After roughly sixteen hours of biking the 200 km Fat Pursuit in the Rocky Mountain winter, when falling snow began to rapidly accumulate during the long, dark climb up Two Top Mountain, the going got rough soft. So soft, in fact, that “riding” might be too generous a term for what I was doing. It was actually more like plodding, weaving, wobbling, spinning…and crashing. And, I’d say I got quite good at it....
The last time I saw Matt Beedle was a dozen years ago at his wedding. I was a newlywed myself and Kate was pregnant with Luke at the time. My third year of seminary was about to start and, as such, Matt and Amy figured I had been trained up enough to preach the homily. If I recall, the Gospel that day was the story of the transfiguration on the mountaintop – a fitting theme for our relationship....
Each year Christ Episcopal Church in Little Rock holds a parish retreat. We pack up the boardgames, books, and kids and head up to Petit Jean Mountain for a little R & R with good folks and food. There is always a teaching component built in to the weekend schedule usually with a topic of current personal interest to a member of the clergy. And this year, fresh off his sabbatical in the UK, the rector introduced us to a little-known gem he discovered: The Idler Academy....
After successfully running tubeless tires on my Salsa Fargo for many miles, I have fully embraced the tubeless movement. I had only ONE flat on the entire 2700-mile Tour Divide last year, and that happened just 300 miles from Antelope Wells (the sealant held the puncture until 40 miles from the finish, when I finally threw in a tube). These days it’s actually hard to ignore the merits of “going tubeless....
“Now that’s a water source right there,” said Sam as we sped over Bread Creek. That was the fourth or fifth creek that Sam had designated a “water source” after only twenty miles or so of twisting, turning, and climbing through the backroads around Lake Sylvia. It’s not that he was running out of water. We had only been out for a couple hours. No, like any good gear connoisseur, he was just itching to break in his brand new Grail water filter....