Turner and Garrett OR The Last Run

I'd been waiting for this weekend for awhile now. I've been waiting to buy a new bike. I started by getting together what I thought I wanted. Test rode some bikes, read hundreds of reviews. Visited dozens of stores. Talked to twice as many mechanics and sales people. Changed my mind thousands of times. Finally I just Called Dave at Redstone Cyclery and ordered it up.
I had to wait about two weeks for it to come in and get built up. The second week was the toughest. Honestly there were nights I couldn't sleep. I made arrangements to pick up on Saturday so we could go ride up at Keystone for there last lift day of 2010. Saturday morning we got up and went to Jake's Football game. It was 43degrees and very foggy. Great football watching weather, bad bike riding weather. Dad said it was just in Nebraska and that Colorado would be fine. So we sat and watched Jake's team obliterate Gering, eat a bit of celebratory Oya and hit the road.

We made it up to Lyon's in record time.(but not too fast) Dave had the bike ready and waiting. A brand new, shiny red, 2010 Turner Five Spot. We added some pedals, adjusted the sag and he explained some of the "new tech" to me. There's a lot that was new to me. No rotor bolts, 15mm threaded axle, propedal settings, etc.. I knew some of the suspension set up, but it's a lot different doing it then reading about it. We bought a few new bits for bikes and a fine pair of Old Chub socks, then headed to Hall Ranch trail. Got to the trail head and suited up to ride. I couldn't wait to get the bike on the trail. We had to wait just a little while for Joab to adjust his new grips. Once that was done we were on our way. Other then the horses, Halls was a blast. I few thru rock sections I wouldn't have thought about doing on the Dekerf or FSR. Afterwords we hit Oscar Blues for the required post ride meal. If you have never eaten at Oscar Blues your doing yourself a huge disservice. Great service, food and BEER! We came down out of the hills and stayed the night at Motel 6 in Fort Collins. Great place to grab some zzzz's.

Next morning we were up early because we needed to pick up Joabs Christmas present. My trusty Droid took me straight to the spot. I handed over the cash and showed Joab his Christmas present. A banana yellow size small santa cruz superlite. It needs a few bits(whole build) but come next season it'll be ready. We made a quick stop at Starbucks for a little pre-ride coffee. Made a quick drive up to Keystone, enjoying the fall colors the whole way up.

 Got to the super secret parking spot(according to Mike)and Joab jumped out and ran do the stream that runs in front of the slopes. By the time we had gotten back to the car Mike was there. We set up the bikes, chit chatted and deliberated on if we should wear a long sleeve shirt for a run or two. It was warming up fast so I decided not too. We went and picked up our lift tickets and then had a look thru the bike shop as we waited for the lifts to open. Once the lifts started spinning they took mostly the hikers to the top, before the Mtn.Bikers. We got to the top in short order. The weather was much much better then the weekend Joab and I come up and did one run. Sunny and warm. Well with out wasting much time I almost automatically injured myself. I laid the bike out in some loose gravel and opened up my left knee pretty well.

 I picked myself up and dusted off before I could really start feeling the pain and headed down the trail. Me crashing that quickly shook Joab up a little bit. Kid has a heart of gold. Kept asking if I was ok, if I needed to stop, was I ok, do we need to bandage it, so on and so forth. I just let it bleed and periodically rinsed water over it. Turns out my Turner's color matches my blood! We rode the rest of the day with out a crash. We had one little incident with a idiot that thought Joab should be on a easier slope. Again that rattled him a bit but he was fine after a bit.

 Next to last run I pinch flatted and ended up walking to the gondola to go get back down. We replaced the tube and went up and took one last run. One wouldn't believe coming DOWN a mountain would be so much work. We packed up and headed home. We got off in Georgetown and picked up some snacks and caffeine. The minute we got back on the interstate traffic locked up. Took us a hour to go 5 miles. Joab was a chatter box till Sterling. Then like a switch being flipped he was silent. Everything from the day finally caught up with him. It was a great time. Something I can't wait to repeat next year.