Hielo in Hell

Cabin fever is setting in - drinking way too much and have been fighting the urge to bring the ax inside the house...you know, for "safety" reasons.

Yes, we're getting a bit tired of the snow already. This ride, done right before xmas was doable - now there is about a foot of snow here so off-road riding is out of the question - at least for a few more weeks.















A postcard from an icy hell



















...and the Donks are ready for some sun and heat....Bring It!

January Random 10

Sonic Youth - Making the Nature Scene

Belle and Sebastian - Lord Anthony

Cat Power - Still in Love

Irresistable Force - Nepalese Bliss

Gomez - Notice

Eliott Smith - Ballad of Nothing

Paco Pena - Tarantus

Dan Bern - Witness

The Fiery Furnaces - Single again

The Pipettes - Sex

Las Cruces Dirt - Sierra Vista

Sierra Vista is all cruiser singletrack. 14 mile RT out and back with a quarter-mile section of thorns (yes, more bloody legs). On this ride you need to stay RIGHT ON the trail or be prepared to fix a lot of flats. To get there - keep heading east on the same road you took to A Mountain and take the next paved road right (not the one into the subdivision - the next one). Soon you will see a fire station and the road will swing east....keep going. You will start to climb up towards the Organs and you'll see a pull out trailhead on your right (marked with a BLM sign). Start here and head toward Mexico. The trail rolls in and out of several arroyos and will cross a few 4WD roads and finally end in a gravel parking area. Look for the brown carsonite makers along the way. Mostly pretty smooth with a couple of ridable sandy stretches.



Damage assessment

lots of cacti lurking in the grass

Las Cruces Dirt - A Mountain

Day two in Cruces started off good. Clear skies, warm temps. We loaded up drove into the main part of town a scored a bad-ass breakfast for two with coffee for less than 10 bucks. Esentailly the same thing you would get in Northern NM, but for half the price.

To get there: from I-25 and University head east on University (toward A Mountain - it's the big rock sitting in the middle of the valley). After a few miles you will see a few radar towers on your right (this is the first trailhead) or you can continue east for anoth 1/2 mile or so and park at the next big pull out. The trail circumnavigates the mountain so it don't really matter which one you start at. The trail is a mix of rocky doubletrack and smooth singletrack with a few technical spots trown in. There are a few feeder trails heading south and west and also to the top. There is also a dirt road that heads to the top from the south side of the mountain. Tons of feeder doubletrack heads east for the east side and supposedly hooks in with the Sierra Vista trail - but we couldn't figure out how to link it. Me thinks we not too smart.

At the trailhead - Them there are the Organ Mountains

Taint real easy - even on a 29er

Givin' it a go on the 26er

I felt bad riding over all of these innocent babyheads

Serious cactus consequences for failure here

Dave - the king of rock

The King has fallen - and broke his little crown

Las Cruces Dirt - SST Trail

After the long 300+ mile drive south to Cruces, we secured a sweet suite at the world famous Sands Motor Lodge (Indian owned as we had hoped). After getting the hairy eyeball from our partially evolved motel neighbor, whose room was full of empty "Bud" cans, we made our way to SST, northwest of town.

Directions here: http://trails.mtbr.com/cat/united-states-trails/trails-new-mexico/trail/PRD_169179_4565crx.aspx

Perfect winter day for shorts and t-shirts (welcome after a month of slogging through the snow and ice up north).

The directions are pretty much right on, off of Rocky Acres, just take the first dirt road that sweeps left, go up a quarter mile or so and stop where the road gets too hairball. Look for the piles of bullet shells. You've arrived. Unload and ride up the hill to the west and locate the small water tanks - stay left of that and you'll soon see the trail heading off to the right.

The SST is a pretty tough trail that does not get much use. Although Dave and I determined that even though it's very technical - it's all ridable (Hans Ray would have no probelms) . Some fun rocky stuff to mess around on and other sections that are just plain loose as hell and not fun to mess around on. The trail is about 6 miles one way but probably only about 1.5 miles as the crow flies from start to finish. The trail ends at a jeep road that will zip you back to the parking lot if happy hour is looming - otherwise do it as an out and back. It's damn twisty and obviously built for mountain biking but takes a huge amount of concentration just to clean it all without running into a giant piles of cactus. It's probably a good idea to run tire liners or Stans. I didn't have either and was lucky to limp in with two slow leaks by the end of the ride. Dave was running Stans and had no problems. The cactus are brutal since they hang over the trail and are impossible to avoid. Fill an extra with bottle with plasma because I guarantee you will be losing blood after an hour.





Bring yer bikes, Band-aids....and uh, guns














Looking for the trailhead - wasn't obvious to us.















Look for these tanks and then head up this road












Part trail - part monster


















gettin' down and gettin' up













SST - Super Shredded Tires trail

This trail will eat (cheap) tires - about 15 missing lugs ripped to the threads