Your happy place

[Ulu]

That is great! I especially dig the Mono tank and your method of refreshing the saline balance.
I got called Sparky as a kid because my name is Mark and I had a really bad temper! The nickname stuck.
Those days are long gone and I'm a relatively mellow old dude.
Where I live (Indonesia) Ulu means "head". Anatomically like cranium or in terms of "boss", or even headwaters of a river.
Where does that name come from for you?
Cheers bud!

Uluwatu is a famous surfing spot in Indonesia, and also the name of my first long skateboard.

Sector-9 Uluwatu, all bamboo.

I didn't skate from about 1980 (when my first child was born) until 2008. Then I bought the Sector 9 Uluwatu.

That was the beginning of three dozen fancy skateboard builds and 14 years of near-daily fitness skating.

I am too old for trick skating, but still able to push a heavy "fitness" board over 10 miles. This is one of the lighter boards.

A selection of smaller boards, in the quiver, ready for action.

The mighty 14lb Big Ulu. All custom built. You can loose weight pushing this.

How I became Ulu:

I was CaddmannQ on the web since about 1994. Over the years as a professional mouse potato, I went from 170 lbs to 240 lbs.
I used to ride this huge motorcycle from restaurant to restaurant with a bunch of huge guys.
My wife peeks out:

A couple of the guys.

I gained a lot of weight. My wife did too.
I lost it all when I started skating on the Uluwatu.
This will give you an idea. I was only 220 in this left pic, 170 on the right.

Anyhow, the motorcycle club eventually fell apart over internal politics.
CaddmannQ retired too, and I was Ulu, henceforth.

When I retired, I became more interested in bikes. That led me here to become a rat.
A very happy rat indeed.

 

[Captain Awesome]

Uluwatu is a famous surfing spot in Indonesia, and also the name of my first long skateboard.
View attachment 197738
I didn't skate from about 1980 (when my first child was born) until 2008. Then I bought the Sector 9 Uluwatu.

That was the beginning of three dozen fancy skateboard builds and 14 years of near-daily fitness skating.

I am too old for trick skating, but still able to push a heavy "fitness" board over 10 miles. This is one of the lighter boards.
View attachment 197739
A selection of smaller boards, in the quiver, ready for action.
View attachment 197744
The mighty 14lb Big Ulu. All custom built. You can loose weight pushing this.
View attachment 197746
How I became Ulu:

I was CaddmannQ on the web since about 1994. Over the years as a professional mouse potato, I went from 170 lbs to 240 lbs.
I used to ride this huge motorcycle from restaurant to restaurant with a bunch of huge guys.
My wife peeks out:
View attachment 197745
A couple of the guys.
View attachment 197740
I gained a lot of weight. My wife did too.
I lost it all when I started skating on the Uluwatu.
This will give you an idea. I was only 220 in this left pic, 170 on the right.
View attachment 197743
Anyhow, the motorcycle club eventually fell apart over internal politics.
CaddmannQ retired too, and I was Ulu, henceforth.

When I retired, I became more interested in bikes. That led me here to become a rat.
A very happy rat indeed.

@Phranq is down for some longboard action

 

[Ulu]

My grandkids used to come over and skate with me, and I had skating buddies, but everybody’s got too old.

Everybody wants to get on a board and slide downhill. Nobody wants to get on the board and push it 20 miles.

Anyhow, everybody can ride a bicycle so it improved my social relations.

 

[Cyclist]

My happy place to get off the world.

 

[Sparky Sharky]

Uluwatu is a famous surfing spot in Indonesia, and also the name of my first long skateboard.

Sector-9 Uluwatu, all bamboo.
View attachment 197738
I didn't skate from about 1980 (when my first child was born) until 2008. Then I bought the Sector 9 Uluwatu.

That was the beginning of three dozen fancy skateboard builds and 14 years of near-daily fitness skating.

I am too old for trick skating, but still able to push a heavy "fitness" board over 10 miles. This is one of the lighter boards.
View attachment 197739
A selection of smaller boards, in the quiver, ready for action.
View attachment 197744
The mighty 14lb Big Ulu. All custom built. You can loose weight pushing this.
View attachment 197746
How I became Ulu:

I was CaddmannQ on the web since about 1994. Over the years as a professional mouse potato, I went from 170 lbs to 240 lbs.
I used to ride this huge motorcycle from restaurant to restaurant with a bunch of huge guys.
My wife peeks out:
View attachment 197745
A couple of the guys.
View attachment 197740
I gained a lot of weight. My wife did too.
I lost it all when I started skating on the Uluwatu.
This will give you an idea. I was only 220 in this left pic, 170 on the right.
View attachment 197743
Anyhow, the motorcycle club eventually fell apart over internal politics.
CaddmannQ retired too, and I was Ulu, henceforth.

When I retired, I became more interested in bikes. That led me here to become a rat.
A very happy rat indeed.

I actually live about 10 miles north of Uluwatu!
Very cool to see your back story and cheers!

 

[Ulu]

I actually live about 10 miles north of Uluwatu!
Very cool to see your back story and cheers!

When I was a kid we learned to surf on Lake Superior. Park Point near Duluth was the place to catch a wave.

That was 1967 . . . 55 years ago, and I have never been since. We moved to the Rocky Mountains and I have never been surfing in the ocean.

 

[Cyclist]

@Ulu Lake Superior, didn't you freeze yourself? That is some very cold water. I lived near it for a couple of years in early 1970's. Munising MI was the town I lived in at that time.

 

[Ulu]

@Ulu Lake Superior, didn't you freeze yourself? That is some very cold water. I lived near it for a couple of years in early 1970's. Munising MI was the town I lived in at that time.

Even in the summertime that lake is very cold but it warms up right there at Park Point a bit, as the water gets a little shallow in the harbor.

My paper route was the whole Air Force Base up on the hill in Duluth, and I got up at 6 o’clock every morning and hauled those papers around (on a toboggan when there was snow.) It was the biggest paper route for the Tribune-Herald.

That wasn’t cold enough, and I was making too much money for a kid, so the Air Force shipped us up right on the border.

I went to Lake of the Woods High School which is at the confluence of the Rainy River and Lake of the Woods at the north west quadrangle.

When it is -40F in international Falls it’s likely -42F in Baudette.

 

[Ulu]

I lived in Washington and in Minnesota, Logan Utah, upstate New York, Cape Cod Massachusetts, and a couple other cold places. I chopped a lot of ice and shoveled too much snow.

After school, I moved to Clovis California, where the winter is sunny in the middle of December & Zero snow.

My youngest granddaughter Leanna: pic taken at Christmas

This is the desert so you have to irrigate, but fortunately people have been doing that here for almost 200 years and it’s looking pretty nice.

If it’s too hot outside, my happy place is the air-conditioned garage.

That hoist was one of my first welding projects when I was a teenager. I built it for my father at the Air Force hobby shop in Ogden.

I designed built & welded that on the fly, from material that we got for free, and Dad helped me by running the drill press and the giant saw.

That sucker is heavy and if we ever have a thermonuclear war it will still be here.

 

[MazdaFlyer]

Sketched out the plans for this bonsai/succulent display table a while back. Finally went and got the supplies and got it cut out and put together. It will go to our backyard “happy” garden area.

If it doesn’t work out as plant table it would work as a bar table as well.

 

[MazdaFlyer]

Got the table moved to its resting place for now.

 

[Verrt]

Hi again RRB,
@Bike from the Dead has been sending me DMs and making me check back in with the community, so I thought maybe I'd share some of my Happy Places from the last four or five months.

Bullfrog Lake, IL

Greenleaf State Park, OK

On the Colorado River by Austin, TX

Amistad National Recreation Area, TX

Marfa, TX

Big Bend National Park, TX

Canoeing the Rio Grande, TX (and Mexico)

Bottomless Lakes by Roswell, NM

Current Happy Place:
Elephant Butte Dam by Truth or Consequences, NM

If people seem interested I'll update the next time I get to a new happy place.

Also, if you're in NM, AZ, CA, or OR in the next four months or so and want to hang, send me a DM.

 

[MattiThundrrr]

some of my Happy Places from the last four or five months.

Looks like you are living it, Verrt. Thanks for popping in, the stew has been missing your spice! Love that Airstream, super cool trailer, verry jealous. I see cool bikes on top the roof of the rig, and looks like there's plenty of opportunities to ride em, don't hesitate to share that action too!

 

[Verrt]

Looks like you are living it, Verrt. Thanks for popping in, the stew has been missing your spice! Love that Airstream, super cool trailer, verry jealous. I see cool bikes on top the roof of the rig, and looks like there's plenty of opportunities to ride em, don't hesitate to share that action too!

I would, but being a stupid RRBer I brought two that need work. So thus far we’ve just been hauling them around.

 

[MattiThundrrr]

I brought two that need work.

Yippee skippeee, a potential build thread!

 

[Ulu]

. . . Greenleaf State Park, OK
View attachment 224467 . . .

That is a lovely Airstream. My parents always wanted one, but instead they bought a 56 foot Spartan. Big wraparound plexiglass in the front. Two a/c units. Needless to say it didn’t get towed around very much. They sold it in ‘73 when my dad retired from the Air Force.

We did lots of camping when I was a kid but it was always like station wagon camping and tent camping and Jeep Camping.

 

[curtisfox]

My 5th motor home, always bought used one and fixed, as I drove them, this one had 40,000 miles on it. It now has 80,000 miles on it, been everywhere from Mississippi south and west.

Hulled a pare of Schwinn's to CA. for my niece.

 

[One-eyed Sailor]

Powell Point, Utah
Hard to choose just one but this place is the center of my universe. Near Bryce Canyon it's a slow crawl in a 4x4. Would love to bike DOWN one day.

My buddy Dennis hauled me up there. Sadly he had a stroke about a year later and has not recovered well.
Gifted woodsmith from NYC. Love ya man.

 

[nomad-dyno]

My local happy place is the woods along the river near my house. I ride this wooded Florida wetlands area almost daily. I keep a hawk eye out for the toothy locals and give them plenty of space.

 

[user 35233]

One week in Black Rock restores my faith and I miss it all year.