First the facts: we braved the heat (90+ degrees) and rode our bikes to the Botanical Gardens for the Khruangbin concert last night. We were there early so there was tons of available bike parking conveniently right near the entrance. It seems like they prioritize getting to the venue via bike so that was really cool. What’s cooler is that a lot of people did go by bike – the bike parking area when we were leaving was totally packed. Amazing. There was a lot of bike/walking traffic on the Greenbelt the first few miles out of the venue, but everyone was cool and with our lights we didn’t have any issues in the dark.

Show details: I was looking forward to the opening band, John Carroll Kirby, even though I didn’t really know anything about them. I just knew they had a guy playing flute so I figured it’d be like a weird jazz fusion thing. It was exactly that and, honestly, it was awesome. I’m usually not a big flute guy lol, but it worked and was so fun (everyone was pretty into it). Probably the perfect opening act for a band like Khruangbin.

As for Khruangbin, I’m still kind of processing it. They played the entire A La Sala album and then a bunch of older stuff afterwards. It was amazing – hard to put into words how tight they are live. DJ on the drums is amazing. Laura on the bass is amazing. And Mark on guitar? Probably up there as one of my favorite guitarists. So. Fucking. Good.

A couple days ago I read an article (can’t remember where it was from) about worthwhile things to spend money on. Live music was number one on the list and I couldn’t agree more. Shows (music, movies, plays, etc.) and books are two things that punch so much above their weight when it comes to value. I’m so thankful that we were able to see them live and will hopefully have the chance to do so in the future. In the meantime, a reminder for myself to go to more shows.

Nice glasses

John Carroll Kirby

Laura Lee

Mark Speer

Khruangbin

Mark and Laura

More Laura

More Mark

Here’s to a good 2025 with lots of bike rides, good books, camping trips, and way less time spent on social media.

Earlier this year I wrote that I wasn’t going to buy a new gravel bike and was just going to ride the Midnight Special all year. Haha, I guess that didn’t work out the way I planned as I ended up replacing nearly every bike we own this summer. So, four new bikes for us this year, which can be viewed as a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you feel about bikes (or budgets).

I sold my road bike (Look 585), my Midnight Special, and both of our mountain bikes (Co-op DRT 2.1). To make up for those emotional losses I bought a Trek Checkpoint gravel bike and Trek Roscoe 8 hardtails for both Heidi and myself. I don’t have any plans to buy a new road bike and have just been using the Checkpoint for any road rides I do. I’m mainly just doing road stuff for fun/fitness (i.e., no group rides) and it’s been working well for that. As for the fourth bike, I picked up a Salsa Fargo and have been using that mainly for bikepacking.

Trek Checkpoint

Salsa Fargo

This refresh was long overdue as my beloved Look was nearly 20 years old and needed some work that was going to cost more than I wanted to spend on it. I don’t know exactly how many miles I put on it over those years, but I’m confident it was well over 50,000. So many training and club rides as well as centuries and double centuries. I spent so many hours on that thing it was kind of hard to see it go. But as they say, “Onwards and upwards….”

I was also sad to get rid of the Midnight Special, as I really liked that bike. I had mainly bought it for gravel riding, but for the type of gravel routes I do on a regular basis, it just wasn’t the right bike. The Checkpoint is so much lighter and has a lot better geometry, which is much more confidence-inspiring on the loose stuff. The Midnight Special was a bit of a deathtrap on steep gravel descents and there are plenty of those in the Boise foothills/mountains. Maybe someday I’ll splurge and get a steel road bike….

Our mountain bikes were seven years old, which I guess is getting up there in age. The real issue more than their age, though, was that they were 27.5+ and we really wanted more modern 29ers. So that’s what we got with the Roscoes, which have proven to be lots of fun so far.

I’ve been wanting a steel dropbar MTB for bikepacking for a while so when REI had the Fargo on sale this summer I decided to pull the trigger on that. The Salsa Fargo is kind of the OG dropbar MTB and it’s probably my favorite bike at the moment. I’m planning on writing more about my new bikepacking setup so I’ll save the details of that for my next post.

None of these are high-end bikes, which is how I prefer to roll these days. I mean, they’re all really solid bikes, but they aren’t terribly expensive/fancy. No carbon frames, no carbon wheels, no electronic shifting. I’m sure in the future I’ll buy a bike with electronic shifting, but I haven’t yet. Not spending a fortune for bikes is nice because, well, obviously it’s cheaper to refresh them when the time comes. Cheaper bikes also aren’t so “precious” that you’re afraid to actually use them. And after a few years when you do inevitably sell them for a loss the amount of money we’re talking about isn’t that great to cause much heartburn.

So a pretty big fail in the yearly plan, but not one I regret. We’ve already put them to good use and have a bunch of miles on all of them. Here’s to a lot more miles in the coming years.

Here’s a stage I did in the Audi quattro during a WRC club rally. I got first in the stage, which was a first for me. Sure, there were only six drivers, but a win’s a win, right? lol

Even though it can be really tricky to drive, I love this car, especially the sound. I’m also really digging the Metro 6R4, which is an unsung hero of the Group B monsters, but am struggling to keep it pointed in the right direction!

Formula 1 was a bit of a snooze fest last year and this year is shaping up to be the same. Red Bull/Max Verstappen is so much better than the rest of the field that the only way it’s an interesting race for the win is if Max crashes out or has some type of mechanical failure. If I were a Max/Red Bull fan this wouldn’t be so terrible, but I’m not and it’s been a bit grating to watch them dominate race after race.

My F1TV subscription is due to renew right after this weekend’s China race and I don’t think I’m going to do it. At least this year. Instead I think I’m going to get Peacock and start watching IndyCar, which I’ve never really followed before. I think the series is a lot more competitive and the races are more exciting. I’ve heard there are a lot of commercials during the coverage, which is a bummer. Conversely, the F1 coverage from F1TV is pretty amazing. You can watch all the practices and qualifying and there are a bunch of race weekend/pre-race shows, etc. And no commercials. But again, if the action is non-existent, it’s not that interesting.

I think I’m also going to give Rally.tv a shot for a month or two. I don’t think watching rallies live is all the interesting, but it might be. I really like watching the Red Bull highlights, but have never watched a full event. We’ll see how that goes.

So unless something crazy happens this weekend in China, I’m probably going to jump off the F1 ship for the greener pastures of IndyCar and WRC. I’ll definitely renew F1TV next year to watch Hamilton at Ferrari, though.