Cappadocia Ride

Here is a video I made from our bike trip to Cappadocia. We figured out the best way to shuttle...rent scooters from OZ Cappadocia at $20 for the weekend.



I mapped out most of the trails on Google Map.

Climbing Trail: Smoothest/Easiest Trail to Climb for a loop.


Love Valley Trail: Awesome trail at the top w/ a bobsled section. A little sandy at the bottom.


Vegetation Trail: Fun trail through the trees, but without arm protection you'll get cut up...a little overgrown.


Mountain Peak Trail: My favorite trail includes the big drop and the land bridge shot.


All of these trails end in Goreme where you can rent a schooter to drive back up to the truck (if you aren't looping).

International Track w/ Broken Collar Bone

In the last wreck, I meant to drop the first section and run it out. I got off-balanced and veered over the second drop. The impact broke my collar bone.

Mountain Biking in Turkey '07

Here is a video I put together from all of my pics and vids from the summer and fall mountain biking trips around Adana.

Boar Hunting in Turkey

My buddy John and I went Boar Hunting with one of the Gun shop owners off base. Actually he hooked us up with his buddies who owns one of the massage parlors. We've now gone out twice. The first time we went out in Mar and froze. This time was a lot more comfortable and I had my new gun with me.

The place we hunt the boars is about 45 mins from base. The hunting spot is in a dump next to the town that the guy grew up in. No joke, we literally drove through the dump until we found were the garbage was recently dumped...John said, "that smells fresh" and the guy said "ok abbi this is good".

Here is the gun shop owner and the massage parlor owner getting the pressure switch hooked up to the flashlight on the gun.




Here is the spot...luckily I have a horrible sense of smell because we set up over the freshest garbage!



















My first shot with my new gun...I let the Turk fire the very first shot. The first shot is always a little anxious knowing the lack of quality control in Turkey.




Our "blind" and yes the tarp and blanket were pulled out of the dump.




At the end of the night (about midnight) we fired off some shots. Lots of bottles to shoot...and no need for cleanup after you're done!

















Unfortunately no luck this time. I've got a flashlight w/ pressure switch that I'm mounting on my shotgun. I'm determined to get one and I have another year here. If I do finally get one, I'm thinking about throwing a BBQ, the only problem is that I'm sure that the pig will have trichinosis after eating human garbage its whole life. I guess if you cook it long enough you're good...we'll see I have to get one first.

Cappadocia Mtn Biking Trip w/ FTA

I went up to Cappadocia with some guys from the "Fattireaddicts" group on base. Seven of us went up there for two days of awesome riding. We did three sessions w/ about 6K feet in climbing for the weekend.



Goreme


Goreme


Corey


Alex


Corey, Steve, Isaac


Casey








Casey


Alex


Corey after his yard sale




















The group inside one of the cave churches


Alex lounging on the beam








Steve dropping some stairs in Goreme





which vehicle turned more heads on the Turkish highway? ...the folks with the weird bikes on the roof of course!

Weekend in May (BBQ, Mtn Biking, and the Beach)

We just finished a big project at work that we had been working on for about 8 months. It's a pretty big relief to finally be done. Right after we were done, my office had a little BBQ. Later that weekend I went Mountain Biking with the club on base and then went down to Kiz Kalezi with a bunch of my friends.

Here I am at the BBQ with some of the guys from my office.




I went up with some guys with the fattireaddicts club on base. The trail is known as the "International Track". Turkey is pretty well known for Mountain Biking. In fact the European Championship will be here in July. This trail is where a lot of their world class mountain bikers train.




It starts off with a big hill on a dirt road. One of these days I'm just going to shuttle it, but it's about a 15-20 min continuous climb.




Once you get to the top, the first downhill section is sidehill which unfortunately is a little washed out. This is one of the guys in my office. He just got this bike, so he's still getting used to it.




After the sidehill, there is a big open descent.







The downhill finishes up with a steep drop on single-track that is a little rutted out.




Here we are packing up after a great ride.





The next day I went down to the beach with a bunch of my buddies. We rented paddle boats and swam around. The three of us on the right (Dennis, John, and I) swam out to the castle.




Then we met up with some of our other friends.







Dennis and then John doing their Baywatch impersonations...amazingly as they dove in the theme song started playing out of nowwhere...it was magical.







They whipped the people in the parachute right over the castle. Are they concerned about catching the rope on the top of the caste? ...not in Turkey.







Pete spent about an hour digging this thing out. He was determined to find water.







And finally, the whole group in front of the castle.