Practical Sports Car

In the sport of Hang Gliding having a good rack is a necessity.

A rack that can accommodate multiple sports is even better.

Once I even made a rack for rent-a-car out of a giant PVC pipe. The roof caved in a little, but I laid in the back seat and kicked it out before I returned it!

Right after I took this picture and old guy asked me what was in the tube. I took a cue from Lee and told him it was life-size blue prints for my house. I explained you just lay the blue prints on the ground and nail the wood down along the lines, to which he responded "Well, you better not build it here and ruin the view!"

Back on topic, no rack = bad idea!

Having proven my point I decided the M Coupe just wouldn't be complete without a rack. It took some very careful custom engineering, but I pulled it off.

Now the argument that the M Coupe is a grossly impractical vehicle just won't stand!

I gave it a little too much gas shifting out of 1st as I pulled up to the loading zone. The raspy exhaust note turned quite a few heads as it screamed out from the background noise of idling diesels.

Bugs in my Hair, Cat Pee in my Nose

When I was in Utah for work last month I would try to ride everyday when I got out of class. Still trying to overcome my on-going knee issues I would keep my road rides down to about 40 miles of mostly flats. One of the easiest rides was from the hotel due West along the shores of the Great Salt Lake.

If you've never been to the Great Salt Lake, search your memory for the nastiest puddle you can remember and multiply it by 1 million. You can smell the water before you see it. I would describe the smell as a combination of dirty wet dog, cat pee, cow manure, and sulfur. During intervals as my heartrate and breathing would increase I could actually taste the putrid air. Then there are the bugs, more bugs than I have ever seen in one place. As I rode along the shore I would go through clouds of them so thick you couldn't see the other side. After each cloud I could feel hundreds of bugs crawling in my hair under my helmet. Only water like this would make so many bugs. Yum, want to see if you can float in it??

Yet the Great Salt Lake and the surrounding salt flats are an amazing place. It is the only body of water I would truly consider a desert. If you drank it you would die of dehydration. As I rode west along the shoreline, the tall buildings of Salt Lake City would sink to the horizon and the stress of my work training would go with them. When I looked back and saw nothing but the peaks of the Wasatch Mountains I was at peace, if only for a moment. In Utah, you truly can ride off into the sunset.

There is beauty everywhere, even in a wasteland like the shorelines of the Great Salt Lake. It is riddled with abandoned vehicles, buildings, train cars, couches, and even water slides, each harboring it's own unique photo. Jeff and I spent a night with the stench and bugs trying to find some beauty along the shoreline. Here's what we came up with, remeber "...the eye of the beholder."

Remembering Dre

My friend, Andre, took his last adventure a few weeks ago. Andre had life dialed, he truly valued the important things and lived one of the most complete lives of anyone I know. He was an inspiration to all of us. His friends and family are some of the highest caliber people I've met. My thoughts are with them everytime I think about Dre.

Dre used to tell me how much he enjoyed reading my blog, so I thought the best way to honor him would be to remember an adventure we had together. If Andre had kept a blog of his adventures it would take up half the Internet. Our adventure here was just a small diversion in a life of many for him, but an adventure none the less.

In the summer of 2002 after being relatively new to Utah we heard about the Kokopelli Trail. The Kokopelli trail goes from Moab, UT, to Fruita, CO. It's a 142 miles through some of the most beautiful desert in the country, starting on Moab Slickrock, climbing through the La Sals, and following the cliff's and ledges of the Colorado River into epic single track in Fruita. In September we all had 4 days off to make it happen. Andre, Doug, Doug's girlfriend Lisa, and I left Salt Lake City on a Wednesday morning with 2 trucks and Lisa volunteering to run shuttle for us. The plan was to start in Fruita and ride to Moab. We gave ourselves 3 days to ride the 142 miles at a recreational pace, plus 1 day to hang in Moab. It was late September and the Monsoonal Season was in full effect. We didn't know it, but our ride was going to be a wet one.

After the hourly road-side stops on the way down so Dre could pee (if you knew Dre you know what I'm talking about), we got to Fruita at about noon and hit on the trail right away. Lisa rode half way with us and then headed back to her truck to run the shuttle. That first day was a blast and was the first time any of us had exposure to the awesome riding Fruita has to offer. The single track was incredible! It picked super technical lines through the ledges of the cliffs on the North side of the Colorado River. Andre had the fitness to kill all of us off the couch while smoking an unfiltered Drum cigarette, but my tech skills kept me out in front on the single track. Fruita brought more smiles than anywhere else on the trip.

After a while we climbed out of the Colorado River basin into higher desert and the trail opened up a bit. I was in trouble. I wasted so much energy trying to clear (ride) every section of the single track that Doug and Dre were pulling away from me. As the sun set, the desert turned pink, then orange, then red, and then purple. It was one of the prettiest sunsets I've seen and the only thing that kept me going with Dre and Doug as we rode West. Little did we know that the clouds that gave us that beautiful sunset would soon turn to drizzle, rain, hail, thunderstorms, flash floods, squalls, and mud... ...more mud than I had ever experienced in my 25 years at the time.

As we got close to Rabbit Valley, I felt my second wind and wanted to ride through the night but that idea got shot down fast. My argument was that we had only ridden 40 miles, but everyone else's argument was that we had a full day tomorrow to make up time. Those 40 miles would be the extent of our riding on the Kokopelli trail.

Lisa met us in Rabbit Valley and took me back to get my truck while Doug and Dre cooked dinner. I had just got my Tacoma and was excited to use a new accessory called the Truck Tent. It was a tent that set up in the bed of a pick up truck. In theory it seemed like a great idea, but in function it was horrible and a total waste of money. It immobilizes the truck, you have to take everything out of the bed to use it, and because of the wheel wells it is smaller inside than some backpacking tents. Plus it took a ridiculous amount of time to set up. Dre hated that tent and heckled me about it for years later.

While Dre, Doug, and Lisa relaxed and had dinner I spent my post-ride hours setting up that stupid tent. I managed to finish just in time for the first of many rains. Dre would later describe that night in the Truck Tent as pure hell. I felt honored to contribute to such a description, because Dre had spent many nights in tents under seemingly much worse conditions without so much as a complaint. I would describe it as 2 sweaty dudes crammed in between the wheel wells of a small truck bed under a parade of deafening thunder and lightning. The Truck Tent acted like a sauna, trapping heat, humidity, and odor inside. No sleep was to be had that night between the thunder, fear of lighting strikes, and desert flash flooding going on around us.

We woke up to a river next to our campsite. The Kokopelli trail had been transformed by the monsoonal rains into a 3 foot deep river of muddy water. We would have to drive further west to pick the trial back up. We followed roads, trail, and open desert navigating by a photocopied topo map to the next trail junction avoiding flash floods and getting stuck in mud. It was a constant battle against mud and weather to find a rideable piece of trail.

We spent the next 2 days cold and wet. At one point we had both trucks stuck in 2 feet of clayish mud high in the La Sals. The only dry piece of trail after the monsoonal rains was The Slick Rock Trail, but even it had wet spots that honored it's name.

Finally blue skies as we arrive in Moab.

Not wanting to go near the Truck Tent, Dre built himself a shelter from a Tarp (background) and slept happily in the desert sand free of the horrors of that first night.

Loading up to ride Porcupine Rim.

Finally the weather cleared with one day left. We had long given up on the Kokopelli Trail and decided to spend our last day riding the Porcupine Rim Trail. It was a great end to the trip except Doug blew out a wheel and had to turn back at High Anxiety View Point (below).

Dre, Lisa, and I pushed on for miles of Moab's best technical singletrack. About half way down from High Anxiety I had an encounter with a collared lizard. He ran across the trail in front of me which scared me so badly I almost crashed hard. I'm used to seeing small lizards, but this one was 3 feet long. He was fast, but I followed him through the Junipers and got a good shot.

We didn't see a soul the whole ride until the last mile where we caught up to a tour group. At the end of Porcupine Rim the trail crosses a small 75 deep canyon with a wash at the bottom. As the trail descends into the rim of the canyon it becomes unrideable. Multiple 3-5 foot ledges lead up to huge boulder that you have to carry your bike up on. Then it leads into another series of 3-6 foot ledges leading down to the wash. These are rideable, but there is no good place to start.

Dre riding Slick Rock a day earlier.

As we descended below the rim of the canyon I caught sight of the tour group. The mere concept of a "tour group" disgusts me. I've always liked to go my own way and being in a tour group would be hell for me. If you have to ride with a tour group, you shouldn't be riding at all! Seeing such a group at the end of our trip deeply disturbed me, but I was tolerant and polite. It was when the group leader shouted at us from the bottom of the canyon to "dismount from our bikes" because the trail was "too dangerous" that my spirit of defiance overcame my fear.

The line up around the boulder was not a possibility, so I improvised and picked a line off the trail straight down the canyon wall. I looked the group leader right in the eye and dropped in off the ledge. The rest was a blur. I just kept my weight back and surfed the ledges of the canyon wall to the bottom. It was about 30 feet straight down the 60 degree slope. Before I could think about it I was at the bottom, face to face with the group leader. He tried to lecture me and the group about how dangerous what I just did was, but the group's clapping drowned him out. Drunk on satisfaction, I tried to complete my feat and bunny hop off the last 3 foot ledge. Unfortunately I picked a bad angle, caught a pedal, and fell into stagnant pool of lime green water below. The clapping suddenly stopped as I pulled myself out of the putrid water. I smelled so bad Dre and Lisa made me ride in the back of the truck on the way back to our campsite!

Cheers Dre,

Your spirit lives on in all of us.

Back in Boulder - 100 MPH Winds

I made it back to Boulder last night and was greeted with Hurricane force winds. Luckily those were tailwinds for most of my drive, I made the 500 mile trip in just over one tank of gas! Colorado's Front Range has been experiencing what has been called "A Late Season Wind Event" for the past 24 hours. Here are some peak wind speeds at various reporting stations along the Front Range.

Wind speeds from 74-95mph are considered a Category 1 Hurricane. Category 2 wind speeds are 96-110mph, the station North of Boulder reporting 101mph is well within that range. Other than freaking out the dogs and waking me up the damage is minimal. Here are some pics from my front yard.








A couple months ago the winds at the house were so strong it blew out James and Mary's picture window in the middle of the night. I'm not sure how this happened, but it is hilarious!





You would think this is wind damage, but I suspect the real culprit is high gas prices!!

Shane Flies Again

After a 3 year hiatus from hang gliding my friend Shane took to the air again. Shane is in Utah for the same training as I am. His glider was in a sad state of disrepair when he got to Utah, but with some love from Tom, a Point of the Mountain local, he was able to get it airworthy again.

We found some time after class a few weeks ago to get out to the South Side. It was a light day and Shane wasn't sure if he was going to fly. I launched and fought to stay up in light ridge lift. After a while I lost the fight and ended up at the bottom.





As I was breaking down I saw Shane hooked into his glider, standing on launch. He launched and soared for a while, but eventually lost the fight and ended up at the bottom with me. I grabbed my camera thinking his first landing in three years might be interesting. Hang gliding must be like riding a bike because he nailed a perfect landing!

The Short Divide (1st Real Flight of the Year)

I had 4 days off last week to catch up on life outside of my flight training in Utah. You would think that would be ample time to relax, but that was not the case. I had only 4 days in which to cram over a month's worth of errands, life, and time at home. Needless to say I didn't accomplish everything I wanted to.

Alex on Launch

Jeff and I made plans to hang glide when I got back to Utah on Sunday. Cody told Jeff about a newer site in Northern Utah called the Short Divide. I was stoked to fly a new site and everyone was buzzing about the cross country potential. I got up early Sunday morning and crammed about 3 hours of studying in, but it wasn't enough to keep up with my training. I'd need at least another 3 hours of studying that night. I followed Jeff and Greg up interstate 15 almost to the Idaho border. We met Cody at a gas station and followed him to launch where Matt, who pioneered the site, was already setting up.

Jeff on Launch





Cody and Greg on Launch





I decided to park my truck at the bailout LZ below launch. That would allow me to fly for an hour or two, land, and head back to Salt Lake to study. As we set up, we listened intently to Cody's advice on the site. The winds blowing into launch were strong and gusty at around 20mph. Matt launched first followed by Jeff and Greg. They all got up quickly and headed North to the higher mountains. I launched next, followed by Cody. I climbed to 200 feet over launch quickly, but struggled to get any higher in broken thermals and ridge lift. Cody climbed through my altitude right away and headed North to join the others. Following Cody's lead I managed to get up to about 8500 feet on the highest rocky peak to the North.


Jeff Launching




When I lifted my glider off the truck I tweaked my back and the pain only got worse during the flight. After about 45 minutes I couldn't take it anymore and was worried it would affect my ability to control the glider. I wished the others good flights over the radio and headed back upwind to the bail out LZ. I spend another 25 minutes trying to lose altitude in a constant barrage of thermals. It gave me plenty of time to visualize my crosswind landing on the slightly downsloping field. I followed Cody's advice to the word and crabbed about 30 degrees into the wind throughout my final. I flared right in the middle of the window and had a perfect crosswind landing.


Jeff Zipping Up





I managed to make it back to Salt Lake at 7pm and got my 3 hours of studying in. Other than my back pain it was a perfect diversion from my hectic training schedule, a great opportunity to brush off my thermaling skills and, although brief, a great opportunity to catch up with friends.


Greg Launching






Jeff, Cody, and Greg flew over 80 miles. Matt top-landed on a 10,000 foot moutain, re-launched and hitch hiked back to his truck! To read more about the other's flights check out Jeff's blog here.

Santa Cruz Flats Comp

Jeff Obrien has been kicking ass in the Hang Gliding Competition scene the past 2 years. His most recent comp was the Santa Cruz Flats Comp in Casa Grande, AZ. You can read all about Jeff's exploits at the comp on his blog here. Konrad Hellman posted an awesome video on the Oz Report today that I think captured the hang gliding comp scene accurately. For the non-hang gliding readers of my blog here is the YouTube version.

Epic Trails

The last 3 weeks in Utah has been hectic to say the least! I haven't had much free time outside of work. What little time I have had has been spent enjoying the epic mountain biking and hang gliding Utah has to offer. My on-going knee injury has kept me off the mountain bike for most of the past 21 months, but it is just so good here I can't help it - knee pain or not! It's so refreshing to be back on the trail again, even if I can only do short rides and not much climbing. Troy sent me these pics of a trail that is definitely not in Utah, but epic non-the-less. I would dig to ride this trail, it reminds me of some lines I've picked on certain rim trails in Moab.

M Coupe

Back in January I did something that surprised a few people. I bought a really nice car!



Never in my life did I think I would be a BMW owner and I am actually somewhat ashamed of it. I'm not a fan of good old American Consumerism and have no need for status symbols. I consider myself more an M Coupe owner than a BMW owner. My dad instilled me with a love of British Cars growing up and the Z3 M Coupe is about as close to a modern version of a British Car as possible. It embodies the spirit, style, and audacity of the '68 E-Type Jaguar he had when I was a kid. Here is a write up that I found on the Z3 M Coupe that I thought was worth sharing.

More so than just a Fantasy Garage entrant, the original BMW M Coupe may very well be the Official Car of Jalopnik. Before we get to the myriad reasons why that is, let me relate a little anecdote. Like most car enthusiasts nerds, I read about the M Coupe well before I ever saw one. And of course, I knew all about it. Best handling BMW ever, Ferrari-like acceleration, re-donk-ulous rear tires provide gecko-ish grip, sounds like a jet-engined rollercoaster, etc. I knew about the increased stiffness over the M Roadster, that they crammed the E46 M3's straight-six under the long snout and that Adolf Prommesberger, managing director of the M Division, went on record stating that the M Coupe is the car he drives home most nights. But you know how it goes. Every six months the buff books perform a collective circle jerk over the hot piece of German-ass de jour. Right now it's the R8. Come summer it will be the new M3. Hell, I'm guilty of giving the RS4 a no-look or two. But the first time I saw the M Coupe, well friends, it stopped me cold.

For while a 911's design may be more resolved/cleaner, and a Ferrari sexier, no car since Shelby's Cobra has looked as muscular and purpose built as the M Coupe. See, unlike the majority of cars, and especially those from Germany, the M Coupe is not the work of brand managers. No, the M Coupe is purely the work of pistonhead engineers that built the car in secret and then somehow convinced upper management to sell the thing. Don't get me wrong. In general, German rides are (duh) the Bruciest. However the extreme anal-retentiveness that goes into each company matching each other car by car is old and dull. 3-Series/C-Class/A4 begatting 5-Series/E-Class/A6 begatting 7-Series/S-Class/A8 begatting X5/ML/Q7 is fantastic if, as a nation, you suffer from OCD. Sure, the Mercedes CLS was a welcome departure from the rigid norm, but almost immediately, BMW and Audi both set out to copy the Benz. But the original M Coupe, a South Carolina built, British-style shooting-brake putting out (nearly) 100 hp per liter is unique as modern cars get. Engineers who really, really, really love driving created this car to kick butt round the Ring and haul a dog. And that's it. And the result is so far beyond the pale that no manufacturer even bothered, let alone imagined, producing any competition. The M Coupe was free to live its short life unbenchmarked and unmolested by market expectations.

Arguably the best part of the M Coupe's story is that it shouldn't have happened at all. A renegade group of five BMW engineers, led by Burkhard Göschel, got a hold of a soon-to debut Z3 and decided to help it. They were displeased with its saggy bottom and the way its open top wreaked havoc with the trailing arms in the rear, causing the car to wobble. Cause wobble ain't precise. For the next few months, after work and on the weekends, the heroic five performed rhinoplasty on the diminutive retro drop top and out came the Z3 Coupe. Only these guys didn't spend all their free time just to make an odd looking wagon. They were thinking ultimate driving machine from the get go, rationalizing that they could convince BMW to build the M Coupe if there was a cheaper, lesser model. Which is why while Z3 roadsters have narrow hips and M Roadsters have broad ones, all Z3 Coupes never had anything but child-barers. This new body made the Coupes 2.7-times stiffer than then their roadster siblings and at the time, the most rigid BMW yet built. The Z3 Coupe, unlike some 1.9-liter Z3s we know of, was never offered with anything less than a six. And thankfully, for the purposes of our fantasies, they dropped the M-Division's miraculous 3.2-liter straight six into the M.

Now the technical garbage. Tragically, BMW decided to make the initial M Coupes (1998 to 2000) different depending on the market. Meaning that west of the Atlantic cars got the short end of the engine stick. North American-spec cars received the peppy S52 inline-6 from the US E36 M3 that cranked out 240 hp and ran the M Coupe up to a limited top speed of 137 mph. Meanwhile European spec cars got the stupid-silly Euro E36 mill – known as the S50 B32 – which was good for 321 hp and a limited top speed of 155 mph. The engines were quite similar (stout iron blocks with aluminum heads) but there were differences. The more powerful Euro motor had higher compression, individual throttle plates and double VANOS for both intake and exhaust valves (the weaker S52 only had variable intake valves).

Then, in September of 2001, everything changed for the better when the "Engine of Damocles," the now familiar S54 B32 power plant from the E46 M3, was slammed into all M Coupes (and roadsters) regardless of national destination. The European model saw its power rise to 325 hp, while the American version came equipped with 315 hp. A word about this discrepancy. Initially BMW said the reduced power (compared to the 333 hp in the M3) was a result of different intake manifolds and exhaust doodads. Liars! The truth is that shoddy third party connecting rod bearings were exploding M3 engines at an alarming rate. You must never forget that while the men behind the M Coupe are the engineers from one of the most respected names in the biz, pr hacks still craft the press releases. Anyhow, the redline of the S54 was quietly dropped from the M3's Luciferian 8,000 rpm to a more minor-demon-like 7,600 rpm. Though plenty of aftermarket folks will re-chip the engine and replace the faulty rods. The difference between the US and Euro versions is smaller than it seems. True, tougher catalytic restrictions choke the US engine a bit more, but remember that 315 hp SAE Net is 320 hp DIN. And what are five horses among friends? Plus, the Porsche 996 only made 300 ponies back in 2001, so 315 hp in a lighter car was plenty.

Naturally, the M Coupe's performance is immense. 0-60 in 4.3 seconds is 0.3 seconds faster than a 427 Cobra. The quarter-mile goes by in less than 13 seconds, about the same as a 427 Cobra. While the top speed is supposedly limited, lots of hoons report 170 mph not being much trouble. And with de-limited M3s hitting 180+ mph, we figure the much lighter M Coupe (3,046 lbs. for the M Coupe vs. 3,415 lbs. for the M3) could dance that jig without much troublle. Though we would imagine the relatively primitive suspension would begin to fizzle at that pace. More importantly, third-gear is good for triple digits. Handling is in another realm compared to most cars, though more than one driver has cautioned against driving an M Coupe in the rain because of the giant tires, trailing arms and teeny wheelbase all conspire to hydroplane the car. In fact, many owners remove the wipers altogether, as they don't need them. Sure, there are cars that go faster, stop quicker and turn harder. But there were a lot less of them five years ago. And very few had normally aspirated 6-cylinders plus room for Fido.

To our minds, the M Coupe just frigging nails it. The styling is a Teutonic rendering of an E-Type coupe where the overt sex-appeal has been removed, leaving the M Coupe still phallic yet somehow perverse. The intent behind the car is pure Carroll Shelby, "Hey buddies – let's stuff a monster engine into a puny car and beat up on Ferraris." And the result is a TVR that's been to finishing school. The M Coupe might not drag its knuckles, but it will still smash a pint across a noggin from time to time. So, British style, American zeitgeist and German precision all come together for a brief moment and BMW doesn't even bother to market the poor thing. From 1998 to 2002 BMW only bothered to make 6,318 M Coupes. And only 10% of those are US-spec versions with the S54 engine. Even its fans refer to the M Coupe as the "clown shoe" and the annual M Coupe gathering is called dorkfest. True, BMW has since replaced the old car with the new Z4-based M Coupe. But something fundamental is missing as the new car is too sterile, too well planned and, well, not nearly insane. Like the 959 or a Jenson Interceptor FF, the M Coupe is the way too rare result of what happens when engineers take over the asylum. Better than all its siblings and rarer, too, the M Coupe is without question more M than all the other M cars. As such, we strongly feel that the blackest sheep from the BMW farm deserves a pile of hay and a salt lick in our Fantasy Barn. What say you? – Jonny Lieberman

Flying Dogs

I start my 3rd week of training tomorrow with a very important test. My training so far has been hectic, but I've started to adapt to being in a classroom setting again. The occasional short mountain bike ride after class has been huge in keeipng my sanity. I managed about 20 hours in Colorado this weekend with Jo and feel like my batteries have been recharged. Lee sent me this video of a paragliding dog which I felt was Blog-worthy.