Last Sunday's Ponderosa Ride

A "little" ride out to Ponderosa Bar made for a great Sunday Funday. With the warming temps, Paul had proposed that we ride some gravel out to Ponderosa Bar. Amazingly, both he and Aaron had ridden the day before. Not sure how their legs were able to keep up, but after the 27 miles I rode they were smoked!

For some reason this is my favorite GoPro shot of the day

Aaron, Andy and I were playing catch up to the other riders

Not sure if I've ever seen horseback riders on the highway before. But then again, they've probably never seen two fatbikes on the highway before!

Toilets, bird bushes, and creepy A** mannequins watching you!

I sh*t you not, this was the sign inside Ponderosa Bar. Pun intended, because you weren't going to be sh*tting inside that place unless you use that toilet on top of that carport!

Where's Waldo? The Mannequin is watching your every move

Most riders started near 178th and Fort and rode out to Elk City, which is basically 230th and Bennington Road. Gravel, cross winds, beer, food, dead deer, toilets 15 ft up in the air, mannequins in windows, and bird shaped bushes were all part of the scenery and environments that we experienced. Oh yeah, and a major endo by none other than myself. Showing off on the fatbike. But we'll get to that later.

Censored.

Brian had joined us for a short section of pavement

Temps were in the low 40s, sunny, and for the most part dry except for the occasional melting of snow piles in the suburban neighborhoods. Paul swung by my place and we rode out to Greg's new dig before meeting up with the group. Two Andys, Jim, Aaron, Chris, Paul, Greg, and myself made our way slowly out to Ponderosa Bar where Brian met up with us for some beer and food. Service was great and the food filled our hungry bellies. We were known as the bikers that stopped in. Jokes were made amongst the locals in the bar, but that was to be expected in a small town bar.

Empty desolate gravel roads

It was a fun group of riders out

Our halfway meeting point

As for the entertainment of the ride, I assume full responsibility for being clown of the day. I was leading the ride back and decided that I was missing me some snow rides. Probably going between 7-13 mph, I veered off the pavement and meant to cruise over the crusty snow. The goal was to then end up back on the road. I did end up back on the road, but not in the way I was hoping. After about 7 feet of riding in the snow, my front tire got buried and stuck in the deeper than expected snow. I wasn't a physics major, but I know about the Laws of Motion. And my body was in motion! But my bike was not. A split second later, I found myself upside down in the snow and both of my feet clipped into an upside down fatbike. Seven riders behind me in disbelief as I just start laughing. Luckily I landed in snow and it was a soft landing. Come on guys, we're not new to snow riding and practice makes perfect (landings that is!).

You can see my shadow on the bottom left, I was taking aim and in position for the snow pile ahead. Just cruise right over the crunchy "packed" snow.

Paul was kind enough to offer me some medicine for my troubles.

You can see where my front tire stopped on the right side. About three feet in front of it is where I landed. See the small indentation? Yeah, that's my snow angel for the day.

I was fine and my bike was fine. Was the GoPro running? NO. Dangit. I was taking video all day and had gotten bored with hitting the trigger button. So I just put it on automatic picture mode every 10 seconds. Dangit. It actually crossed my mind to reenact the stupid stunt. Yeah, starving for attention or just plain stupidity. Neither, I just wanted to see myself flip over on my bike from a first person view. But my ego was bruised and I still couldn't believe what had just happened. So we continued our 9 mile ride back. A few miles left and my legs were beginning to cramp. Six hours and 27 miles later, I had made it back home. I proceeded to sleep from 7pm until 2am. Missed the 500th episode of the Simpson. What perfect timing for a seven hour nap!

Gravel grinders!

A leftover cookie from work was awaiting me in my kitchen 

One gravel ride a year is good enough for me. But as much fun as we had as a group, I would definitely do it again.

Our ride out from Greg's neighborhood. Pretty cool because this tracks your altitude.




And this was our way back home, until my phone died. At first I thought it marked my endo, wouldn't that be funny, on Endomondo, the app I use on my phone.