Semi-Retirement Moves Us South

Uncle Raul spared no expense in 1st class transportation for our guests.

Over the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's holidays, we will be spending time in Oklahoma, Texas and then jump the puddle to Colombia.
Two weeks in the Sooner State have lead to rides on the Big Top through Post oak singletracks with  sandy washes,  man-built downhills and rooty switchbacks. Major efforts dodging poison ivy, sand burrs and needle grass thrown in.   Thunderbird State Park near Norman showed me a surprising maze of single track that wound endlessly through the Little River drainage basin in central Oklahoma. Trail building skills and efforts  here are much appreciated and come at a much greater costs than following a natural fall line in the Rockies.

What the state lacks in elevation is made up by traversing multiple canyons with 2x4 supplemented drops and red dirt landings. The roller-coaster single tracks are a soothing diversion from Front Range babyhead and waterbar dodging trails and high altitude panting.

Back for a family Christmas  and south again to Dallas with son Joshua and daughter-in-law Lilly.  Next stop,  Bogota, Columbia where the couple joined together in a Catholic church sanctioned ceremony.  Mountain bike riding there was limited to dirt trails in Simon Bolivar park on a rigid hardtail without clip-in pedals.  Was a blast to spin mountain bike rubber on my 3rd continent.

Big city riding means park trails and good company.  Daughter-in-law Lilybeth and her sister Laura kept me honest.

Back again in the states and contemplating a serious race season for 2012.