I feel I'm at a bit of a cross roads.   Not the big good and evil cross road.   Nope, I'm covered there and know where I'm headed.   I'm talking the cross road of what do I do with my limited personal time?   What kind of life do I want to live?   What do I need to give up?   Do I need to give up anything at all?      What should I do with this website?    It seems I've become a bit more comfortable with ALWAYS being busy.   It also seems that everywhere I look I am seeing opportunity.

Right now I am planning to put my No DSLRs website to rest unless some reader here wants to partner with me and help keep it going.   I started this website when I was injured and had time to really work on it.  I have a clear vision for it and think it is sustainable.   I simply don't have time to work on it anymore.   

Please if any of you readers are techy camera folks that love small cameras and would like to work with me to keep the NO DSLR's website going, please use the submission form to contact me and I will be in touch.  I am looking for someone that wants to blog regularly and seek out and share small camera info.   If I do not hear from anyone, I will be putting it to rest and moving the data and some of the entries over here.   

Beyond that, I am pondering what to do with this website?   Even though I am at an all time high for traffic, I think I can make this site better.   I'm considering a large change to the site.   Here is the idea.  I'm interested in your feedback.

The concept is simple.   Share stories with larger images and less distractions.

- Remove all navigation from front page (This Page).   This means all my links, archives, etc would be on a separate page.    This would make the images larger.    

- Add a page with all my links, category tags, navigation, etc

- Have this page only have one entry, as opposed to multiple.  You could still navigate to older posts either at the bottom of the page or through the archive page. 

- Add a page for prints for sale.  Nothing too extensive or pushy, but a few examples of printing options, prices and links to galleries.   

- Redo my galleries and put together some unique collections

In the end, I want to ride my bike, take pictures and continue to share them.  I'd like to cut out some fluff, both here and in my life,  so that I can do it well.   If you have ideas for this site, or even if you don't want me to change anything, please let me know by either commenting or sending me an email through the submission form.   

Today, I add my amazing Wingnut Hyper 3.0 pack to the list.   Click the "Gnat's Equipment" link on the top of the page to read more about it.  

This is a product that I think is worth every penny.  I have no affiliation with Wingnut and purchased this pack over a year ago. 

In other news, the gravel is drying out nicely up here.  Check out this picture from Saturday's ride.  Yes, that is dirty, filthy grass starting to emerge from under the mounds of snow.   I hope to hit this road again this week.  

Oh....And the annual Fargo overhaul has begun.  New cables & housing.  New brake pads.   New 25.4 Woodchippers.  New bar tape.    I've also got one really special part I'll be adding.   Stay tuned.  

The ride started out cool.  Much cooler than I had anticipated.  I had left my neck gator in the car and I had already frozen my hands because I started with gloves on, as opposed to my mittens.   Not good.   Yet, the promise of a beautiful sunrise kept me going.    As you can see, we were rewarded.  

It was a foggy morning out in the country.   The light was low and perfect.   The roads were frozen and fast.   We saw only a handful of cars and a school bus.  There is something so peaceful about being out and about in the country. 

After about 15 miles, we came upon a farm house.   A large dog stood in the middle of the road.   I had ridden this road before but never encountered this beast that stood before us.   Thankfully, his stance showed he was a friendly dog.   I put down my bike, got down on a knee, extended my hand and the dog came running.

He ran with us a few miles.   You could tell he was out just for fun like we were.  Not a care or concern in the world.   He cut both Ben and I off more than once.  I think he was happy to get out too.    He dropped off behind us as we headed into the park reserve area leaving Ben and I alone again.   The fog thickened up and we made one final stop to walk around in an attempt to unfreeze our toes.  As I walked forward with the intent of shooting Ben back lit by the sun.   The light was perfect and I snapped this shot of Ben.   It's one of my favorite portraits I've taken.  

As we turned south for the final leg of our journey, we rolled side by side chatting and talking about some bigger life issues.  Neither of us had the answers, but that wasn't necessarily the intent of our conversation(s).

The sun burned off the fog revealing a perfect blue sky.    We rolled back to town to get coffee and discussed the next ride before parting ways.  Simply an amazing day and an amazing ride. 

I also snapped 3 of my favorite pictures I've taken this year, one being the above shot of Ben standing with bikes .  The sunrise and the light was perfect!  I'll share another one later this week as the image is quite powerful and has meaning to me.   My bet is you may see the third shot someday either here or somewhere else.

That's the perfect ride.  Until next time.....

50+ miles of gravel, pavement and muck! I needed that.

Hope your Saturday is going great.

The sunrise was just incredible!  Just before this picture was snapped, Ben and I walked out into the field to the right of that big tree to watch the sun peek over the horizon.   Truly spectacular.   Just before I put my camera away to get back on my bike, I quickly snapped a handful of pics of Ben riding towards the sun.   I love the giant tree, the sun and how the telephone poles & road are endless and eventually disappear somewhere on the horizon.   

Thanks for the incredible morning ride Ben!  We'll have to do that again.  

So far, I've got about 35 miles of gravel, about 10 miles pavement and 8.5 miles of sandy, dirty and potentially muddy single track.  My hope is to subtract some pavement and add some more gravel.   I'm shooting for 60 or so miles all around giving us a nice ending time as we need time to drive to Cable area for 2 days of riding glorious single track.  I also was fearful that there would not be a convenience store or water/food stop, but I found one outside of Empire, MN.   

I am waffling as I write this as to weather I will ride my Salsa Vaya prototype pictured above or ride my bike with no name?    Better not deliberate too long as the sun is rising.

Gotta go!  

Every new bike I build or test gets a break in ride that involves my favorite breakfast spot, the Colossal Cafe, followed by an undetermined route to work.  I generally like to do this ride alone so that if I have any little sounds that need sluething and/or any adjustments to be made, I can stop and not worry about slowing other people.  I also then get to take what ever route to work that I desire, to get a "feel" for the bike.   It's funny looking back over the years and seeing the pics of various bikes at the Colossal.  

Once I get my initial ride in followed by any slight tweaks to fit and cable tension, the bike is ready to take me where ever I want/need to go.  It's done and I can then start the next project in my head.   

It's tradition and who am I to break tradition?!    What's your tradition when you get a new bike?  

I'm sure lots of folks reading this blog love riding the road.  I do not enjoy pavement unless it's a road like the one above where I do not have to share the road with much, or any, traffic AND it's got a great shoulder.    I know riding pavement is good for me, I just don't like sharing the road with too many cars.    Readers may notice the knobby tires.   Yeah, I know that sort of defeats the smooth and fast feel of pavement.   Don't worry, while out on the road I've been longing for something like this, a Salsa La Cruz titanium.     

I think this is the perfect road bike for a mountain bike guy like me.   I can run semi fat tires on it.  It would also be the perfect rig to ride with my fast friends.   I know at least one or two Gnat Blog readers that may scoff at me for wanting a road like bike like this but I don't care.   This time of year I think about them, then I forget once the gravel dries out and the trails open up.  

Aside from my constant fear of cars when I ride pavement and my occassional lusting for a much lighter and faster road, cross or gravel racing bike, a lot is going through my mind right now while out on the road.   I've been putting a lot of time into thinking about my photography.    Lot's of changes coming in the next month or so, but it's also fun to recap a few high lights from February and think about what is coming in March.   

- Check out the back cover of XXC Season 2, Issue 1.   Salsa Cycles is using one of my favorite images in a full page print ad.   Sweet!   Oh....Jason at XXC is also using one of my images as the ending photo on the inside of the back cover as well.  Technically, I have the last two pages of XXC!  Hard to believe really. Support my friend and check it out here:  www.XXCMag.com

- In the coming weeks, I will be getting Photoshop CS4.  I've come along way without it.  Frankly, I am glad I spent so much time learning my camera to get pretty good shots without it.  But, I'm pretty excited to start working with this as I've got a few immediate projects to work on.  

- Speaking of projects, I hope to have an updated website here sometime around April 1st.   Nothing too big, but I'm working on a few things right now to make the site easier to navigate and just a bit more polished looking.

- Lots of other photo stuff going on too as I've recently sold a couple of prints, entered a couple of photo contests, experimented with self publishing and started making notes and journaling on what could become my first self published book.   

Yeah, that's a lot of stuff and that's a short list of what is going on in my head while out on the road.  My brain is just firing so much right now I am struggling to come down.    I think I better go for another long ride to work through all of these things. 

Speaking of long rides, I'm working on my Fargo right now and preparing it for some fun little adventures.  Stay tuned.....I might have some updated Fargo photos this week.

The sun made the road a sloppy mess.   I didn't care one bit.   I did care about my camera though and had it wrapped in a dry bag in my Wing Nut pack.    That meant I didn't take too many pictures.   Nope.  I just rode my bike and took in the cool fresh country air.   

I explored south of town and got south of Farmington, MN on gravel.   I found a few cool barns for my barn photo collection (you can see one in the background above).    After a couple of hours, I figured I better head back.    

As I turned north, I realized that the sloppy mess had completely frozen my front derailleur.  The BB area was a rock solid mix of ice and dirt.   This meant I was stuck in my big ring for the rest of the ride.   Good training I guess.   

All in all I turned out about 45-50 sloppy miles on Friday.    Sweet!     My bike isn't happy, but I sure am.  It was an incredible day.

This little hint of spring's arrival makes me want some time on my Fargo out in the country.  Few things compare to riding my Fargo with a little Vitamin G.

I hope all of you get some quality time on two wheels this weekend.  I might.  I might not.  All I care is that after 2 straight weeks of work, that I get some time with my family.  

Ride your bike!   Take some pictures!