me, as im sure it does many, and getting to hang out with my bro and camp on the beach aint a bad way to go. although the mckenzie calls to me and i wont be able to resist much longer.
some thing you are going to find about my blog is i wont be talking about political crap, im not going to talking about civil rights, im not going to talk about societal issues, im not going to talk about economic problems, unless related to bikes of course. this is going to be the rantings of a half crazed, half baked, ex meth cook, ex con, turned bike junkie. ive come from places that people dont come from, only monsters come from the places i layed my head. the odds i have beaten to make it to this point, sitting here on this computer writing about the frayed ends of my sanity, are astronomical, we are talking about lottery odds here people, before i left the prison i was told that a bed would be waiting for my return, that the odds said i would be back, in fact the odds said i wouldnt even make it 6 months. 87% of convicted drug felons who do at least 2 years in a federal prison and then are released start getting high again, or commit another drug crime and end up back in the system within 6 months. of those 13 % that make it past that time a staggering 97% return within a year. now my math sucks for the most part, so i will just estimate that i am a fucking miracle ! and there is no way in heaven or hell that i would have made it with out my bikes and the people ive met on them.
to this day i still have no idea what im doing, i dont always deal with society that great, i have a terrible position on authority figures, and i generally find that people are stupid and unaware of whats going on around them. i dont understand the way things work for the most part, i try to grasp the methods in which to pursue things the way its all set up, but i get a fucking head ache trying to figure it all out. come on now, one cant think that one could destroy ones brain with 17 years of one abuse or another and end up being able to have rational cognitive thought, right ? i dont know, i just get on my bike when i get all this confusion built up, doesnt make it go away, but at least i dont think about it for awhile. "quack", fuckin rain, i wanna ride my bike... here lizard lizard lizard.............

in a vortex far far away....

wooh, what the hell is going on ? when i started this blog thing it was new years day, it now happpens to be jan 21st '09. january has been a blur ( no not from santa cruz, oh have you seen the new carbon ? i got an email about a new carbon blur, if i wasnt so computer tarded i would put their link up here but i am still learning how this all works. ) my god , my minds wandering, where was i ? oh yeah january.. so the next day after my first post i caught a flu bug that kicked the living shit out of me, there was one point that i truly wish that i had died, infact i still feel it in me. well needless to say i havent been riding, which isnt a bad thing really, i could use a break at this point as the miles in '08 were endless at times. the cateye on the ibis reads 7480 from sept'07 to sept '08. not to bad but considering that i put 2500 miles on that thing the first 6 weeks i owned it i guess those miles could have been higher. however, lets add in the the miles zipping through the trees and over the boulders, flying past the cactus and the 300 foot cliffs, dropping the 3,4 and 5 footers, ending up in the ditches feet stright up in the air, ripping the skin off of elbows and knees, torn flesh left behind on sandpaper slick rock, yes, gooseberry and littlecreek mesa's. i spent more time discovering the bombass trails in this area than should be allowed by law, tell you what i came to southern utah to be a bike bum and i nailed it man ! i spent 11 nights in the middle of january on gooseberry,and rode all but two days, those two days were spent hiking with my best bud "skully" my black lab, the only reason i came down was i ran out of food completly. yet those countless days spent in the desert were mostly in the spring and over shadowed by the weekend after weekend after weekend living in the thin air of brianhead ut. i got word in spring of a race that would be held at the 11,307 foot mountain, the a.m.c ! american mountain classic, a four day stage race held in and around brian head resort, my friend gps'd the race its self and his garmin read out at 177 miles with 16,800 feet of climbing. i trained for that race like a possesed man, there were days on that mountain that i had to hide under trees while the hail pelted down. one day i left the lodge , made the climb to the peek,( about 2000 feet in under 7 miles) started out to the louder ponds trail made the decent and then the climb up sidney peeks road and started down bunker creek, all in glorious bright blue sunshine, only to start the return to the peek in a sheet of rain. i know alot of you have decended bunker creek but how many of you have turned around and made the climb back ? let me assure you that if you are not into massive amounts of pain you should take a shuttle back to the ski resort because its an unholly pain fest making that climb back to the peek, its nearly a 20 mile journey with well over 3500 feet of gain, and air is hard to find. well that day i started out in sunshine i ended up walking over half of that distance in snot mud and hail and rain and lightning and then again in sunshine. it was one of the most unbelievable days ive ever spent on a bike, comes close to the day in 2003 that i fell on porcupine rim and broke both arms, but thats another tail. needless to say brian head utah is as epic as it gets and all the training that i did paid off big time as i won my class over those four awesome days of racing with a time of 16 hours even, man is that one beautiful winners jersey !!!! so if you add in all the miles together it has to be some stupid number, i dont keep a computer on the yeti so i dont have an exact distance but im reasonably sure i pushed the 12,000 mile mark in '08. heading out on a road bike ride today,"gunlock loop" i'll stop in and let you know how it goes. and as i learn how to use this computer better i will start to add some pics and vids, more later.... here lizard lizard lizard !!

opening entry...

it was a bright blue, beautifully crisp morning in the desert. new years day morning, four hours of sleep and a hang over that would kill a sherman tank (do those still exist ? im showing my age now) what in the hell am i doing ? mark and steff told me to meet them at quail lake to do the ride we call hurricane loop. depending how you ride it , it can turn out to be about 45 miles with the road around sand hollow thrown in. this is the part i really love about living in the desert, how many of you across the country were able to do 45 miles on the road in nearly perfect conditions on new years day ? the desert lizards have it good in southern utah ! anyway, back to the mission at hand.. what the hell was i doing here ? i cant even see very straight and im going for a bike ride with friends that im not even sure will make it to the spot. see, new years eve in springdale ut, outside of zion national park was a party you must see some time. not only are you in one of the most beautiful spots on the entire planet, surrounded by road bikers, mountain bikers, rock climbers and eccentric old hippies that have made springdale their home, but there happens to be one freakin cop in the whole town, it was on and every one of the 4 or 500 in attendance knew it. when adrian finally picked me up and we made the drive to springdale, we arrived to a pleasantly rowdy crew at the "bit and spur" things had already spilled out into the street and the party was in full swing. now i would like to tell you about all the debauchery that took place, but who knows who will read this, right ? plus there is the fact that i dont remember all that happened as i was many sheets to the so called wind. again , what the hell am i doing here ? i never made it to my truck, i woke up in a strange bed and now its 1:30 pm new years day 09" and im waiting to ride my ibis silk over 40 miles, what am i doing here ? markus maximus arrileus and his new squeeze steff finally show, they look a little fresher than myself, but i have the magic bike parts and i control the show. well actually i blather something to the effect of, i believe my head will explode before we make it 10 miles, if i can get to that point i think i can make it. we all have known that feeling, ( no not the one where you cant get the feeling out of your head that you probably did some things last night that you will end up apologizing for over and over and over ) the feeling of getting on your bike feeling like shit but after even the first few pedal strokes all seems well, ok, maybe not well, certainly better though. for the vast amount of bike riders that have never had the pleasure of riding bikes in south western utah let me explain this one for you. getting started at quail lake gives you a taste of whats to come, no i dont mean difficulty, i mean visuals, there is one spot you can see zion, smith mesa, gooseberry mesa, and little creek mesa all in the same view, it really is breath taking. once you get started you go to the north and leave the lake area, turning left on the frontage road will take you towards kolob, thats when you get up close with pinevalley mountain, a small mountain range standing over 10,300 feet high, not an astronomical height but when compared to the elevation of 2800 feet in st george pinevalley towers over the surrounding terrain. so up the frontage road for a few miles and then the turn off to touquerville. this where you can really let it hang out, i've hit 50 mph on some of these downs, they're short downs but fun ones. this is where you come into laverkin, over the bridge and into hurricane, if the bike shop is open we will always stop in and say hi to dj and quintin, they operate the only shop in town, ( over the edge sports ) yeah the same over the edge as fruita co, some of you may know troy and the fruita scene, if not you are missing one of the truly stand up people in the industry, and one of the great riding spots in the country. through hurricane and around "sand hollow". this is where you get the best views of the mountains, and you can see the ending. once i got into the ride it was a no brainer, i know exactly why im here, i know exactly what im doing, this is what im about, this is why im on this planet, "to ride". so this is my first entry into my first blog, i hopefully will begin to get some exposure for my plans, more will be revealed later, but lets just say that im on a mission. so get out and ride if you can, if not get your asses to south western utah, its beautiful here, and its always time to ride. "here lizard lizard lizard"