Video: Tiger Mountain Sun

Here's a sunny ride from a few weeks back. These are some highlights from my April 17, 2016 ride on Tiger Mountain.

Mtn Bike Vid: Duthie Hill

Another mountain biking video. Little shorter this time with some footage from October 23, 2015.

These are some of the trails at Duthie Hill Bike Park.

Enjoy.

Stinky Spoke 2016 Signup

The Stinky Spoke, an 18 mile mountain bike ride on the statistically worst weather day of the year, is coming up. The next event is January 23, 2016, in Woodinville, WA.

I've signed up again and have two others who plan to join. Are you up for an 18 mile mountain bike ride with a hill called Heart Attack Hill (300 ft of elevation over a short distance) at the start of the race?

Anyone completing the hill climb without dismounting their bike gets a medal!

Here are videos from previous years:

Mtn Bike Vid: Soaring Eagle

Saturday morning, my buddy Dan and I went for a ride at Soaring Eagle. This is a fun trail system in Sammamish and is a great place to go for some technical riding with a couple short and sweet descents.

Here's a breakdown of the ride as recorded with the Microsoft Band's Ride Tile (App).

GPS Route at Soaring Eagle

Overview of the Ride

Speed Graph

Heart Rate Graph

Elevation Graph

Mile Split Speeds

Here's some footage from the ride. Wait for the end where we hit 18 MPH down the fast #1 trail.

MTB Vid: Tiger Mountain, Fully Rigid to Joyride

Another mountain biking video. This time, the Fully Rigid trail onto Joyride. Both trails on East Tiger Mountain.

This video is also from my first ride on my new Santa Cruz and the first time I rode this trail.

Enjoy.

GoPro Footage: Tiger Mountain Summit Trail

As you probably know, I invested in myself and upgraded my mountain bike to a new Santa Cruz
Tallboy. I purchased the "entry" level Aluminum model.

This past weekend I had my first true mountain bike ride on my new bike and it was awesome. I was also riding a new trail (for me) for the first time, the East Tiger Mountain Summit Trail.

The first 3.5 miles took about an hour as we climbed about 1500 ft to the summit from the parking lot along highway 18. You can see a nice break down of the splits, elevation gain, GPS map, and other details over at MSBandGuru.com with my post Mountain Biking With The Microsoft Band.

I took a lot of video but here's the deal with GoPro, it can be very shaky and removing that does not always work well.

Here is some footage I took (speed up to 2x speed for most of it) that was taken on a handlebar mounted GoPro. It is very shaky.

For my next ride I will be experimenting with a chest mount and a helmet mount to see which one produces smoother video.

The music is a bit of Cigar Box Guitar that I did and looped.

Taking the Apple Watch for a Swim

I decided to try out the Apple Watch to track my swim today. I did an open water swim across the
lake and for today's setup, I took just the watch and left the iPhone at home. For a future swim, I will put the iPhone in my waterproof case and slip it down the back of my surf shirt which should hold it in place and hopefully get a GPS signal.

First off, yes, the Apple Watch is water-resistant. To see an in-depth review and set of tests check out DC Rainmaker;s post The Apple Watch Waterproofing Extravaganza: Swim, High Diving, Test Chamber.

What Worked

• The watch continued to function (as expected).
• I was able to track my workout time and heart rate using the Other option in the Workout app.
• The Watch tracked my heart rate at 6 second increments.

What Could be Improved

• Heart Rate measurements had some wild swings (likely due to reading interference from water). That said, most were consistent and appear to track with my perceived effort. 
• Heart Rate was very high when I first dived in. Either due to my body adjusting or water interference due to a loose fit on my strapp. I tightened the watch strapp after a short distance and the readings became more consistent.
• The workout app kept navigating to [End][Pause] screen. I can only assume this is due to water causing phantom taps due "Activate on Wrist Raise" being activated by swim strokes.

Things to Try Next Time

• Disable "Activate on Wrist Raise" during swim to see if this eliminates the Workout navigating to the [End][Pause] screen.
• Try out iPhone on board (ok, stuffed down back of shirt) to see if I can track the swim on GPS.

Here's a little swimming footage with the Apple Watch as I try out "Activate on Wrist Raise".

Stinky Spoke - Rolling Through Woods

This is a ride through very smooth trail in Woodinville during the Stinky Spoke race. That is me just ahead.

Is it just me or does riding through old growth like this feel like you are riding a speeder bike through the forests of Endor?

I even get a little air along the way.

Stinky Spoke - Downhill

Here is some footage from the 2014 Stinky Spoke mountain bike race.

This is a section of downhill, pretty much the most technical downhill part of the ride. Dan is shooting the footage and enjoying the rearview of Mark riding in the lead.

Thanks to Dan Muckler for the footage. I have some more I will post soon.

GoPro Videos My Kids And I Enjoyed

My kids have this week off for 2nd Winter Break. Based off a tweet from +Oren Mazor we started a little GoPro viewing frenzy.

What I like about a lot of these is that the boys and I can talk about what is safe and not safe. They started rating the videos Low, Medium, High in terms of good idea to try or not.

The videos are also outstanding and let us capture a glimpse of amazing sports and activities that most people will never get/want to try but which are nonetheless thrilling to watch. Real people doing really crazy/fun stuff.

Here are a couple videos that we all enjoyed:

• GoPro: Hovercraft Deer Rescue
• GoPro: Lions, The New Endangered Species?
• Nuclear Power & USA Base Jumps
• Vacation Idea? GoPro: Lost in Peru