Mountain Biking Tahoe: Haus Von Fat is Phat!! (Oct 10, 2014)

Tahoe is mountain bike (and skiing, climbing, hiking, trail running) heaven (... why don't I live up there?) BTW, for those who haven't been... Haus von Fat is big time... as in the majors. Well done boys.  That place rocks, thanx for hosting us!  

a quick recap of the weekend activities:

Fri: After a short beach time at Kiva Beach, Toro and I rode Hawley Grade to Toads to HvF.

Sat: Barrett, Metres, Hauser, Toro and I did a similar, longer ride.  

Sun: the Metres and the Kuwabaras went up to see the Galbraiths at Sugar Pine Point.  

Kai and Mingie riding a skinny...

at Kiva beach on Fri

Nikko breakdancing

Somewhere on Toads... it almost looks like Toro is on a uni

Toro killing it down the most technical section of Toads... 

Sat... Barrett "the steam roller" rollin' over/through/past boulders like it's his second job...

Sundog!

meanwhile... at the beach... it was bum tanning time.

Metres, making the leaves look pretty... 

a gif from Barrett... this was the most colorful section of the ride.  The fall colors were going off!

Meiss Meadow? 

Meadow world from the pano above...

Hauser trying out Barrett's bike

so purty

another shot stolen from Barret

at Armstrong pass we took a quick break to loosen up before our downhill

...

Upper Corral trail has some fun features... Metres riding granite

And Lower Corral has some big features... here's Toro NOT going for it and hitting the smaller feature.

back at HvF, D was cracking Sierra up...

and vise versa

Ol' Unkle Funkle tweaked his back sitting in his office chair... so he skipped the ride.  But he did some yardwork and rode the uni instead!  Woohoo...

we all stayed outside as there was tension inside... Kimbo's Tigers were losing... and you  need to keep some distance between you and a scary tiger...

Kai showed me around on some of the local trails...

right back to his favorite log ride... which was his train track with a station in the middle.

dinner time!

we all turned into vampires and started feasting...

Nikko was happy to be back at the beach for the 3rd day in a row!  Didn't take any pics, but hung out infront of Hellman's Mansion at Sugar pine Pt.  

Weekly Pano: E. Buttress of El Cap

Nick at a hanging belay near the top of the East Buttress of El Cap.  Trip report coming soon!

Weekly Pano: Loon Lake moonscape... with fuzzy blue alien baby!

Where's Nikko?  More pics from Loon Lake to follow...

Weekly Pano: Tandem ride to GG Bridge!

Had a wonderful overnight date night with Kimbo.  Kev & Laura took Nikko, while Kai spent the night snuggling with Mia.  So we got to sleep in, have brunch, and dust off our tandem and do the Strawberry Loop!  We stopped by Golden Gate market for a sandwich and ate it off the fishing pier at Horseshoe Bay on an beautiful day.  I was tempted to jump off the pier.

Yosemite!

check out that good looking crew!

Bikes are definitely the way to go in Yosemite if you want to have no plans and cruise around this magisterial valley.  We had another fun, albeit wet, weekend in Yosemite with the Mort-oebes and the Weavers.  Both nights it rained, but at least the rain let up during the day.  We biked around the valley on Sat, and did a short hike on Sun.  After the bike ride, during Nikko's naptime, I got to go on a short run around mirror lake, while Kimbo and Kevin watched some college football while Kai slept poorly on Kimbo's back.  Sunday, we tramped up to Vernal Falls viewpoint, followed by a visit to Curry Village for pizza.  

Fri night... before the arrival of rain... Kenji is ready!

Nikko turned into a werewolf... it looks like he's breathing fire out of Sophie...

Our camp!  The tarps were key.  We could've used a few more even...

Nikko was bundled up for most of the weekend... it wasn't that cold, but it was cold...

Chiyo turned into a manta ray...

Teamwork pushing the kids up the hill to Mirror Lake

sleeping happy kiddos...

10 pt buck

Kai likes to share seats...

Morton photobombing Kai and Zoe's romantic fireside chat.

hiking!

what a good lookin' fam!  but where is the water?

my usual pose after a long-ish hike...

Kai riding through the puddles!  Weee!

Another surfski commute...

This time, I felt a lot better on my surfski.  Maybe I'm improving, maybe the conditions were better... who knows?  It sure gave me a bit more confidence, and I'm hoping that I'll start to see improvement slowly, but steadily...

Also, knowing that remounting is so easy, and the water actually is quite tolerable helped me with my confidence.  I can't wait to get back on the surfski with the wind on my back again...

I think reading articles and watching videos like this one: https://vimeo.com/84523848 gave me a sense of what to do.  There is a TON of technique in surfski-ing... and being able to "read" the water is something that comes with practice.  On the way home, I was quite tired, but I still managed to average 5.2 mph during the windiest section.

http://www.strava.com/activities/201689774/analysis/110/481 

After that I slowed down as I was getting really tired, but I felt quite comfortable on the surfski, a lot more stable than last time, which let me focus on paddling.

other links
http://kayakcoaching.com.au/media/TMSM_Article_-_Downwind.pdf

Doran Beach! (Sept 19, 2014) Happy B-day Kimbo!!!

Doran Beach is a 2 mile long sandy, south facing beach at Bodega Bay.  The park is located on a long peninsula with a beach on one side and bodega harbor on the other.  So every campsite is within a stone's throw away from water.  In fact where we camped I could put in Alexis' SUP on one side and paddle around the jetty to the other side quite quickly.  It made for multiple short sessions on the SUP.  Good times.

From what I hear it it always windy here.  And there was some wind when we were there, but not even enough to fly a kite, so it didn't bother us.  I've heard a lot of horror stories about the wind here...

The beach is semi-protected, and I guess when there is a big south swell, you can actually get waves big enough to surf here, but when we were there we didn't see any surfable waves.  It made it easy to get in and out on your kayak or SUP.  I cruised out to Bodega Rock multiple times to check out the seal/sea lions... once you get past Bodega Head, the water gets quite choppy...

Next time...

• Kayak from Tomales Bay... that'd be awesome... and not very far... 
• climbing at Goat Rock?
• surfing at Salmon Creek
• Bodega Dunes?
• Whale Watching?
• go hiking around Bodega Head

after setting up our tent, we went to check out the beach... a 100 yards away!

Here's the preferred mode of transport for the Kuwabara men... note the beer in my hand.  I just need to practice shucking an oyster at the same time.  

courtesy of Bodega Bay Oyster Co.  

After setting up camp, we went back to Valley Ford for Happy Hour at Rocker Oysterfeller's.  The fish tacos got two thumbs up!  

Kai and Goat...

Nikko is making faces...

Dragon Wagon arrives with much fanfare!!!

this is what we did all day... it was awesome.  

around naptime, this Schnoodle decided he wanted to be chariot-ed around... so Durbo and I went on a run to put him down.

Sandbox + music = heaven...

Emerson showing off his skilz

Alex caught a fish on his kayak.  He's got an amazing kayak fishing set up... note: upon nuclear disaster, look for Alex.  

Nikko is getting study enough to do this!  And he giggles every time I catch him.  The one time I didn't catch him.... he didn't giggle (just kidding... of course)

This is a pretty bad vid... but Kate brought back the Spank Machine... so I had to attempt to document... 

Near camp, there were plenty of amazing trees to climb...

And Kai and I went on a short tour before departing on Sun...

on the drive home, all the boys slept (including Mingus)... Nikko and Kai took a quick bath while I unpacked... and soon...

we were at J. Miller listening to Ozomatli!  We stopped by the Mirthwood on the way home for pizza and beers, and finally went home to call it a night.  A happy, happy B-day to Kimbo.