We drove for three days to get to Portland, Oregon to attend a bicycle event on Saturday where they preach about driving less. Aside from the guilt of the large carbon foot print we made to get there and them not serving our preferred beer, it was an awesome time! The TDF is a ballyhoo of bicycles and beer put on by the New Belgium brewery raising money for local bicycle organizations in the cities they are held. Not anti-car but pro-bike. This was our third Tour De Fat in just as many states.
I was surprised that there was not more people at the event with Portland being the bicycle city it is. I believe the TDF's we attended in Ft Collins and Tempe both had a larger turnout. The 6 mile parade ride through downtown Portland was great with the Portland Police blocking traffic the entire route.

Photos from the day here.

Video here...

We had originally planned on taking our mountain bikes to Wyoming to ride a rail-to-trail but the weather didn't look good so we did a 180 with our direction and bikes and went to Galveston, Texas. Spent a couple of days cruising the sea wall along the gulf. We also checked out a great bike shop there called Island Bicycle.

Photos here...

Video ...


Stayed at the new Holiday Inn Express on the Sea Wall. Some of the places we ate at were Gaido's, Yaga's, Fish Tail's and Tortuga. The island was still pretty tore up from the hurricane.

Here's a video from our vacation in California. This was taken while riding along Mission Beach and the San Diego River.

We've been all over the US and even Canada riding rails-to-trails but had still not ridden the one in our own back yard the Prairie Sunset Trail. The trail is still not finished but we decided to ride what segments we could that were open.
We started in Garden Plain. To get to the trail head we exited hi-way 54 to Garden Plain and parked at the Garden Plain Park which is just North of where the trail begins. We rode East for 1 mile and then back. For the first few hundred feet the trail runs alongside the old railroad tracks that are still in place.
Next we hauled the bikes to Goddard where there is a nice trail head/park in the middle of town. Just drive down Main street and it's easy to find. We rode 1 mile West out of Goddard and back, then 2 miles East and back. So total we rode about 8 miles and this appeared to be all that was open.
The trail surface is a nice fine crushed rock that could probably even be ridden on a skinny tired bike. In Goddard the trail is paved. After the ride we ate at Gerrard's on hiway 54 in Goddard.

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Today we attended our 2nd Tour De Fat. This one in Tempe Arizona. The Tour De Fat is a bicycle parade/party/revival put on by the New Belgium Brewery. This is such a fun event!

Photos from the event here.

Videos below...

This was our second time to ride this great trail and our third ride at Leadville. It's a 12 mile paved trail at an elevation near 11000 feet. It loops around the town of Leadville and through several old mining operations including those of the famous Baby Doe Tabor and the Unsinkable Molly Brown. Along the trail there is old mining equipment and markers explaining the history. Afterwards we ate at the Golden Burrow Cafe which is now a tradition. We stayed the night prior and after the ride in Salida. We really should stay in Leadville to 1. contribute to their economy and 2. get better acclimated. Maybe next time.Trail website. More photos here.
We just missed Lance Armstrong by a couple of days. He had been in Leadville to participate in the "Leadville Trail 100" where he took 2nd place to Dave Wiens.



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This is a 36 mile crushed-gravel rail-to-trail that runs between Springfield and Bolivar Missouri.
We were riding the trail out and back for a little over 70 miles and had planned on riding it over a two day period. The weather forecast was predicting rain for the second day so we decided to ride it all in one day. I only made it back to within 6 miles of our truck for a total of 65 miles. At about the 50 mile mark my back started bothering me and got so bad that I was stopping every mile or so to lay flat on the trail to get some relief. Nova went the whole 70+ miles to the truck and came back to get me.
This is a nice riding trail with most of it being in the trees. This ride would probably be most enjoyable as the trees are turning.

Photos here.

Trail website here.