After various annoying errands this morning, I reminded myself that soon enough I would not have more spare time than I could fill, and thus to quit bitching and get out the door.

It was a gorgeous, bluebird day in Montana.

All that, and a remark by Anton Krupicka a while back, got be thinking about the place this outdoor stuff holds in our lives. In my life, anyway. Sometimes, I just don’t know what I’d do without it. To fill the days, with happiness, that is. Watch TV, get fat, and be ornery(er) in Walmart, I suppose.

Let’s try to create a more balanced life without having any thing get too far out of hand.

I had thought about riding up to the Rattlesnake Wilderness and going hiking, even brought extra shoes along, but was drawn sideways by the promise of one of Missoula’s most technical trails (at least according to guidebooks).

A promising start.

I’ve been worried since moving here and away from the land of rocks that my technical edge will get a bit dull, and if this trail is one of the area’s more technical (Bill, please tell me I have this all wrong), then my fears shall be justified. It did indeed have a few steep and skinny sections, and a few rock-ledge-things off which one needed to “drop”, but I didn’t have suspension and everything felt easy. Fun as hell and a brilliant trail, to be sure, but moderate at most.

Oh well, I’ll have to keep railing the miles of wooded skinny. And check out that downhill trail up on Blue Mountain.

Also worth mentioning is my new gearing “experiment”. I haven’t done much riding to the trailhead in the last few years, and as such conventional singlespeed gearing has not been problematic. Spinning 30:18 along 5+ miles of flatish pavement is a nuisance. So, I upgraded. Pulled the Phil 111 bb, installed the stuff I got from Eric. 36:18. Oh baby. Nice on the road, nice on the flat single, a beeatch up the hill. I should have cleaned all the climb up 513. Would’ve under other circumstances, but the spring at 10 mph then die method is not the most efficient. Oh well. I’ll get strong.

Once I got off that sweet descent (48 m/min, Ed!) I was only more fired up to ride, so I headed north up the Rattlesnake road.

It’s 15 miles of scenic road, closed to all motors (except mine, ha!). A great little two track. The Rattlesnake, unlike most capitol W Wilderness areas, requires a good bit of human power to even reach the border. I still haven’t made it in yet, though that’s going to change soon.

We didn’t have this in Arizona.

Time to go home. Out of Tang, out of water, out of PB&J, out of Reese’s Pieces. Civilization at full throttle.

Ahhhhh.