27 September 2009

Maybe making amends

I almost never take my camera on bike rides, so I have very few pictures and almost no video footage of my friends and I riding the trails around Flagstaff. A scant few pictures from back-in-the-day have survived.



And there's this old, crappy edit I shot with my Aiptek (at 8 fps) several years ago with my buddy Dave when we went on a cyclocross ride on Mount Elden. It's one of the few videos I have to show for nearly 20 years of riding around here.





But that's really about it. Sad, huh.

I've taken my camera to Sedona on more than one occasion over the years, and some of the stills have come out okay, I guess.



But the only video I have to show for it is this horrible thing. What a mistake, to think my chest-mounted ski-camera apparatus would work while riding. Alas, at least the music is good.

Lately, just about once per weekend, I've been able to get out in the woods with my kid to ride the trailer-bike together. Technically, I didn't bring the camera on these rides either, but I'm grateful to my wife, who hikes along behind us with the dog while we ride out-and-back a few miles, for shooting a few images now and then.

Today we rode about a mile in and out of Pumphouse Wash out behind the Kachina Village area.

However, as of this week, I'm kinda excited to maybe make amends for my lack of good images of our local trails. I've got a plan and a deadline to write a piece for publication on Trailnation.com about riding the trails around here. And I'm kinda especially stoked about it because my editor is sending me one of those fancy helmet-cams so I can add a little multimedia-appeal to the piece. Could be fun. We'll see how it goes.
May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. -- Ed Abbey