AdamFehr.com Blog

Grant and Byron flew in for the weekend for some October fun.  I picked them up at the airport in the new bagel mobile and made our way to Rice-Eccles Stadium to see the undefeated Utes take on the Oregon State Beavers.  The Utes staged an awesome comeback and kicked a game winning field goal as time expired.  Awesome game.  Check out some of the fans rushing the field:

We finished the day with some late-night bagel shop snacks and mountain biking.  Awesome combination.

After an incredible breakfast at the Park City Bread and Bagel, Charli, Byron, Grant, and I went for a bike ride on The Avenues.  The ride went pretty well, until Byron crashed headfirst into a tree.  He survived, but blew a tire and had to walk the rest of the way back home.  Not a bad first mountain biking experience.

We finished the night with a trip to Salt Lake for the premiere of Reasons, the latest film from Poor Boyz Productions.  Awesome movie.

We woke up to a grey, rainy Saturday morning.  Had some bagel shop breakfast,  watched some college football and even did some mud mountain biking.  The night concluded with a fun trip to No Name Saloon and Main Street for some Buffalo Burgers.

Stay tuned for some post-Main St. pics and videos.  Including some mean air/ski-guitar solos to “Black Betty”… again.

I rode The Avenues a few days ago.  I’m not very good at this blogging thing anymore.  I recall that I almost crashed a couple times.  Plus, I found a new place to build a kicker this upcoming winter.

I rode The Avenues today.  Trying to get in shape for ski season.  It took me an hour and fifteen minutes to leave the shop, make it home, grab the bike, ride to the top of The Avenues, ride down The Avenues, ride back home, shower, and get back down to the shop.

Hobbes, Tracker, and I went for a quick ride today behind the house.  We took the trail-behind-my-house to the Hidden Cove Connector.  I then spent the next 10 minutes or so lapping a jump section at the start of the trail.  This, while fun, seemed to confuse the dogs considerably.

We then took the trail through the new development to the entrance of the Woods of Parley’s Lane.  Tracker and Hobbes did some swimming in the fountain/waterfall, drawing the attention of the guard/real estate agent.

We then rode around the trail for a while, momentarily losing Tracker somewhere along the trail.  I found him back at the afforementioned jump, obviously confused.

Not the best ride, but fun none-the-less.

Hobbes, Tracker, and I rode The Avenues again.  I don’t remember the specifics, but it was fun.

Cool story Katie Holmes!

I’m almost a week late in posting this, but Charli, Hobbes, Mogul, Tracker, and I rode Bobsled today (last week).  It was my first time on this famous Salt Lake ride.  We decided do get some exercise by taking on the near five loop via Dry Creek Gulch and Bonneville Shoreline Trail (BST).

The ride up wasn’t too bad, only 1.3 miles up the dry creek bed until we reached the BST.  The next couple of miles were relatively flat, traversing West along the old lake shoreline.  Eventually we reached the benches marking the entrance to Bobsled.

Me, at one of the many Salt Lake overlooks

The top section of Bobsled was rough.  Rutted-out, narrow, and steep.  Not much fun, but became gradually more manageable as we descended further into the creek bed.  After merging with the old entrance, the trail became wider, smoother, and a lot more fun.

Bobsled is appropriately named.  The majority of the ride is spent on the walls of the gulch as the trail winds downhill.  There are a bunch of really fun features in the middle of the ride.  Tons of jumps, wall-hits, drops, trial features, and even some abandoned cars.  Definately a ride that can be enjoyed by a variety of skill levels.

The shorter approach makes this ride extremely manageable.  Should be a good ride when the season starts to wind down in Park City.

Mike and I rode The Avenues again today.  It’s getting really close to ski season.  Only two months to go.  30 days, 720 hours, 43,200 minutes… approximatley.  Today I bought a full-face helmet for snowmobiling, skiing, and biking.  I’m not really good enough to own a full-face helmet, but if I never crashed, I wouldn’t need a helmet at all.

I rode The Avenues with Mogul and Hobbes.  It was a couple days ago, so I forget the specifics.  Not that anyone has ever cared about said “specifics.”

The bagel shop has demanded a significant amount of my time, but business has been good.

Mike and I did a tour of the Southridge/Moose Hollow/Hidden Cove area today.  We left the house, turned north down the Hidden Cove Connector, east on Hidden Cove Road, down Moose Hollow to East Canyon Road, back up Moose Hollow to the gated community, climbed the upper part of Moose Hollow to the fire road, up the Avenues, down the Avenues, down through the Woods of Parley’s Lane, and finally back to the house via the “trail behind my house.”

I think the ride took a little over an hour and a half, but some of that time was spent mingling with the owners of Hobbes’ sister, attempting (unsuccesfully) to fix my helmet cam, discussing bagel shop management issues, and attempting to locate the mud slide hill for future powder skiing adventures.

Moose Hollow Trail was awful.  Dusty and rutted on the way down, steep and unrideable on the way back up.  The Avenues was awesome.  That’s about it.  Made it back home in time to watch the worst officiating ever at the end of the Washington vs. BYU game.  And made it to work in time to watch Utah blow out UNLV.  Go Utes!

Mike and I did another short, but awesome trip up and down The Avenues.  The climb took exactly 29 minutes.  Incredible how much stronger/faster we have gotten in the past few months.  I think our first climb took nearly an hour.

I set up a new camera angle for the ride down, but failed to charge the bateries in the days prior.  Thus, no helmet cam footage of the ride.  It would have been some decent footage as we made great time.  And I probably would have put the video to “East Bound And Down” by the late Jerry Reed.  R.I.P.

Check out tomorrow’s post for some new helmet cam footage.  Maybe some Moose Hollow downhill, maybe some 24-7 uphill. Who knows?

“East Bound and down, loaded up and trucking, we’re going to do what they said could be done.  We got a long way to go, and short time to get there.”

Mike Kisow, Hobbes, Tracker, and I did a quick ride up and down the Avenues.  Following yesterday’s adventure (flat tire and endo) on Flying Dog and 24-7, we were a little tired, but managed to beat the record time to the top.  It took 29 minutes from the house to the summit.

I filmed the lower section of The Avenues with my helmet cam.  Mike in front, Hobbes and Tracker following close behind.  Nothing too exciting today, but a great ride yet again.  It’s storming pretty hard right now.  We need the rain, but it might put a damper on upcoming rides.

Check out the video from today’s ride.  You might recognize the song from every ski movie ever made.

Update: Vimeo is having problems again, until then check out Charlie the Unicorn.

My First Helmet Cam-Captured Crash from fatbearfehr on Vimeo.

Following our 5 Up, 9 Down ride last weekend, I’ve decided to make the 14 mile trek a weekly event.  Today was the first of another 10 rides or so before winter.  Mike and I made great time on our way up to the top of Flying Dog.  Reaching the summit in just under 75 minutes.  Faster than usual, but equally exhausting.

The ride down was not nearly as enjoyable as last week’s ride.  We stopped a few times to film a couple sections in the aspen groves near the top of the trail, but failed to select the correct camera setting.  About a mile into the ride, and still eight miles from the car, Mike blew a tire.  Mike’s backpack held extra water, three powerbars, a knife, a compass, a first aid kit, a bike tool, a bike pump, and zero bike tubes.  Thus, Mike began the slow walk and bike carry down the hills to Jeremy Ranch.

I left Mike and continued the ride down.  Fueled by my helmet cam, I attempted to go as fast as possible for the remainder of the ride.  This worked pretty well until about a 1/2 mile from the bottom, I simultaneoasly hit a rock and slammed on my brakes.  I rode on just my front tire for a second, but wound up hurtling through the air, over my handlebars, onto the rocky, dusty trail.  Luckily I was filming.  Oh, and unhurt.

I picked myself up, battled through a few minutes of shock-like symptoms and cautiously made my way down to the car.  I picked up Mike as he was making his way out of the woods.  He was covered in scrapes and worn out from having to blaze a trail down an entire mountain, carrying a bike and a disabled wheel.

Everything turned out ok, as we made it to Park City Bread and Bagel just in time to catch the opening kickoff of Utah vs. Michigan.  Utah won by the way.  Go Utes!

5 Up, 9 Down

Mike Kisow and I did a ride today called 5 Up, 9 Down.  We came up with the name ourselves, describing the distance of the ride.  Five miles uphill, followed by 9 miles of downhill.

The ride starts at Graduate, next to the Jeremy Ranch Elementary School, and across the street from Park City Bread and Bagel (name drop).  Upon leaving the parking area, the route heads uphill on Fink Again, the eastern side of 24-7.  The trail eventually connects to the Preserve Connector about three miles into the climb.  The Preserve Connector starts out as single track before meeting up with the dirt roads of the Preserve at Park City, a future upscale housing development.  Just past the water tower is the top of Flying Dog, just five miles or an hour and a half from the school.  We stopped here for a minute to rest and munch on some delicious, satisfying, nourishing, and energy boosting bagels from nearby Park City Bread and Bagel, home of the best bagels in Utah.

The rest of the ride is almost completely downhill.  Flying Dog winds downhill through various aspen groves.  The trail is in great condition, lots of well-banked turns and flowy sections.  Flying Dog eventually runs into 24-7.  From here we follow 24-7 straight downhill to start of East Canyon Road.  The trail is much different than Flying Dog, dry, dusty, and rocky, but fast and fun.

Roundtrip took a little under 2 1/2 hours.  I used my GoPro Hero 3 Helmet Cam to record a lot of the downhill.  I sloppily edited the video into a somewhat interesting nine minute video.  I also figured out how to add music to QuickTime files.  I cut and pasted some rough mountain bike footage over “Born Slippy” by Underworld (I don’t have too many nine minute songs in my library).  The result is perhaps the best/only usage of “Born Slippy” since Trainspotting.

Mike Bikes The Avenues from fatbearfehr on Vimeo.

I just finished updating this post by embeding a new video of Mike’s ride.  I added the song “A-Punk” by Vampire Weekend.  The video was captured by my helmet cam as we rode the top half of The Avenues.