karmic, no?

I was a bit bummed earlier this month to see a good fly fishing ezine go down the drain, now what the interweb tubes taketh away, so giveth this day:

Sleeping In The Dirt debut issue. Let's all get behind this new endeavor, see if we can persuade Aaron to keep her going.

rolling to the river

 like the way this guy rolls to the river

a blue place

 





I imagine everyone has that special place they like to go to when things get  a bit tough. Say you're suffering thru some dental work, a boring seminar, or yet another snowstorm in the offseason, you might let yourself drift off to that special somewhere to see you thru the moment. 




 








Around here, we call it my Blue Place...

 






Recently I was combing thru some of my photos from fishing trips past, in an effort to bring some blue-place serenity into the ole office, and came across a series of pictures that absolutely define my Blue Place.

 









A remote, rugged, nearly inaccessible cutthroat stream, far off the beaten path. 

 



Maybe not as great fishing as can be found in its brothers and sisters, however this bit of heaven has all the important ingredients in just the right proportions to make it my Blue Place.

Nuf said, I'll let the pictures do the talkin'~

dream machine 2010

The boys of Dream Machine Workshops opened up the garage again this weekend, piecing together 2010's entry into the pinewood derby.

Body sculpting

Assembly begins

Wheels on!

Chassis complete

The Dark Knight, unveiled!

drivers start your engines!

Designer/mechanic/driver

The team is proud to announce this year's entry was able to bring home some hardware, all in the heat of stiff competition! Good work Wolves of Pack 450!

Wolfpack 2010

good morning!

snow falling this morning as this week's third storm hangs around for another day. Looks like a good weekend for coffee, kids basketball, pinewood derby. In that order~

sunshiny winter's day

The good folks at Over The Bars studios help you shake off that Seasonal Affectation Disorder.

Rx: sunshiny blue skies+flowy singletrack+good company=F.U.N.

today's ride

Weather was absolutely beautiful this weekend, bringing out the springtime optimist in yours truly. I postponed a fishing trip I was mulling around to instead capture this golden opportunity to get the kids back up into the north foothills on the bikes, figuring the tread might be just about right after all the fine weather this week.

Not so fast my friend! There's still a good deal of melting snow up there: many of the northern exposures were either a sheet of ice or mud, take your pick. The topside of Snake proved a muddy mess, I felt a twinge of regret taking the youngsters down that line. Understand it will recover, just as it does every year. But the kids need to learn the ethics of the sport, so I took a minute to explain the situation, and why we needed to find drier tread. What we need up there is a good rain to melt the remaining snow, allow it to drain off.


In the meantime, we spent most of our time playing around on the snaky trails in the middle of Elena Gallegos. The kids, shoot all three of us to tell the truth, had a ball blasting down Snake, to then circle around back uphill to run it all over again. Like, three times!

As I sit writing this post, reliving today's fun, I am all the more aware I enjoy watching my kids' skills grow in a sport I love, just as much as I enjoy ripping a good run myself.


Lately, the boy has taken to bunny-hopping the dirt water bars, while the girl still prides herself on conquering each ascent of Blow Chunks Hill, dab free.


There were times today when I would catch looks of astonishment on the faces of passers by, or slow up to receive their compliments, as the kids offered their apologies and continued on their downhill run. At those moments I thought myself in agreement with their sentiments: you can't teach that kind of enthusiasm for biking, for life really.


But thinking back on it a bit more as I write this, I'm thinking maybe I had a hand in that after all.

and then there were two

One of my fav ezines, Fish Can't Read: sold down the river, bummer.

Greetings to all of our Friends and Subscribers.

On one hand we’re sad to announce that Fish Can’t Read has been sold and will no longer be published by the Fish Can’t Read and Dry Fly Media teams.

To those of you have read and enjoyed the magazine it has truly been our honor and pleasure to have had you along on our short journey.

At this point in time the new owners have not shared with us their immediate plans for resumption of publication of the magazine.

We wish you all the best this upcoming season –

Tight Lines –

The Fish Can’t Read Team

this just made me laff

I bike to work most every day, the above boulevard outside my office is the one sketchy crossing I make. Not unusual for me to sit waiting for light to change, with most cars blasting by @ 50-55mph, 15-20mph over speed limit.

Soooo, I'm crunching a bunch of shop dwgs this afternoon, look up out the window to see what must be half of ABQ's police force in the parking lot across the street, cherry picking off the speeders. They literally have 5-6 officers taking turns on speed guns, to walk out and direct the offender into the lot, proceed to issue the ticket. Next officer steps up: wash, rinse, repeat. Like shooting fish in a barrel, they had as many as 9 cars in the parking lot queue waiting for their tickets, not once did a squad car give chase. Good day's work I would say.

EDIT: 4.50pm- the guys in the office reporting 52 total tickets issued, 2 escapees, 2 perps arrested. Here ya go fellas~

Elvis rides!

Those guys at Over The Bars studios were at it again this weekend, working tirelessly to hone their craft. Such dedication!


Lessons learned:

I made a bunch of runs down the same powerline trail in ABQ Foothills South. Used a different gopro mount on each run: chest, helmet, seatpost mount. Did not use the handlebar mount, as I wanted some rider reference in the footage. (Note to self: the handlebar mount seems best option for filming the roughrider team: next project?) Last, I sprinkled in some gorillapod shots with the point&shoot to mix it up.

The helmet cam footage didn't cut the mustard, I look like Gigantor due to wide-angle lens. (I can hear you snickering out there, not nice!) I could also adapt the seatpost mount onto the chainstay, try that, but that would leave the camera hanging out there to catch trailside hazards.


The AVS4You editing software allows you to dovetail music, raw film, special effects all together, you see a sound wave graphic of the soundtrack that makes queuing transitions spot on- you'll see what I mean.

Most importantly, AVS allows you to split and splice footage. I split the chestmount footage in a coupla spots, spliced in other viewpoints that when done, pick up the main footage where we left off. Cool, no?


Next up, fly fishing? San Juan is a callin'~

stoking the fires

Better than most everything you'll find on the racks:
Catch Magazine, Issue #9 January 2010

in the land of cutthroats

wow

In the Land of the Cutthroats - Trailer from Reel Escape Films on Vimeo.

bad day at the office

hat tip: Whiskey Creek Fly Fishing

Shadow Racing

We here at Dry Flies & Fat Tires are honored to announce our site's selection to host the World Premier Video: Shadow Racing ABQ. Schweet! Many thanks to those fine folks at Over The Bars Studios for this exclusive opportunity. We're thinking this vid is a shoo-in for this year's Peabody Awards, whaddayall think?

Now that's what I'm talkinaboud!

Cranked thru ABQ Foothills South trail network again on Sunday, Saturday's footage fell victim to dead batteries, basic operator difficulty (BOD), sheesh. What a difference a bit of experience with the Hero and edit software makes, ya think?

Lessons learned:

Jury-rigged the gorillapod to my camelbak shoulder strap, upside down. Of the 90min ride, I spliced together only the longer downhill runs, leaving approx 10 min on cutting room floor. There is one blasting 1.5 mile run that times at 6.5 minutes, but not enuf serpentine to make it into the vid. By varying viewpoints and mixing stationary and helmet cam shots, I think we're in for more diverse and interesting vids in future~ stay tuned!

Revise & Resubmit

Wow, that didn't take long. Senior editor got ahold of my resolutions post, looks like an addendum is forthcoming, sigh~

resolutions

Those of you who know me know also I don't put as much stock into personal character growth as warranted- just ask Mrs Wulff, bless her. Yep, I remain an unrepentant schemer at heart, so it will come as no surprise to see my new year's resolution list heavy on the fun stuff, if a bit light on the stuff that really needs fixin period. One can dream, no?

• Fish Spring cuttbows on the Rio~ been a coupla years since my last trip up that way, been wondering how my old friends are doing.

• Resume the annual Arkansas Caddis trip with my Dad~ mtb got in the way last year, thinking I just might bring the boy this year: 3 generations of Wulffs pounding the water, now that'd be a force to be reckoned with!

• Run the Bolder Boulder 10K~ sample some Front Range mtb trails while we’re at it (see always scheming!)
  
• Fish the Gunnison’s giant stone hatch~ been threatening this for some time, will this finally be the year?
• Ride Moab~ last year’s trip proved a mere shakedown cruise, leaving an itch not yet scratched, hate that!
  
• Explore the Continental Divide via mtb~ will be scheming this all winter long, believe you me.
• Pull my big bro down for some cutthroat fishing~ think I will lure him away from his Front Range favorites this year, show him around some of my favorite haunts.
• Ride the South Boundary Trail, Taos NM~ have not yet, rather abashed at the oversight.
  
• Explore that certain blue squiggle below the Divide~ again, will be scheming this all winter. Let’s just say it involves a bit of mtb to jump-off point, mountain goat bushwhack to above the falls, high alpine meadow, cutthroat headwaters that drain the Divide. I know!
  
• Fish Fall browns on the Rio~ mtb got in the way last fall, looking to repeat some heart-skipping takes in the depths of the gorge.

• Ride Sedona~ extended Wulffpack reunion brewing this year over Christmas, Sedona just might fit the bill. You know I heard they have great shopping, galleries, restaurants, did I mention the redrock mtb trails? (what me, scheming again? I'm just thinking of the children...!)
  

Field Testing: Hero #1

RE: Hero cam testing.

conducted some street and trail testing to get a handle on the new helmet cam. While I await the proper bike mounts to be delivered, I jury-rigged up the gorillapod for mounting on the bike stem, results follow.


Lessons Learned:
Cons:

• gorillapod mount on the stem proved chattery, unstable: need better mount.

• audio is tinny, shouldn't prove to be a real problem as I'll audio overlay anyway.

• avoid low sun angles, which washes the vid out.

• focal length proves to be out to maybe 15-20 yards, any farther and the subjects prove too small to view.

• battery hog: burned thru rechargeable AAA nimh batteries in 2 hours: need LI batteries that are on order.

Pros:

• the capture is pretty smooth at speed.

• Color and focus seem good.

• fisheye aperture gives good representation of surrounds, no tunnel effect.

• Totally hands free capture.

• Recorded 90min of vid before batteries ran out, schweet.

Have an idea for chest-mounting the gorillapod onto my camelbak strap, seems to be much more stable, try that out tomorrow.

EDIT: playing around with vid edit software. Amazing what a heroic score will do to mask mediocre riding, huh? FYI that is indeed my theme music when I ride- lol.

Area 51: GoPro Hero helmet cam

This installment of Area 51 highlights the Gopro Hero Wide helmet cam, most generously  brought to you by the Wulffpack's Alphas.  In my quest to make 2010 the year of the video, this little beaut will go a long way to raising the bar!  

The Hero is much smaller than might otherwise appear, 3" x 2", and sports a 170d aperture.  Cam mounts include vehicle suction cup, mtb helmet, mtb handlebar/seatpost, and sternum strap.  Camera comes complete with waterproof housing, reportedly safe to 100': should come in handy for those unscripted dunkings, no?   4GB SD card stores 100 min of video or 3000 5MP stills.

Chest mounting should work well for handsfree casting and capturing the rise, take (yes I do manage those once in a while). Waterproof housing and 170d aperture will improve underwater filming as well.  Last, bike mount options along with the gorillapod tripod will improve mtb filming, esp ripping down trails: no more precarious one-handed filming!

My first attempt to publish field tests proved unsuccessful, editor Mrs Wulff insisting house chores do not rise to the level of professional standards, helmet cam or no.  Look for more comprehensive field testing throughout 2010!