A Guy A Girl and a Trail: Adventures in a 4Runner Limited

What about the new Runner?!?!?!

 

New new 4Runner yet, I have a deposit on it but I’m still out of state. We’re finishing up and prepping to shut down winter testing for the season. I’ll be driving back home (I’ve opted to keep the rental car I’ve had for months and just drive back rather than go through 2 airport and take a plane) this weekend most likely. We’ll see what happens with lockdown though, factory rebates end at the end of the month, and with shelter in place spreading we’ll see if it happens or not.

 

Day 3





















We got to the steepest stuff on the mountains and skied to where it started to level out and laid out in the sun and had lunch.

 

Day 4















I showed little man I could ski on one foot, so he insisted that he needed to try.
https://youtu.be/hAU5qybVQl8

Ski trip was a group of 15 people in total, a handful of them decided to snow show for the day. My buddy didn't think to sunscreen the back of his head just to go outside in the mountains for 2 hours in February, he's a dickhead, and this picture proves it lol

 

This was a hike from the end of February.

He was studying up the trail map on the ride over
















Grandma came with






That's the Red Rocks Amphitheater to the left of center

 

We did another hike the next day

Spot the 4R




























If you make a summit you get a Dairy Queen Bizzard

 

I'm back at home now, I got in this weekend, the state of Colorado is under shelter in place orders ("stay at home" as they now refer to it so it doesn't sound as harsh) so the new 4Runner sale is dead in the water, all the factory incentives end today. So no new Limited, this likely means this one sticks around a few more years until the 6th gen hits lots and the 5th gens are being cleared out.

 

We've been spending a lot of time riding dirt and having campfires lately.

 

This guy turned 4 in March, the other day we knocked out an 11.2 mile ride!

https://youtu.be/xeUgrTUjnh4

 

i wish we could do that. with SIP we just walk around the local park.

 

We have shelter in place as well, this dirt singletrack is more or less my front yard. It’s roughly a 40-45 second bike ride from my garage to the trailhead. We’re not traveling to get there. All of the playgrounds are are closed but parks and trails are open for exercise.

 

Can't even do that as they have closed all the parks. Hopefully everyone just follows the rules and this mess gets cleared up in a month or two. Love the pics Agent, passes the time, thanks for posting them.

 

Park with playgrounds are closed. The dog park and all the trails are still open under orders that people keep their distance from one an other. Unfortunately I’m about caught up on adventures but I have a review of some gear I’ve been working on that’ll be coming soon.

 

So quick product review. I’ve been trying to find a new sleeping pad for a while, at 6’2” 235-240 lbs I’m a big guy and unfortunately, I'm a side sleeper. I love going on adventures and my overnight trips tend to be for hiking or mountain biking as the main activity, waking up with sore hips wasn’t cutting it. I tried a bunch of pads, I bought from REI, while I was away for work in an uncomfortable hotel bed I went to REI and bought a pad and slept on the floor of the hotel, then tried another and another and another. I borrowed pads from friends to try. All in all, I spent the night on roughly 10 pads. Exped Megamat is widely considered the gold standard and it was the most comfortable pad I was able to try. But it’s huge, it doesn’t pack well, and your choices are 2 individual pads or a single larger pad.

Despite not even being able to find one to see in person, my research lead me to a NEMO Roamer and its the clear winner. It’s 4” thick self inflating. I’ve found letting it self inflate and giving it an extra 3 full breathes is pretty spot on for me. Comfort is on par with the Exped, it felt very similar but with a hint of air mattress like bounciness. That wasn't a surprise though, the Megamat has a lot more foam in it than the Roamer, hence its inability to pack up small. The Roamer has 5 attachment points on each side to tether multiple pads tight and securely together, they also work for folding the pad over on itself prior to rolling it for storage. It’s single biggest advantage is the storage size, it’s not much bigger than a pair of shoes. I’ve slept on it a few times so far and I’m really happy with it. They make it in 2 sizes, I went with "Long Wide" which oddly enough is the smaller of the 2, the other size is 5 inches wider and a few inches longer. Yesterday my second one came (I was waiting for the REI 20% member sale to order the seconds one. We tethered them up and laid them out and its better than what we expected. You can rollover from one pad to the other and you don't really feel it, you don't slide in the gap at all, you don't feel a hole, moving on one side doesn't transfer any movement to the other side, and there’s no bag of chips crunchy foil type of noises, it's awesome. This afternoon all 3 of us laid out on them in the living room with a blanket and we took a nap. It deflates so flat I’m thinking I can get away with both of them up inside the rooftop tent when it’s stowed.

All in all, we love them! I can't speak for longevity or durability at this point but Nemo make great stuff (we use their sleeping bags as well) and we did pile all 3 of us one and it didn't blow out so that's a plus lol.

 

It kills me to be home from work but not be able to head out on trips and stuff. The other day the garbage disposal started leaking. I have to make a Home Depot run to get a replacement so I decided to make it count and loaded up on stuff while I was out. In addition to the garbage disposal and supplies to replace all the under sink drain pipes, I got paint and supplies to do all the bedrooms. Besides all the time riding single track with my son the best part of the stay at home orders has been cleaning. My wife isn't a hoarder by any means but she definitely one to save things in case we'll need it at some point and she can be sentimental about some junk. So far I've thrown out 2 40 gallon garbage cans of stuff, plus I cut up a bed frame and hauled it over the dump with a matress we don't need anymore and the OLD box spring it was sitting on.

I also found out the 4Runner weighs 5200 lbs on the dot with 1/4 tank and no tent on it via the garbage dump scale.

 

We dusted off an old GoPro today and got some POV of the little guy on the beginner downhill lines. We made him a youtube channel today and ordered a new GoPro.

https://youtu.be/UT9uEur3CPM

 

Erie Singletrack? I’m just the other side of Highway 7.

 

Yes, Erie Singletrack. Are you in Anthem? I live right next to the trails off the west side.

 

Yep, I'm in Anthem. I need to take my son over to the trails for some biking. A couple of weeks ago, he went through my Charles Wells trails books to pick out camping sites for the summer. So far, we're up to 60 camping adventures. Haha.

 

How old is your son?

 

He's 10. He's taken his bike over to the pump track nearby, but hasn't done much single track yet, which is what I prefer. I just have a basic Niner hardtail that I use to cruise around the neighborhood.

 

Thank you for all the posts! Are your TRD wheels matte? If so, do you take special care of them?

 

Yeah the wheels are kind of a matte finish. No special care, I don’t even bother washing them, I just hit them with a power washer from time to time.

 

Since we’re stuck at home

https://youtu.be/hQr1PB9hOxA

 

I sure do like knobby tires and quality suspensions

 

I have a older GT 29r that I need to take off the wall and clean up. It was free, and technically too big (large frame and I’m 5’9”), so I don’t want to drop too much cash on it. May look into a used MD frame at some point. Here in north middle TN no too many places to really ride

 

When we lived in Shitcago we used to road trip down to TN with our mountain bikes. My wife has a lot of family in the Chattanooga area. Before we moved to Colorado, Chattanooga TN and Austin TX we’re in the competition for where we would go. I like TN, minus the ridiculous humidity. I have a hard time picturing places that wouldn’t have trails, it always seems mountainous or at least rolling hills the times I’ve been there. But then again people don’t picture half of the state of Colorado basically being flat empty farm land we call western Nebraska.

 

There are some trails, just not enough. The nice ones are further east up in the smokies.

 

Still in lockdown but its been a crazy week. We went from 70's to winter trying to make one last stand. We got a foot of snow Monday-Tuesday, it all melted on Wednesday, then Thursday we got another foot of snow.



Gavin wanted to shovel.


I could have done without him shoveling the fender though...


The frost on the tire this morning looked kinda cool.





Being a nice sunny morning and temps with temps that are supposed to be coming back up pretty quick we hit the big hill for some sledding.
https://youtu.be/sA06v2-atrc