Monday, December 29, 2008

Lots of Beer, Not so much biking.

Lots of Good Beer had lately, while at the Big Hunt on Saturday Night I got to try the following brews:

allagash Black - Nice belgian/stout'ish mutant with large notes of coffee. I thought it was pretty good, it was on draft in a nice chalice type glass. Not much head. Sweet.

Victory Hop Wallop - Yah this was a nice hoppy Victory brew that was hoppy on the nose and on the tongue with a nice balance. A bit of maltiness and for how high the alcohol content was not very noticable. Drinkable as hell.

New Holland Cabin Fever Brown - Not bad mild brown, not much nuttiness but a nice level of malt and other stuff, only had a sip of the wife's.

note - STAY THE HELL AWAY from the home brands at the hunt, wife had a Hefe style and it was SKUNK'd. Either the lines were gross on that puppy or the keg was dead Jim.

Also noted that Kramer books has some real nice beers in the cafe, headed back there soon for sure!

Today would have been a nice nice day for a bike ride but I am at home TCB and such. I am hoping to hit the gym again starting this week. It's been A LONG time.

Anyone got good plans for New Year?

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

New Beers Tried this Week

St.Bernardus Triple - Wow. Nice
St.Bernardus ABT - Wow but not as nice.
Rouge Nitro Stout - Smooth and Tasty. Not as strong as Old Rasputin, but very tasty on draft.
Anchor Brewing Anniversary/Winter - Nice the alcohol was abit much at first but was a super nice balance of malt and hops.
Hop Devil - Mid Hop Beer - Tasty.
Stone - Smoked Porter - Tasty with Fish and chips. Very mild smoke, nice malt/sweetness.

Damn and for some reason I'm supposed to ride Wakefield in the bloody cold tonight!

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Beer Glorious Beer

Ahhh. My friend beer.

Today I picked up a 4 pack of Fordham's Doublebock. Very nice and malty. Nice flavor, good body. My keyboard even drank a bit...

Also finally got my 6 pack of Full Moon. But thats gotta wait for a trial till at least tomorrow.

Tomorrow I'm going to hit the Whole Foods in Fairfax circle and enjoy some beer, and fried foods. Nice

Tonight I've also managed to kill 2/3'rds of a bottle of NICE Malbec wine.

Bodega Tamari 2006 Malbec Reserva from Agentina. NIce body, good hints of tannin and a bit of spice. Smooth. It was actually a gift from a friend of the wife and we enjoyed a bit with dinner and now I'm almost done with the bottle. hehehhe.

Hard to believe but back before I moved to CA we used to often kill 2-3 bottles of wine a week. I still enjoy nice wine but not very regularly.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Rosy Evening.

Beautiful sky last night on the drive over to Rosaryville, wish I could have taken a nice photo, but alas that requires a camera I suppose. D'oh!

Rode at Rosary with a bunch of folks last night, Paul led the 2nd group out. Definetely wasn't a casual pace as even at the back of the pack I averaged out at 8.7 mph. As a 2nd day I felt sluggish and tired after we did the inner loop. We did the ride in counter clockwise. And we did the inner loop in a reverse figure 8, and it worked real good, though the cut back up that hill was a real MF!

We hung out in the parking lot till about 9 shooting the shit. Right as I was leaving the park a very light misting rain started to fall. Sweet timing.

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Space Beer

Sapporo brews beer made from Malt grown in Space.

Oops my bad, dunno why I put Hops originally. Thanks Steve.

Sapporo Space Beer

Article from Sept 2001 on brewing in space

I've asked my NASA employed wife about this, but so far she's mum on the topic.

Maybe they are trying to distill liquor.

Monday, December 08, 2008

The Pancake

The title says it all. Thats been today.

Got to stay inbed later than the wife who had to leave at 7:15 this morning, stayed in till 8:30. Nice.

Played on the computer till 10.
Caught up on Chuck, Naruto, Kitchen Nightmares, and Dirty Jobs on DVR - FYI - Dirty Jobs has a GREAT bit on HOP Harvesting. Go watch it! Now!!!!
Made Pancakes with chocolate chips while watching above TV.
Decided to go for ride at Cabin John even though it was a brisk 36'ish though sunny with wind.
Got ready, fixed front tire (Flat?), Fixed Pump (loose fittings).
Rode at 2:00 till 4'ish. Stick on 2nd section mauled my damn rear derailleur. GRrrr. Took dumb fall near park on Tuckerman due to gully hidden by leaves. Cramped up super bad on one of the last climbs and bailed out before normal democracy road exit.
Got home and had pancake leftover, PB Sandwhich with Whey Protein Powder.

Feel like a frickin pancake yet I'm pondering riding tommorow yet again out at Rosaryville.

God I love biking.

Also celebrated the end of prohibition with Bells Winter White Ale last night, might try one of my own chimay's tonight...maybe.

Friday, December 05, 2008

Rain Rain Go Away!

Thursday's Wakefield Night Ride went off with only a little rain at the beginning, but by 7:30'ish light sprinkles wasn't quite full out rain. So by 8pm we were all off and done, and looking for ways to stay dry and warm up.

Success!

Recent Beer's Tried:
Bells Winter White Ale - Nice, white ale. Mix of Belgian and Hefe yeast made this an interesting brew. Out of the bottle not as much yeast taste but I didn't swirl really either, their was a very impressive yeast layer below. Nice hints of citrus. Was a bit on the warm side at tasting, a bit cooler might have made it better or in a pint. 5 More to go for future experimentation.

Flying Bison IPA - Nice IPA.

Joel's Porter - Nice and smooth.

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Falling of the Face of the World

It's been a slow month for the bike really. Between weather, trailwork, and light maintenance issues with the Midget. God, its really been 2 weeks since I've ridden. UGH. Oh yah don't forget Turkey Day.

I may finally take myself on a pilgrimage to Fredrick perhaps Monday if it isn't super rainy this weekend. I want to ride more. But between work and life. Maybe next week I can hit the Rosaryville Night Ride.

I guess I should go prep for tommorow even though the rain chance for tomorrow is near 50%, but who knows we might dodge the rain bullet. Gotta be positive.

I do feel like I'm getting better at doing my own adjustments. I did reset the entire rear-d. And I think it's better adjusted now than it was. On a funny note while adjusting the thing last night in the man cave, I turned off the heat at the master switch and forgot to turn it back on. It was 55 in my house this morning. I could only laugh at my very cold self this morning.


Had some good beers lately though, including Delerium Tremens, a DFH Black and Tan (Chicory and 90), and a winter seasonal I don't remember out at Whole Foods fairfax. I also picked up a Delerium Noel to try sometime soon.

Also I must pimp Old Dominion's Baltic Porter as a great winter dark beer. Lagered and with a nice malty sweatness and just on the edge of am imperial/stout perhaps. Gonna pick up a 12 tommorow if I do go down to Wakefield.

Also gotta give props to Hormel's new Turkey Chili. Tastes just as good as the original if not better and A BUNCH lighter, 190x3 per serving vx like 270x9. Not bad for a whole can even with 2 servings.

Damn this laptops dieing again, the charging port is severally F'd Up.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Trailwork Time

Got to go out to Patapsco for some TW yesterday. It was a good time really, a bunch of folks from the bliss were there and I got to shoot the shit with them during and afterwards. We went to some place in Columbia MD afterwards that had a really impressive set of beers and some good chow. Regular's seen included Steve, Donna, Miley, Mike K, Paul H, Jay, Eric, Jason, David (Dave?) and some of the others I've only met a few times like the Fred Rock Crew. 34 People there for Tw. Nice.

In other news I've almost gotten my wheel to near perfect true I think. At least laterally. I think I have a bit of vertical issue but I can't quite tell, so I think I'm gonna go over and have the guys at CB look at it. Also need to pick up a set of new tubeless valves.

Riding Forecast
Might try and get a shorty in this afternoon if the wheel is done.
Thursday - Looks like we finally may be back at wakefield. Nice!
Next Week - Rain on Tuesday at Rosey maybe they'll move it to Wednesday.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Beer Abroad

Well I've got a trip to England/Amsterdam coming up in January. And it should be a blast. We're going to be out in the York area for 4 or 5 days in England first for a wedding, with a bit of sight seeing if the weather cooperates. I was hoping to visit some english pubs and sample some of the brews there, fortunetly the chap getting married is a fellow home brewer and he'll direct me I'm sure to where appropriate ale's etc may be obtained once we dry out his cellar.

My real question here is about Amsterdam and where to hit for beer. Have any of you all spent any time there not in one of THOSE bars. Due to work drug testing requirements, my imbibe-ments must stay in the realm of booze. Also any cool things not to miss are also in my interest.

I'm looking forward to doing some rainy pedaling around Europe. :)

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Un FRICKIN BELIEVABLE!

I'd just gone downstairs to toss a salmon fillet in the broiler and I hear my wife yelling, I was like HU? I thought she was on a conference call, so I hustle up stairs. And first thing I notice is the scent of burning electronics. I ask is she alright and she says yes but the cat puked on the cable box and it started burning and sparking and she unplugged everything and she wants me to check and make sure its all off. So I throw the master switch on the power strip just in case, but she unplugged everything already.

Turns out the cat hurled then hung around checking the sparks and smell out.
She threw the cat off.
Unplugged everything while yelling on her con call
She disconnected right as I came up.

Right now she's explaining to the group on the phone what happened and she's laughing away.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Monday Again and Again

Well Monday has rolled around as it usually does. And so far the score for the weekend is

Bike Maintenance Tasks .5'ish of 4.
Beer Bottled 1 of 4
Bottles are cleaned and ready to go into the sanitizer, I just worry I'm a few bottles short, I may try bottling to a growler.....Any comments????
Burlesque Shows Finished 1 of 1 - It was awesome, the wyf rocked with Adam Ant and the old school Madonna. Photo's up sooner or later.
House Picked Up 2 of 4
Leaves Raked - 2 of 4.
I think I will get the bottling done tonight regardless.

For now it's not been a bad weekend. I'm gonna drink a tall boy and research bottling to growlers now.

Hope everyone had an awesome weekend.

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Cross Promotion





Come out to the Palace of Wonders this Saturday, November 8, 2008.
DUTCH OVEN BURLESQUE
"I Love the 80s" Edition
Palace of Wonders
1210 H St., NE Washington DC 20002
10 p.m. / $10
www.myspace.com/lildutchburlesque
www.palaceofwonders.com > New pretty site design! Check it out!


Celebrate or commiserate election results whatever side o'the isle yer on!!
* Groove to 80s beats by DJ P-VO
* Costume Walk Off in 80s Gear - Win Fabulous Prizes!! Duh!?
* ALL 80s BURLY ACTS!!!!!
* STARRING Dulce de Leche - gorgeous & glamorous straight from NYC!!!
* JUST ADDED! The sideshow feats of Coney Island Chris - The Geek ... The Freak ... The Human Oddity!
* Hooping, Fire Dance and Burly-Q from our favorite danger diva Miss Joule!
* Local chanteuse and emerging burly gurly, Poppy La Rouge!
* From Charm City & Gilded Lily Burlesque, the sexy spitfire Little Luna!
* DC's own leggy lovely, Sugar Ann Spice
* Dutch Oven founder and goof-ball extraordinaire, L'il Dutch
* MC & resident perv Gary Gutter with his arsenal of sick and wrong jokes
* Too-Cute-to-be-Legal Stage Kitten Lauren Marleaux

Cross posted since my wyf is such a great sport about doing my stuff, I should pimp her events.

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Homebrew vs Coors

In a close match homebrew has defeated the kinda evil and mostly just tasteless Coors conglomerate as America's Favorite Brew.






Photo by B. Ramsey

Tonight we shall drink Stout to Celebrate. And maybe a few Celebrator's also.

Saturday, November 01, 2008



Brewers Bliss - Blissfully Brewed Heavenly Day
Excellent People
Excellent Riding
Excellent Food
And
Super Awesome Brew.

Bliss Achieved. Cheers to Everyone!

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

The Big Trip

My fall big bike trip happened this previous weekend to the Rothrock State Forest in PA.

WOW. That is some CRAZY riding to a guy who mostly flatland/stream valley rides in N.Va and Southern/Central MD. I CLREALY need to go ride a lot more up in Gambril/The Shed area. My rock riding probably did improve a LOT during the ride Saturday but damn I was slow. By mile 15 or so I was already feeling light twinges of pre cramps. By early 20's I knew i was in trouble and opted to road ride back to the final fire road climb. Though there was 1 big pipeline climb I had to do that almost broke me. I barely stand my legs were cramping so badly, I had to get back on and spin for a while to loosen up enough to walk it the rest of the way to the top. The climb back up the final fireroad to camp was hell and it was dark by the time we got back. Fully Dark.

Not to say that the ride sucked, in fact, it was frickin awesome and I'm already excited for a spring version of that trip and hopefully doing both days next time. The guys were awesome to ride with, definetly inspiring to ride with guys who are better, it makes me want to be better and stronger. I think my line choice did improve also even during the ride.

The camp itself was great and all the guys were cool to hangout with, drink beer, and cook insane huge meals. I'm gonna try and link up some photo's later today or this week.

Back to work now.

But here's the summary -
7H 18M Total Time with an in Motion Time of 5H 8M with a moving pace of 6.5 mph. Not bad when I consider how uber hard the terrain is. 33.7 Miles.

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/7011644

Friday, October 10, 2008

Flying like Super Something

Tuesday I took the rig up to CJ after work again and got 14 miles total between there and back. Nice ride and the shake down went very well.

Yesterday I arrived at Wake nice and early after picking up an order at REI and RickyD hauled me out to the top of the berms for an impromptu jumping/filming session. Unfortunetely his camera mount wouldn't hold the camera up so he probably didn't get a lot of good video.

The annoying thing there that i noticed was I was burping my rear tire on the landings. I guess I was maybe dropping 3 feet or something max. Didn't seem very far, but I know I wish I had a smoother touch on landings. Just haven't done enough of them yet. Had to re inflate after the 2 sets of 2 jumps I did, both times the tire was down to like 20 PSI.

The tire rub issue continues to worry me enough that I'm probably gonna by 2 new tires to replace my current one with on Payday. Probably try a Specialized Captain Control in 2.1 or 2.2 if I can find it or a Crossmark UST again in the 2.1.....grrrr. Unless I can find a Mutano Raptor UST in 2.1/2.2

Got another 14 miles in. Gotta see if the wife is gonna let me try the MoCo epic on Sunday. I really want to as a test for some big riding the weekend after. I figure if I can hang pretty well on 40-50 miles of moco I can do 30-35 miles of Penn or WV.

Monday, October 06, 2008

Bloody Knuckles

Thats about how I felt yesterday after fighting with trying to change the pads on the rear J7's. I was about to pulp the damn thing then bash my hands against the wall. I ended up shoving the old pads back in for a quick ride down into Bethesda for a late brunch with the WYF.

Today I re-attempted the task and after about 30 minutes of fumbling, spreading, playing the the contact adjuster knob I got the bloody things to pop right on it!!! I think part of it was the angle I was trying to use. So after, that I felt brave and boled and decided to replace my Rear D, hanger and the cable. Yep at the same time. Even as a computer guy I should remember the first maxim.

Only replace 1 major componet-eth at one time moron!

Well the rear d I did some minor adjustments on the high and low with the cable and chain off to match the originals settings. The other adjustment wasn't far off. The cable was the biggest pain as I did a shitty job cutting it. So it frayed a bit as I tried to thread it. After some lubing, pulling the housings apart to feed it through very carefully. A quick set of the cable in the rear d and a test. Hmmmm adjustmet is a bit off can't hit 2 gears, re-pull the cable. A few more adjustments of the Hi/Lo and viola. I recleaned the disc and set out for some quick runs to work in the brakes. The new pads, from Jagwire seem to be good, and maybe even offer a slightly softer touch. We'll see. I replaced my front skeewer with one we got free at the MORE winter party this year.

Cleaned the rear wheel/cogset fully and fully degrimed, degreased, and cleaned the the chain. Then I gave it a good spray of tri-flow to get out the water and solvents. Then I applied my usual coat of my regular lube, and then shook it down and wiped off all the excess. Butter!

The damn thing shifts great so far, expect to need a tune up in a week or two.

In crappy news I realized that yes my fat 2.25 in back is rubbing a bit so for now I taped it up with a few layers of electrical tape to judge the wear over the next few rides. Probably gotta find a narrow 2.25 or a wide 2.10 to replace the crossmark with. Not sure if I want to try the 2.1 CM.

Ahhh beer and chili for dinner. Now thats the way to wrap up a day off.

Also did a bit of window shopping for a new bib set.

Friday, October 03, 2008

Cold and Crisp

WOW! By the end of last nights ride it was cold and crisp, I think it was down into the mid 50's. Oops motionbased says it was actually 50'ish! Wow! Though not crisp either with a 90% humidity! Weird. All i know is i was wishing for slightly warmer socks and a bit warmer jersey.

Knocked out a bit over 22 miles with my preride and the main ride split at about 12 and 10 respectively. Found a bunch of new to me trails over in Accotink, I need to go ride that a LOT more. Next week I hope to spend a full hour and half or so over there not just 45-50 minutes. Lots of good steep/rooty climbs to murder myself on.

Would love to ride again today but I doubt I can do more than hit cabin john, gotta talk to the wyf and find out her plans for the night.

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Bounce to the Moon!

Well the exciting bit of news from yesterday is the Wyf has upgraded jobs and accepted a new Civil Servant position at



She had been a Post Doc at NASA Ames and Goddard, on grant from NSF/NASA. This week she had just started the switch to being a contractor when, then yesterday afternoon she got the call offering her the job she had applied for last month. Big upgrade for her in that it provides nice bennies, her pay finally exceeds mine, and no more TAX hell next year. This year will still suck but oh well.

Hopefully leading tonights casual wakefield night ride assuming the trails are dry enough.

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Bounce Bounce

Wow, I'm excited with a small tidbit of news. Hopefully I will be able to elaborate more tonight or tomorrow.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Weird dream

I had the most convincing dream in a while last night. Somehow I had a very in depth dream about buy a road bike of some sort, very odd I think it was a cannondale in yellow for some reason, I had better recall earlier this morning. I almost expected to walk into my basement and see it. Weird. Too bad it wasn't a cross bike I was checking out the other day. Or real. Boo hoo.

Now if only I could actually get out and ride. Last week was mostly a bust. The weekend was a rainy bust. Tonight's Rosh Hashanah. Maybe wednesday I'll try and hit FH again. Or maybe I'll be smart and just ride rosy. hmmm Isolated Thunderstorms. Last time I went to rosy under those conditions I got caught in a tstorm while riding. Though it did lead to my fastest lap ever. ahahahha.

Had a new for me Unibroue beer the other night, SEIGNEURIALE it was pretty tasty. Nice maltiness and spicy. Had it with some punkin and carrot soups (seperate). We then finished off a big bottle also of Fin Du Monde. Sometime soon I need to grab a bottle of the Don De Dieu.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

DNK Brewery - Chimay Part Duex

Today I took the first of my gravity readings from the Chimay as it had stopped fermenting visible a few days ago, after about 6 days of good fermentation.

OG I read as 1.079 adjusting to 1.080 for the temp of around 77 degrees at time.
FG I read as 1.012 at a temp of 70'ish so no adjustment necessary.

Giving Final Calculation of: 8.9%'ish Alcohol, 1.024 Real Final Grav, 6.03 Grav Plato, and 263 Cals Per 12 Oz's. A sampling of the pre-secondary beer gave it pretty close to a slightly strong hefe. I'm thinking it should smooth out in the secondary as long as I'm very careful about siphoning the beer and avoid the sediment. As I did this by myself I ended up getting a bit more of the yeast/trub sediment than I wanted.

Tommorow I think I'll start messing with some label designs.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Vote for Theobroma!

I had the new release of TheoBroma at DFH in FC today on the way home from work. nice, not overly powering at all on any of the flavors, well blended. I actually do like it better than Midas I think.

Also Picked up this kit from Derek's.



75 IBU's is pretty rockin. I'm trying to decide if I also want to up the punch on it with some extra malt or not.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Kewl Cycle Kloths

Someone on the www.more-mtb.org site dropped a post about this following site today. They have some great cloths for the casual stylish cycle commuter who wants some slightly specialized gear. The reflective stuff is great as are the mudflaps.

And I've always wanted a smoking jacket.....Well not really on that.

www.cordarounds.com

And in the good news column my Rear D should be shipping from performance either today or monday. It will be nice to finally fix that. Now I just need to order a spare hanger as I'm gonna replace the current one again when I switch it.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

FH vs PC

Actually the title should be clash of the idiots myself (@ FH) vs Performance Cycles.

In this corner we have me. A normally sensible and capable mountain cyclist. Who today managed to fall over after rolling into a small root. Classic fall really, slow roll into a root smaller than my forearm. Bounce off. Uh oh. Balance to far to one side and the world was tilting. Next thing I know I'm hoping back up and bitching not just at my bike but at myself. A quick check shows I'm okay. So I ride back out the exit section. Get to the lot and start messing around and notice that my Rear D which has been odd since my wyf battled rammed it at the beach is now WAY odd. And shifting even crappier. A quick adjustment on the bike rack and its obvious the thing is now REALLY on it's last legs. Where is the new Rear D I ordered from @#$@$ performance???. I can also only conclude that as I fell the opposite way, that during my flailing I managed to perform a series of repeated and powerful axe kicks with my right foot on the read d. I also notice that my left pedal is different. The damn shaft on one side of the pedal clipping system was out about a half inch?!?? I pull it a bit back into line and then apply my car jack's pipe thing to it knocking it mostly back into place. Maybe an 1/8th inch is now out. GRrrr.

In the far errrm corner is Performance cycles. An industry leader in crappy service and sometimes low prices. The other competitor recently order a new Sram x9 RD to replace one damaged during a rumble at the beach. Along with a new bottle of chain lube and 4 new power links. Today 2 boxes arrived from performance. One large, One small. Open the small box expecting Lube and Power Links only to find the chain lube. Now onto the large box. This box contained a ton of paper and 4 power links.

WTF!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!! WTF is wrong with them, why weren't they shipped together in the same small box. What frickin retards. Now someday there shall be a third box I suppose. However the RD still says on Backorder. When you look on the site it says the RD's are due in the 19th....Uh that was 5 days ago morons!

Clear Winner
Performance Cycles!!!!!

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Is the Rodeo here?

Thats how my ride at schaeffer started today. I looked at the poor woman and politely informed her that the rodeo is at the horse farm off to the right as you turned in. I pointed to the drive and sent her on her merry way. I just couldn't be the grinch. Oh well.

I blasted out 2 nice loops for 16.5'ish miles. Doing the big yellow loop 2x. My first run was around 43 mins moving time. I was pumped and went out and did the harder version I like with the first yellow stream valley to blue. Then I did the orange section out on the loop then back thru the 2nd valley and back. Did some playing on various logs and cleared some new stuff! Yah!

And I rode the first skinny on white and almost got the 2nd one a couple times. I'm stoked as my technical riding I think is FINALLY improving. Now to work on off foot jumps/etc and try a few larger/unramped trees/logs.

The rodeo was really noise when on the close side to the farm. Avoided a couple close calls with huge piles of horse dookie.

That puts me at about 65 miles this week! Yah!

Saturday, September 20, 2008

To Label?

Now that my stock of brews is increasing from simple management (1 type or 2 with different caps) to 4 or more I'm thinking I need a more definitive tracking system. Or at least better than generally know whats in each brown box. Or better than a simple D or P on the bottle cap, as sometimes D and P can look a bit ambiguous, and while the simplicity of just using a number is okay, I'd rather go more elegant.

So I'm now considering making up labels. Any advice out there? Any tidbits of good knowledge? Better brands of labels for easy removal? Good design tricks? How do you, my fellow brewers manage your bottled collections????

Rosaryville Rushhour

After work yesterday I slogged my way over to Rosary for a quick ride with RickyD. Traffic wasn't too horrible over taking an 1:15 to get over there from Chantilly. On the way I had a moment of panic thinking the horse competition started that night, but upon arriving the signs said it started today (Sat, Sept 20). I was a bit late arriving at 5:05ish but ricky hung in the lot like the kind chap he is.

I geared up as quick as possible and we headed out. Great evening for riding, cool and crisp. We flew around the first section it felt like to me. R suggested we hit the interior loop, and I hestitated a minute before saying Yah. Normally the interior/tech section beats me up bad, but I guess recently i've gotten better at clearing logs. Only 2 really screwed me. The 3 set with the stoopid off angle/camber in the early part and the near the end off camber that someone has started to ramp. The rest of it was great, I had a blast. Soon i'm gonna start trying some of the skinny's. A few more trips to schaeffer for practice on the easy ones their first. The rest of the ride went well right till near the end when I started to boink a bit.

I checked the time/distance in the lot and we'd donw 11.6 in an 1:10 of rolling time for me. I was pumped usually that interior loops adds a LEAST 20 mins to my time and the quickest I think I'd done the combo in was like 1:30'ish.

The new front tire was giving me some scares at first on the first few descents, but by the end I wasn't even noticing it and was rolling fine and steady I felt like it was solid.

I was SOOOOO hungry on the way home, my stomach was rumbling the whole way. And stupid DC folk can't drive for crap, 2 wrecks one at the start of the s-curve and another half way through. 4 and 3 cars respectively. QUIT TAILGATING REJECTS! Your not getting there any quicker!!!!!

Friday, September 19, 2008

DNK - Chimay Update

Well after a bit of worry on Wednesday at the lack of fermentation, I switched the airlocks and VIOLA last night I had a nice vigorous fermentation. I think the airlock had issues as it seemed to be losing water.

For the week I've got 2 rides in, Monday was CJ for 18.8 miles and last night I got in 17.8 ate wakefield even with having to stop run out to TBL for a tire replacement and getting back at 7. Big props to everyone who helped out as I was supposed to be ride organizer last night, Anne M from TBL ended up leading the casual ride I was supposed to lead.

Tonight I'm either going to go suffer at Fountainhead after work or hit the Black Hills Night ride tonight.

Oh yah my new front tire is a Bontrager XDX Tubeless Ready. I wish it had a bit better defined side knobs but otherwise I really am digging it so far.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

DNK Brewery - Chimay Chimay

Well I fired up the brew kettle once again last night, to brew a Brewers Best Ivan's Belgian Tripel, that I replaced the regular yeast on with a Chimay. It was actually one of the smoothest brewing run's I've ever had. And considering the multitasking during, thats pretty amazing!

3 Gallons Distilled Water
4 Oz Crush Aromatic
4 Oz Carapils Malt
Steeped at 160->150 for 25 Mins
7 Lbs Pilsen Light - Spray Dried Malt
8 Oz Malto Dextrin
24 Oz Light Candi Sugar
1 Oz Kent Hops at 4.8% Alpha Acid - Bittering
45 Mins at Rolling Boil
.5 Oz Kent Hops at % Alpha Acid -
15 Mins at Rolling Boil
Cooled to 85 Degrees and let sit for an hour
1 Gal Distilled Water
1 Gal Spring Water
Add Wort
.5 Gal Distilled Water - To Bring to 5
Added Yeast (OOops)
Wyeast 1214 Bel Abbey - Man June 23 2008 - Activated but not full active.

OG with Yeast slurry measured at 1.079 at a temp of 75 Degrees in Fermenter.

As of just now I have about 0 activity observed. Grrrr I may need some yeast nutrients or perhaps to pick up another yeast kit.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

October Mini Epic Trip

This weekend is the annual fall trip for MORE to Douthat VA. I opted to skip this year in order to take a mid-october trip.

What I'm trying to do now is figure out where to go.

Currently I'm thinking I want to hit 2 rides optimally on the trip. Right now I'm mainly looking at the IMBA epic's.

Roth Rock Ride near State College Pa appx 201 Miles
Gauley Headwaters near Slatyfork, W.Va appx 247 Miles
Dupont State Park near Brevard, NC appx 510 Miles
Tsali Trail Epic near Bryson City, NC appx 540 Miles
Southern Traverse near Harrisonburg, VA appx 140 Miles -

The ST Epic in Harrisonburg is actually on my to do list next spring as part of the spring MORE Trip to Stokesville. R^3 may have closures in some area's due to hunting season closures. Not sure of what hunting closures the others may have yet.

I'm mostly an XC guy at this time, I ride a geared 26 Giant. I'm getting better at handlign more technical stuff like rock gardens of moderate dificulty. Massive downhills arent' my thing but I do enjoy long swooping rides and have no problems with suffering to gain my altitude.

Any opinions or suggestions appreciated.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Punk Rising

An odd week of riding. Due to the rains last weekend I didn't get out to ride till Monday mid-afternoon for a 2 hour slog fest at Schaeffer. I started with a quick lap of the yellow, and I did it in a pretty solid 46 minutes. Then I went out for the white loop again. And after a wrong turn leading to repeating the annoying southern section I finished up before a quick wrap up section giving me just over 16 miles in a bit under 2 hours.

Wednesday I picked up some Punk. That is DFH Punkin Ale. A bit strong in flavor is my first thought. I happened to look at the empty last night and realized that it had only been in the bottle 2 weeks as of Wednesday, bottled 8/26/08. So I'm gonna let it sit another 2 weeks before I try another. And make sure it's really cold.

Thursday was the Wakefield Night Ride. I actually swept instead of leading and it was mostly a nice change. We managed to squeek in a short ride at accotink. But I think that any more accotink visits are going to have to be on a pre-ride now. It was fun and ken knew the trails there very well. We then did a good bit of twisty fun with logovers, etc. From there we rode the first part of powerlines then dropped down to hit the remains of the creek trail, we popped out on the CCT and took the access rode and hit phase 1, skipping salamander. We then went a rolled phase 4, though I was feeling a bit slow on it. We then hit the high side of phase 1, climbed back up to the berms, and rode down. Fun! Then back to the lot. The group stopped so I optioned for 1 full lap out to the far powerlines and back, getting real close to 15 miles. I was happy with the ride.

Thursday, September 04, 2008

Leading Casually, from the front.

Tonight I took up my regular fall duty of leading the Thursdays at Wakefield Night Ride for Sept and October. It was a blast, ended up with near 20 miles. Did a pre-ride with Tuba from MORE pushing out a respectable 7.5 miles in 50 mins. I then led out a group of 4 other riders on a merry chase for the next hour and 20 mins for another almost 9.5 miles. We were taking some sections slow so our sweeper could catch up. We did loser her once for about 10 mins and I felt bad! We did a quick lap of the section and found her near where we had stopped and waited before. Oh well it was a nice quick loop. I then did another quick almost 3 mile chunk after hanging in the parking lot a while talking with people. It was nice to be out alone, but it's always a weeee bit creepy. I startled something at the creek crossing and it almost scared me off the trail!

Next week I think I'll try and start off with a ride out to Accotink before dark with the group. Then come back and pound out some time in between phase 4 and such. Maybe a longer section, loop of the bowl also.

I'm wiped out. Its time to hit the shower.

Friday, August 29, 2008

Hu.

Never thought I'd say this but damn here it is:

Metallica may yet kick ass as a metal band. The new single is SOLID! It is awesome in a way I'd never thought I'd hear. If the whole album can hold up I'll be SUPER impressed.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Down with the Sickness

My cough cold continues to hound me, but I refuse to slow down much since it put me down early in the week.

So this week I got out for a schaeffer loop with the guys, and J came out and trooped with us on tbe beginner loop. She fell a few times but more to stopping issues rather than terrain. She cleared some tough logs!

Friday I hit the Little Bennett Friday Night Lights ride, we had a couple of regulars and of all surprises Brizn was out! It was a damn fun ride with everyone even though I did take an unplanned bath in the larger creek due to an unseen rock. The rest of the ride was good, and the slower pace was fine with me trying to hack out my lung every frickin 100 feet.

Sunday I went out and hit the Fairland Regional Park trail and had a good fun ride. Ran into rob, gary and co again who I hung out with Thursday after the Schaeffer ride at DFH. I kept missing the turn to head over to the easier area near the main rec center but it was okay. Ground out some hard riding before I went over there.

For the week I hit darn near 32 miles total. I'm pretty happy. Probably won't ride tommorow, think I'm gonna go hit the gym actually and do a bit of weight work.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Does this tire make me look fat?

Does this tire make me look fat?

Last night I finally picked up some more Stans so I could finally swap on the new tire for the rear of my bike. I've replaced my old MAxxis LUST Ignitor with a Maxxis LUST Crossmark. Following some people's suggestions I went from a 2.1 to the 2.25.

HOLY COW the damn this BARELY fits. As in I have to deflate it a bit to install the wheel! The CM is a massive tire. The old Ignitor went 1.5 lbs, the new Crossmark goes 1.9!!! Test riding in my basement it seemed not to rub but I'll have to get it actually out on trails. I think with this tire I'll be able to comfortable run at say 35 psi and get a nice cushy ride out of it. Damn it was a biatch to get on, feels like a much stronger wire bead in this one.

Now I just have to figure out my new front in the next month or so.

And I'm sick as heck since Sunday, I got a cough that started mid last week and by sunday I was misserable (Saturday wasn't bad). Monday I was off fortunetly and layed around all day. Had a backache from hell thats just now really getting fully better.
MY cough is a bit better today but now the damn thing moved up into my head. hu?? Thats frickin backwards! aARGHHHHHHH!!!!!

Also had to do a full lube/pm on the bike yesterday. I'd washed it on friday and didn't dry it or spray the moving components with the teflon/lube/dryer and it was BAD!

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Round 2 - Titanium Seat Rails vs MY a$$

Winner - My a$$.

This is the 2nd seat I've destroyed since I got this bike, this was a replacement from last November'ish. I'd crushed the cro-moly rails on my original WTB Speed V. This time it was a clean snap near the seat clamp, I can only assume that this was perhaps in part due to over tightening the seat clamp bolts.

I replaced with a shiny new Bontrager Inform R, in medium width. Whats up with that!?!?!? Just kidding. But really it's strange in ways, I'm down nearly 15 lbs plus I didn't have my pack or anything on either. The jury is out on the seat for now, but I'm gonna send my Fly off for repair next week anyways. Got a 90 day money back on the Bonty.

Rode wakefield 2x times (before and after), when I cracked the rail I was making a good run on a W@W timed ride and I think I would have been inline for a sub 20 minute lap. On my return I did my first full lap at just a hair of 21 minutes. My 2nd lap blew as I was pooped, and the light conditions caused me to run a bit more carefully then before.

Tonight I'm kinda waiting on the weather to set what I'm going to do. If it rains a lot regardless I'll be headed home and to the gym. If not I'm going to try and ride schaeffer but incase i get stuck at work I'll fall back and do Wake again tonight. Haven't hit a group ride there since the spring I think. Ended up near 15 miles total putting me already at 40'ish for the week which is pretty good. I'd love to hit 50-60 miles a week regularly. Gotta make better use of Mondays.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Riding, Ride Like the, uh nevermind

Sorry, attack of those that shall not be named, this nice weather makes me want to drive a car with a convertible top, any car really.

Such nice weather here the past few days, so I've been outside a bunch and intend to the remainder of the week.

Sunday the wyf and I went out to wakefield to break my wife into riding clipless. It was quite an afternoon. She did great for the issues she was having. We need to adjust the tension on the pedals some more. She trouped through even after 3 different falls. Her 2nd lap was much better than the first. I'll try and get her back out there in the next week or two to solidify the course/area in her head.

Yesterday since I was off I snuck off for an hour and half of play on Cabin John in the beautiful weather. Nice day to be out rolling. Went from the Democracy Tennis center all the way up to goya drive and back. Took a non-direct way home and it totalled out nearly 15 miles, giving me 25 miles ish for the week already.

And suprise suprise, I weighted in later this evening and saw a new number I long thought gone, 205. EESH!

Saturday, August 09, 2008

August, where are you going?

Where are you going this August?

Myself, I've already gone to Dewey Beach and had a semi-relaxing 4 days of Beach Time(tm). One of my favorite parts now is that my wife and i did a round of Out Run 2 and almost finished the whole first stage, which i've never gotten that close. It was a hard fought race with both of us making some good passes and driving. We also took one long ride out to Lewes and a bunch of short rides. Unfortunetly on the way back from Lewes, the wyf, in a fit of not paying attention attacked my rear d, and bent it pretty good, my 2 big cogs in the back are currently unreachable. Gotta do some creative bending tonight to see if I can get it better or if it's time to order a new rear d next week on payday.

Monday I'm going for a ride anyways but I guess I'll have to limit myself, and maybe go for a pile of mileage out at somewhere like Wakefield or maybe I can survive schaeffer.

Also on the repair/replace docket is my rear tire. It's got a TON of tiny gashes that aren't sealing well and a few rips. It's amazing how well it's held up. But I'm kinda pissed as those tires only have about 600 miles of my own on them and maybe 50 or so from the original owner. Oh well.

Also I need to get the damn garmin in for repairs, I want it fully fixed for the fall, I'm going to push hard to break 1k off road miles this year.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

DNK Brewery Update - July's End

In a case of being busy and or simply extremely slack I have only now finally bottled the Dunkel and boy was I LAZY! hheehhe. The OG came in a bit high at around 1.009 giving this batch a revoltingly lower Alcohol content of like 4.2% Eeesh! Anyways it smells pretty good but it also came out a bit lighter than I wanted.

In the end its beer, has alcohol, and will taste better than cheap schwill. So I shall share and drink it as opportunity's present themselves.

In other notes, I noticed that this will be my 100'th post on here. Kinda funny with how long I've had this. I barely use my other blog account/service much anymore. Not that I use this a lot either.

Biking wise not much new, did a quick hit yesterday on an unplanned day off taking an hour and change to ride Cabin John. Gotta remember I can get into the trail without going all the way up to the main park off Tuckerman Lane.

Previously about a week and half ago I got to the LB Friday Night Lights Ride, unfortunately I flatted out with about 15-20 mins left and had to push it the mile back. Dave the ride leader led me on the short path back. Otherwise I would have gone what amounted to a VERY long way.

Headed to the coast for a few days early sunday hoping to get in a good bit of touring around the area on the bikes.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Self at WatW #4




Thanks to Antony for taking and posting a photo.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Oy

Pain and Misery were my companions today doing my 2nd lap at Rosary. My back was hurting after only 3 or 4 miles in, I musta already been tired, which lead to bad posture, and that led to sore lower back requiring stretching stops every 15 mins after that. Alas I didn't set any real speed goals out there either. On the first lap the TTF's section/loop tired me out and I was dragging after that plus keeping an eye on the tired Single Speeder with us.

Good group of people out there including Tom, Tony, and a bunch of other guys.

Here's the link to the motionbased track for the ride.
Tour de Rosary 7-13-08

Beer time tonight!

Thursday, July 10, 2008

WoW Results Revisited.

So today they posted the raw unadjusted times for the first 3 WatW's. With no week 1 for me, this is how I broke down.

Week 2 Start Time Total Lap 1 Lap 2
24 - Beg Male rlowe 853 18:08:00 0:43:19 0:20:19 0:23:00
Week 3
27 - Beg Male rlowe 853 18:08:00 0:43:41 0:21:37 0:22:04

Positives -
2nd Lap Time was much better all around and I only lost 30 seconds off pace, not 3 minutes.
Negatives -
1st Lap Time was a full minute slower.
Goals -
Be More Agressive about passing, no hanging out for longer than a single tight section, ask and pass!!!!
Don't get stuck in the back at the start without picking better line up the gravel hill so as to avoid stopping.
Get a time of Say 41 Minutes.

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

WoW Results - Week 3

Raced Week 3 of Wednesdays at Wakefield today, and I simply didn't feel like I gave it my all once again, I spent too long on my first lap hanging off a guy's rear wheel when I should have asked to pass early on and driven myself forward. My stomach was a bit out of it, I think do to a mix of the race jitters and a bit iffy lunch of leftovers.

I'll post more later when I can get the data out of my GPS and see how it really went, my time on my cyclecomp and GPS showed a total time of around 44:30'ish. So we'll see later on how I actually did. A LOT fewer riders by my estimation in beginner.

Paul of the Rosaryvillians must have crushed me this week, I never saw him after the pile up at the start near the top of the hill! Ugh. But big props to him. Hope Eric did well also. While racing I think both JoeP and Ricky on single speeds passed me this week.

Monday, July 07, 2008

WatW Week 2 Results

Final Results - 24th Place at 42:45. Not bad and boy their were 18 more racers and the times/competition really improved over the first week, that time would have been 12th place. Vs this week, 12th place was at 38:50. Eeesh.

This week if we can race, I'm going to try for a 40'ish finish. We'll see if that happens, my rain danger sense is going off very firmly right now.

Went hiking up at Sugarloaf Mtn sunday and it was neat, though the wyf twisted her ankle and is angry due to having to take it easy for this week.

We hit the vineyard just below the mountain and they have some great wines to taste for $3. Also some very posh goat's cheeses from a local shop in Boyd's MD.

Also apparently you can ride the yellow trail at Sugarloaf during the summer, during the weekdays, so I may go hit that next monday.

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

WoW - Week 2, Race 1 for Moi

Well today I did my first race, Wednesday at Wakefield Race 2. It was a lot of fun, and its a damn hammer fest. I felt like I had a good first showing, adn by my cyclocomp I finished in around 44 minutes for 2 laps of 3.8 miles for a total of 7.4 miles. But boy was I plastered, a third lap would have been the end of it. A 22 minute average for me is damn nice.

Based on last week I'd have been in 14th or so place and just 1 place out of receiving a point for the series, not enough to win, but still respectable. I suspect this week it will be harder. I certainly wasn't last, and thats good enough really in my book, though I now have a CRAZY urge to race again next week. We'll see. My placement doesn't have a lot to due with it, more just time and finances, I'll definitely try for the final.

I felt like I could have been stronger and with a bit more agressive attack I might have been able to cut maybe a minute or two off and finish a few spots better. I think only 3 single speeders passed me. Gotta carb load a bit better the night before, I don't think I had enough in my for optimal fuel in the tank.

Well off to the showers.
Cheers to all the other racers out there.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

To Race or Not To Race

Competition scares me. Or rather I'm hesitant to compete, and that sucks even in my opinion. Damn stupid childhood. I can only question myself in this and try and understand why I dislike it.

I guess I can see parts of it back in High School, especially during team stuff in Phys. Ed. I can clearly remember how frustrating I was in thinks like volleyball and soccer, with how I performed inconsistently, or when my teams would slack off. Funnily I remember not being upset for things like running competitions, or physical work.
In recent years, excluding perhaps Kendo/Iajutsu I've found myself avoiding competitive activities.

So where am I going with this you ask, today after work I headed out intending to ride. As I was driving away I had a random thought that it could possibly be the first Wednesday at Wakefield, but I dismissed it and headed on. Low and behold. I pull in and it's bike city, I head out to the far softball lot and gear up, a quick trip to the race area and I determine that I don't have any cash, so no racing today, which might have been better if I had! Less of a chance to wimp out!

So instead I rode about 16.7 miles of accotink. Nice hills and a few descents that are a bit fun. All the while pondering what would it be like to race, if I could fully set aside expectations and just go out with a desire to win, to ride my butt off and try and do as well as possible without getting frustrated at my placement. I still don't know if I can, I do know I WANT to and thats half the battle.

Afterwards I did go back to the race area to hang out. I got to see the kids awards ceremony and I saw a few folks I know but they were mostly talking with other people, the experts were riding when I was there but they were running fast and I only saw a few groups pass through.

I'm not even going to look at the results for this week regardless. And as of right now I am PLANNING on racing next Wednesday, but we'll see.

In beer news, the beer appears to be fermenting nicely, with a nice foamy head and the airlock was bubbling, pretty well.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

DoesNotKnow Brewery Open - Dunkelweizen 1.0

Well, tonight I've finally reopened the brewery. And on tonight's menu, is my home grown Dunkelweizen. It's a bit of a mix in that I've taken some pieces from various recipes and a bit of advice from the local Homebrew Store.

I started out with this recipe

3 Gal - Distilled Water
6 oz - Muntons Crushed Crystal Malt - Lovibond 64.0
4 oz - Weyermann Chocolate Wheat - Lovibond 500/EBC 1000
6.6 lbs- Muntons Wheat Malt Extract (2 Cans)
1 oz - Mt. Hood Hop Pellets - Alpha's at 5.0 - Full Boil, 60 Mins
.7 oz - Mt. Hood Hop Pellets - Alpha's at 3.7 - Final 5 Mins
19 IBU Total

1 Gal Distilled
1 Gal Spring
+ Additional Distilled for 5 Gal after boil loss, spills, etc. - 3 Quarts plus a half cup.
Waste - 3.25 Cups of Wort/Hop Residue/Tube Flush
OG Sample - 1 Cup
Plus I may have overfilled originally by a cup or two.

Wyeast 3056 Bavarian Wheat BL (15Apr08) - I am a bit worried about this as this packet sat in the fridge during a 36 hour power loss, it stayed cool, but not 40's. Unfortunetly I didn't apparently slap hard enough to break the nutrient pack. Lesson learned, final temp of the wort was 74 degree's F.

OG unadjusted is 1.049. Gotta adjust for temp

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Rosary in the Rain

Went out to Rosary for a nice evening ride, got out and got about 4.5 Miles out when it started sprinkling, by 5.5 it was raining. By 6 I heard rumbling and soon after occasional lightning! Ugh! But I flew like the damn wind and shaved probably 10 minutes of my previous best Rosaryville time with a finish in around 56 mins, though I did cool down for 3 or 4 mins. Another group was out also, the fast guy caught me around mile 6.5/7 and then the other 2 caught me near the end at almost 9. Oh well I still am happy as hell, the only downer was the rain, it was SOOO nice out, even after the rain, I was up for doing at least ANOTHER LAP. But instead I was good, spared the trail and went home to prep for our trip. Oh well.

Soon I will break 50 minutes out there!

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6023914

Monday, June 16, 2008

Eeesh, where does a Month Go????

The end of May and the beginning of June were OVERLOADED with stuff to do, between J's performances, a trip, and both of us being sick last week its been crazy.

In biking area's I've gotten in a few good rides lately, 2 weeks ago I did a mini-epic at Schaeffer and Hoyles Mill. I didn't quite make it to Black Hills but was pretty close, but a fall on Hoyles Mill tired me out and it also had some poison ivy. Ugh so I aborted soon after with about 25 miles traveled. This Friday I did the FNL ride out at Black Hills and did 12.5 miles, it was a great ride. Today I went out this morning and hit Schaeffer and did a quick 15.5 miles. Beat the rains by just a bit, I'll hit the gym tomorrow then finish the week with a big evening hopefully out at Rosaryville on Wednesday, before we leave for FL on Thursday.

In the beer realm, I've been so damn busy I haven't had a chance to brew beer. Ugh. It's been either hot or rainy and today continues the trend or I might have brewed this afternoon. Hopefully after FL I'll get a nice shot at brewing.

I did pick up 2 AWESOME FRICKIN BEERS!

Bells Oberon - A summer brew, wheat based, but more like a White/Whit, nice orange hints, and mellow flavor, but at 5.8% Alcohol it gets the job done with a better punch.

Troegs - Troegenator - Doublebock - A malt monster doublebock, that rocks up and down. Nice smooth toasty malt goodness, a bit sweet mix on the nose along with the hops. Tasty.

Off to make the dinner.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Muahahahaha!

New components retrieved from the homebrew shop. Soon the next beer will be underway, and I'm stoked. It'll be a partial mash, but the recipe is fast and loose and i'm curious to see how it turns out.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

10.49

10.49

That is the defining number of this month. No, not my mileage (Thankfully, more like 37'ish). No, that is the amount of rain for the month so far, with a regular AVG of 4.42 inches. Oh. Once again we've doubled our monthly average, and this time in under half a month. FUXOR!!!!

More brewing on the horizon, looking at maybe starting planning for the Dunkelweizen officially tonight and maybe try brewing sunday or monday.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

The Cure

Saw the Cure last night at the Patriot Center out at GMU. First show of their new tour, for their new album out Tuesday. This was a rescheduled show from last september, when they wrapped their tour early.

We missed most of the opening act, only getting a quick peek in at them before their set ended. We got J at T-shirt, but damn that was expensive. Picked up some snacks and the show started around 9:10. The main show went for almost 2 hours, a lot of their more radio popular stuff during the main show with some new stuff, but we didn't know much of it as j and I both hadn't really listened to any new cure since wish in 93'ish. They then took a long break before the first encore, we almost thought they weren't gonna come back out. After 5 mins they did. They ended up doing 3, 4 song, encores. The final one was awesome and ended on Killing an Arab. Great show, they played for 3 hours almost and at the end. RSmith at the end thanked the crowd that stayed and said they enjoyed their first tour night and blah blah blah. Can't remember really. I'm pooped, on about 4 hours of sleep now at work.

Maybe more later. If not, oh well. We've got a friends birthday tonight and Radiohead in the rain probably tomorrow.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Wow!

Wow, I was out for a ride at Wakefield today after work and was SHOCKED at how many more people are out and out on bikes now that the weather has cleared, there musta been 30 or so riders all out in different size groups. The weather was awesome, out under the powerlines there was an nice breeze. Down near the creek the bugs were out pretty bad, no glasses is going to have to change soon I think, I kept getting the buggers in my eyes. I did a nice solid 14.1 miles and averages out a solid 9 mph and I did the hell climb 3 times and rode the back side of the bowl 3 times to in addition.

But it was great to see so many riders out enjoying the trails and all of em were pretty cool, no real churlish behavior though one guy did insist on riding up the berms while a bunch of us were waiting at the top. Oh well, we all kinda laughed about it as he made his way up.

The bike is in need of some tuning on the shifters the rear is starting to get a bit balky. I guess I should go pull the rear wheel, clean the chainset, and full clean the chain but it looks like its gonna rain for a few days, so no real hurry.

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

DNK Brewery - Impreza Black Porter - Update

The porter is now in the bottles, a bit later than I wanted, but yet I think its fine. I tasted a bit of the run-off/drip off from the filler rod. Nice, a bit coffee'ish, with a nice maltiness. Maybe a bit sweet even, I might want something hoppier if I do a similar brew again.

Next up I will probably start a dunkelweizen, the weekend after next. I doubt I'll have the gear or time to lay it down this weekend, though honestly, I really only might need some additional malt, and a partial mash kit. Who knows, I don't even have a recipe yet, so it's hard to say. I do have 2 cans of Muntons Wheat LME waiting on the shelves very patiently.

Bottling went REALLY well till about 2/3rds of the way in when I knocked over 1 or 2 bottles and made a mess, otherwise my new washing prep and bottling setup plan worked like a charm to me!

At least my basement smells good right now, even after I gave the spills (1 little one in primary area, the big one was in capping area).

Gotta figure out if I'm gonna ride tommorow afterwork or not, might just do a light day at the gym and then hope for Thursday holding out for good weather. Time to grill some fish and asparagus.

Monday, May 05, 2008

Chinco de Mayonaise

We celebrated el chinco de mustard yesterday by having friends over for dinner and having some awesome mexican style chicken fajita's from Bobby Flay's grillin cook book. Awesome, I drank a couple of pacifico's and a big one of my hefe's. Needless to say I was quite sleep by 11 PM.

Ahh the dulcet tones of the ice cream truck are audible in my neighborhood. Summer time is really almost here and spring has sprung. No rain this weekend led to what probably 23 miles for me in the last 2 days.

Today I ground out about 18.5 miles with a out and back to Cabin John, this time I went south from the Tuckerman Ln park all the way to river rd. A few sections were a bit rough or the blazes were nearly gone leading to some long stretches of looking for the trail. On the way back going up tuckerman lane I witnessed a wreck. The first car was waiting to turn left and may have been waiting on me to pass an intersection but I was still 50 or more ft away and grinding up a hill. A school bus had to stop short and didn't hit the first car, unfortunetly a jerk in a mercedes SUV plowed into the back of the bus at probably 20 mph or so. The kids weren't hurt just a bit shook up. Within 50 minutes the cops had taken statements and the kids were gone on another bus and the rear ended bus was driven back to the shop with barely any damage. The guy's suv was pulled off the side of the road and traffic got flowing again. Oddly enough they didn't want or care about my statement since I guess it was such a clear case of tailgating/failure to stop. It's a good thing the bus wasn't about to unload kids either!

Man, pacifico is such better beer than corona.

Sunday, May 04, 2008

Great Morning

Took a short ride down into downtown Bethesda for bagels and a bit of misc hardware at the local hw shop. It was a beautiful morning only detracted from by my dieing from allergies, nice breeze, sunny. And no sign of frickin RAIN! YES!

Hoping to get out to Schaeffer tommorow afternoon, but we'll see.

Back to cleaning up for me, we have friends coming over tonight and I'm grilling. Yah!

Also finally cleaned up my disaster area of basement and the organization is quite pleasing to me!

Saturday, May 03, 2008

IRON MAN!

Iron Man FRICKIN RULES!!!

Make sure you stay till the end of the credits, you get a neat scene for your patience.

Friday, May 02, 2008

Rainy Weekends.

It's been a cycle the last few weeks of rainy weekends and clear'ish midweeks. It sucks a lot, but I've gotten in SOME rides at least.

Yesterday I went and did the Rosaryville Night Ride, nice group of 10 folks. Held up a solid pace for me of a moving time of 1hr 4min. Honestly I could have done a 2nd lap but it was time to get outa the park. Maybe some other time I'll get out there early enough to do a pre-lap. Night riding in the spring is so different than winter with all the leaves back on the trees! Neat! And not wearing 10 million layers is sweet!! I got to the park at 7:10 ish and was changed and ready to go in 15 mins or less vs usually 30 mins in the winter.

Wednesday I hit Fountain head again. Had a moving time of 1hr 15m though I did retry 1 hill so drop a min off that. I also made it up a couple of hills I hadn't on first try and only pushed up 1 hill. And I estimate a total time of like 1:25 which is much better than the 2 frickin hours or hour:45 it had been taking. Ugh. FH kicks my butt.

May try and sneak another ride in Saturday if the rains hold off till the evening like they are saying.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Thursdays at Schaeffer Farm

Did the first semi-regular Thursday at Schaeffer Farm ride today, didn't end up going out with a group but ran into several while out and about.

Great riding day, did 14.6 miles, though my garmin is getting really flakey now about powering off. Almost not worried about uploading new data, really only curious about my calories/HR.

Went to DFH with a few regulars afterwards and enjoyed a 75 and burger, AWESOME!

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Impreza Black Porter

Okay, I FINALLY re-racked the porter from the primary to the secondary fermenter. Phew! I took the FG reading before hand and got a reading of 1.012 that I adjusted for temperature to 1.011. That gave a rough conversion of 1.049 - 1.011 = 4.8% Alcohol. The yeast were uber done, I only wish I could collect them for reuse, but I don't have a clue how while using glass carboys, maybe an advantage of bucket primaries.

The Hefe is phenominal, I had a 12 oz today while working on stuff around the house and this time I gave it a good swirl, and the yeast really jumped forward this time, vs non-swirl previous tries. Still tastes great, but it's a bit darker in the pint glass than I realized. The head/carbonation is great. The banana came up a bit with the yeast, but not badly.

I took in 10 bottles for guys at work to give it a try. Curious to see what the beer drinkers vs non-beer drinkers think. Gotta take notes tomorrow.

Hell's Kitchen is brutal this year and so far I don't see any uber strong competitors yet. A few potentials but no real masters. Oh well. I think too many real chef's just don't want the hastle of trying on there. And I can't blame them.

Gonna hit Schaeffer Farm tommorow after work if all goes well. Which it should! I'm stoked! Off to fill my bladder infact.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Beer West

While on my westward trip I got to try several good/great beers:

New Belgian Brewery's Wheat - Dunno the name but it was pretty tasty, but light for a wheat, a nice smooth beer that we enjoyed in the aeroport.

Alice's Hefeweizen - Nice but perhaps the most banana flavored hefe I've ever had. I kept expecting a banana slice in the bottom!

Faultline Brewery - We hit here with some friends on Thursday! Awesome brewery. I had a great hefe, then a cask conditioned Pale ale that was outstanding. I also enjoyed a few sips of my wife's Dunkel weizen. The Kolsch was reported to be good too, from an admitted non-beer drinker. The food was kinda lame, but I know their burgers are good.

Hiked Windy Hill OSP in Woodside and hit alice's on the way back, great food and beer!

Also did a run out on the steven's creek trail and that was nice.

DAMN RAIN WON'T END! It's raining again today and supposed to tommorow, so right now that means the earliest ride I can hit will probably be thursday! wahhhh!

Took a big bottle of Altima Hefeweizen over to the inlaws for tasting at passover and everyone who tried it seemed very impressed and I can only think it's improved a bit in the last 2 weeks again, now with a month in the bottle! Should be racking the porter tonight, more on that later!

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Death and Taxes

Well due to stuff at work today I finally got my car tagged. Way over due, also got a spiffy new MD license too! Yah!

After that it was like noon and way too late to make it worth while to go to work. So I went to Schaeffer and Road like the wind! A nice yellow loop out and back skipping 1 of the more annoying parts but doing 1 section out and back that I don't always due, almost 8 miles and change I think at an 8.6 pace according to my cyclcomp. My damn garmin keeps dieing at the start of rides lately. Though it was fine at wakefield later. While out doing the white loop and whoopdies, on my 2nd pass of the whoops while making a nice corner I had an epic fail, the bead came off one side of my front tire and i had no pump. A while later a friendly fellow let my try his...No dice. Too weak. Damn I gotta find a GOOD pump for that, as the UST's are a REAL biatch! Gotta pay more attention to the air pressure I guess.

Back home and got more water and fixed the wheel.

Back out to Wakefield. Rode a nice lap by myself then met with the group and did a nice lap of accotink! Nice I'd never been there before, some more climbing than regular wakefield I think...More on review...:) Yah definitely some bigger climbs!

MD TAX SUCKS! WTF is up with this LOCAL INCOME TAX CRAP! And my payroll didn't withhold for it, gotta go see them after this trip. We took a miserable beatign this year. It sucks ASS!

Monday, April 07, 2008

DNK Brewery Notes

Impreza Black Robust Porter -

Ingrediants -
6.6 Lbs Muntons Amber Malt (LME)
8 Oz Crushed Crystal Malt (60L)
4 Oz Crushed Chocolate Malt
4 Oz Crushed Black Patent Malt
1 Oz Cluster Bittering Hops 7.9% Alpha Acid
1/2 Oz Willamette Finishing Hops 4.2% Alpha Acid
2 Gals Distilled Water - Boil -
2 Gals Distilled in Fermenter
1.7 Gals Spring Water in Fermenter (1 to begin, .7 to bring up to 5 gallons total)
11 Grams Yeast - Nottingham Brewing Yeast

Sanitizing -
3 Gals of Water, 3 Table Spoons of No Rinse Sanitizer
Rinse Brewed Pot with 1 Gallon Boil.
Fermenter - 3 gals water, 1 and change caps Iodophor for 20 mins, then dripped dry.

Brewing
Preboiled water before steeping grains at 170'ish for 20 minutes. Temp may have been higher. Thermometer reads different at mount vs center of pot. Swished water around with spoon while trying to minimize disturbance of malt bag. Let bag drip without squeezing/etc. brought Wort back up to boil and added 2 cans of Amber Malt. Added hops and boiled for 55 Mins, added chiller with 10 minutes left. Added aroma hops with 5 mins left. At end of boil used chiller for 3-4 minutes to bring wort temp to about 80 degrees. Next time I will stop a bit higher unless my water in the fermenter is warmer as it was about 62 degrees. Set the pot up on my worktable in the basement, and put the fermenter below and the big funnel in. I still need a bigger one, the trub required I clean it out 5 times I think. Or a better way to get the siphon to not pick up the damn trub. Between a bit of line cleaner, gravity reading and trub/etc I lost about 3.5 cups after brewing. Lost about half a gallon I figure to evap during brewing. Sprinkled in the Yeast and gave it a good sloshing before corking and putting on the lock.

Original Gravity 1.049 (rated by recipe 1.050 to 1.055)

Fermentation
Good fermentation going by the next night and it's going strong now. Nice almost 2 inches of foam.

Sunday, April 06, 2008

DNK Brewery in Action

Tonight, DoesnotKnow Brewery fired back up with it's latest creation. But first an important news bulletin:

Beer Updates:
DNK Brewery - Golden Altima Hefeweizen - First Bottle Opened - The first bottle of DNK's first brewing was popped tonight at about 5:45 PM in preperation for tonights brew project. Golden Altima is based on Brewers Best Hefeweizen Kit. With a modification of using SafBrew WB-06 Yeast. Notes on it.
Appearance - A bit dark for a Wheat, but a nice yellow color none the less.
Smell - A bit of banana, a bit of nutiness, and a nice yeastiness after it warmed a bit.
Taste - Banana and Clove at first, but then as it opened up the yeast flavor picked up a bit. Finished super smooth with a very nice level of hopiness so the sweetness at the front didn't over whelm you and make you only want 1.
Body - Nice got a finger and a half, after the pour the glass showed nice carbonation for a while even on the sides. Smooth drinking, not overly alcoholic on smell or taste.
Drinkability - I could certainly pound a couple of these or enjoy one of the big 22 oz'rs I've got waiting. Another few weeks in the bottle will only improve this beer I think.


New Brew - Brewers Best Imperial Stout.
Boiled 2 gallons of distilled water for the Wort/MiniMash
Let the temp fall to 160 Degrees and sunk in the Malt Bag of Sugar, Chocolate and Patent Malt. 20 Mins and let drip out. Kicked the burn back up and brought it up to a boil. Added 2 Tins of Muntons Amber LME, added 1 oz of hops. Boiled for about 55 -60 mins and added the aroma hops. 5 Minutes later fired up the submersion chiller and cooled the wort off. Inside it goes. Cleaned the Primary Fermenter Carboy with Iodophor this time. 1 cap in 2.5 gals of hot water and let drip dry upside down. 2 Gallons of Distilled and 1 spring added to fermenter then racked. By the end of racking I'd lost about 3 cups to trub, and drip loss and flushing the lines of the siphon a bit. Then had to add about 3 quarts of water to the carboy to bring it up to a full 5 gallons due to evaporation loss and the trub/etc. Specific gravity was measured at 68 degrees at 1.050, right on the bottom line of what it should have read out of 1.055. Set in the stopper, added the ferment-lock and wrapped it in the ski-jacket to keep it at a nice toasty 68'ish degrees and to protect it from the light.

The process went a LOT simpler this time and prep and cleanup was much better. Tomorrow I just have to really finish drying everything. I cleaned up all the gear, and sanitized the major stoff for storage. To speed up the process a 2nd person would be a huge help. The trub blocks my funnels filter a bit and my attempt to pre-filter didn't cut it as the mesh on the strainer was still to big for most of the trub. Not bad, 4 hours or so fully start to finish. In the future I bet I can ram it down to 3 or maybe even 2.5 with a bit of help.

Full Notes to come tommorow. I'm pooped.

Friday, April 04, 2008

Fountain-Hell.

Nope, not a typo in the title. It's just a statement of fact. More than most other places in the area, fountain head kicks my ass. The climbs beat me up, often take 2 tries to clear, but I did make it up 3 hills I only pushed up last time.

I did nearly go over the bars coming down shock-a-billy, but instead I opted to run into the highside wall/edge and ended up just scratching my arm, and I knocked a bolt out of my front shifter. I went back and re-sessioned the first loop and did it much better on my 2nd try interms of climbing and such.

Gonna have to try and get out there every other week this spring/summer till I can ride it in a solid hour and maybe a bit of change.

Next week I'm hoping to get out to Rosaryville and ride with the Rosaryvillans.

Also gonna try and hit schaeffer and maybe black hills again next week.

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Thwarted Ride - Cars are EVIL!

My attempt to ride at Little Bennett for FNL was thwarted by my evil car. I made awesome time home, got change, got my gear and made great time up to the park. Yet fate had a dirty trick in store for me. As I pulled into a parking space there, a horrible noise emanated from the engine area of the car. A horrible feeling shudder also was invoked. As I turned the car off, it rolled into a resting place. An inspection showed no major visible issue. A restart and attempt to back up confirmed the issue seems to be with moving the transmission from park to another gearing. Uhoh.

What really burns me up? I just got it back from the dealership with major $$$ work, that afternoon. It had gone MAYBE 50 miles....maybe. And so I was thwarted from riding since I knew it would take forever and an age for AAA to get out to me and to haul it into the shop. I'm really hoping that the issue was caused by their work, something not being installed quite right. However I have the horrid sinking feeling it may just be a gross transmission failure. FCK!!!!! I really wanted to get 1 more year outa that car before trading it in for a new/newer ride. Ugh. I did basically get 8 years out of it. But what I've sunk into it over the last year is WAY too much.

Damn, I was really looking forward to a FNL with the regular gang of Dave, Yeuq, and Edward. I actually felt like I'd be riding very well and wanted to see how the new and improved ride dealt with the tough climbs at LB.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Racing Around the trees.

Originally I was planning on racing next week at the Wakefield Dualathalon, but right now the running part is making me a bit skeptical of it. However I might decide to jump back towards it. However other events are on the horizon that are sorely tempting.

The main race I'm contemplating is the 12 Hours of Lodi Farm down in Fredericksburg Va in the beginning of May. I do want to get out and try a pre-ride in April sometime before I reg to see how hard the course is, I've had a few people say it is kinda tough but I'm not super stressing over the difficulty. I'd like to find 2 other fellows to race for a three man team, though a 2 man would be alright I guess.

I might try for Greenbriar Challenge if I don't end up trying for Lodi.

Greenbriar would be very challenging also but would only end up being 2 laps, however it has some heavy duty climbing that is quite hard, the big red one is veyr rocky and challenging and there so many people out there I heard that passing and stuff become a heckofa challenge. Who knows I might go out there and try and ride it again course wise vs the ride I did in january and see if I suffer as bad this time.

Oh yah Scary Movie 4 is crack...:) The bit with charlie sheen in the beginning is hillarious!

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Tuesday Night with and without lights

After work I dropped into The Bike Lane and picked up my newly repair LM Arc light. Not bad, $15. Just shipping, they really hooked me up considering it wasn't bought from a warrantied dealer.

Then I hauled posterior and went directly to Wakefield to get in a good pre-ride before the night ride. It was nice and sunny but with a noticeable breeze for sure. I geared up leaving the hydration pack in the car and headed out. Did 2 quick loops on the new phase 4 to start with on my gps. Then I rode all over the park with a few stops at the car for water and a cliff bar. Around 6:15 I returned and waited for the big ride to get going. We ended up with about 17-18 riders there with a small intermediate group and 12-13 casual. We broke into 2 groups and i went out with Tom's group. Great ride, we did some stuff I hadn't done in the direction he chose and it made several boring places much more interesting! I swept after the first 4 or 5 miles from the Bowl onwards.

In the end I racked up a solid 18 and change miles. Not bad, with a moving pace in the mid 7's. I'm looking forward to hitting Schaeffer probably on Thursday and see how I do there. Much more hilly than Wakefield but faster in general I think. We'll see I guess. On a downer note I noticed a low-mid allergic reaction to the damn cliff protein bar. Damn it, gotta find a new source of quick, easy post ride protein.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

DNK Brewery - Bottling Complete

Tonight we bottled.

My super wyf, Jenna, came in and was a HUGE help in bottling, she filled and capped I think all but the first bottle technically. We did:

24 - 12oz
13.8 - 22oz - The final bottle was full to just above where the neck started.

The final gravity on this brew ended at 1.010. I'll do the ABV calc tommorow, but I put it in the low 4.x range. Smelled great going into the bottles. I can only hope we got the "fill" right. The 24 are in a cooler and the 22's are in a box in a trashbag.

Yah BEER!

I hate washing and sanitizing bottles. UGH!

Friday, March 21, 2008

Sparging Away

Not that I'm there yet, I've been reading up on All Grain brewing over the last 2 day or two and I'm definitely intrigued. I've got at least a good portion of the gear to do fly style sparging/mash. However after reading I'm thinking I might want to go for a more batch style.

So in consideration of that I've got a few idea's on deck,

Fermenter - German style Wheat Beer - Ready for bottling, hopefully tonight/definitely tomorrow.
To Brew - Imperial Porter - Extract with some Malts/etc to steep in it.

Next Beer to Brew - Since I've got at least 2 weeks from when the stout goes in the fermenter till it hits the 2nd fermenter. I've got 3 weeks to plan my next beer after that. My goal is to always have 2 beers in some state of progress. My next beer question is what to brew:

Another Wheat - Maybe a raspberry, dunkel-berry, Blood Orange Hefe.
Stout - Something like a Oatmeal or Guinness
Amber - A cherry-amber

Any suggestions? Dunno if I want to go more than partial mash at this point, but for the right thing I might try a full mash. Who knows.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Trailwork

Got another 4 hours of trailwork done out at Wakefield today out on Phase 4. Ran the canycom for an hour or so, did some tamping on a few new sections of trail. Then I did my task of hercules, and hauled about 20 buckets of aggregate concrete material to two low spots that needed filling as they puddled to much for the trail designers. A bit of wood hauling for a new bridge, then ran a few more laps of the canycoms to haul material for tommorow.

Beer bottling has been delayed till at least Friday right now. Alas.

I was filthy and wet when i got home. :)

Monday, March 17, 2008

DNK Brewery Update

Well Well, yesterday I finally pulled the airlock/stopper from the fermenter and took a sample of the brew. Turns out its already in the Final Gravity target zone of 1.014 to 1.010, it was reading at 1.011.

So after removing the gravimeter, I promptly poured off a bit of the sample to a cup. And yep, its beer. Took a few sample sips and it has a nice wheat-y-ness and should be really good here in a few weeks after bottling. I might try and bottle Tuesday or maybe Wednesday evening.

Ugh, that means sanitizing bottles I suppose. I guess I'll do at least a case of 12's and probably a case of 20's and see whats left.

Cleaning the bottles now, very dusty with bits of crud in them from storage, fortunetly they are clean of residue so far it seems after a brief inspection and sniff test.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Insert Clever Title Here

Damn it, I had a great idea for a title here yesterday, but alas it flitted off into the ether.

Yesterday I was out at Wakefield putting in a ton of work on the new Phase IV area. There were 7 of us out working like nuts. We put in about 300+ feet of new trail armoring made up of crushed concrete aggregate. I also near the end I went off with Eric to cut a tree out of the bowl trail. Alas it was so big and eric's chain was so dull we had to simply ramp it. Turned out pretty nice.

Didn't stay for the evening/night ride since the wyf came home 2 days early. We spent a nice evening together and passed out after some excellent sushi at a place on Wisconsin Ave near Friendship Heights.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

No Tubes, Better than I thought.

My new wheels I got last month (newsed) make use of stans no tubes system. The rear wheel has held pressure very well most of the time, but the front has been a real pain, often deflating entirely in 12 hours or less and loosing a good bit over 3 hours, even while riding.

So I picked up a container of Stans recently and Monday I finally took the time to reseal the tire. Actually Sunday while brewing I undid one side of the bead and took that side off the rim. I then removed as much of the dried goo from the edge area on the tire and the rim as possible. Monday I added 2 very full measuring things of Stans. I sealed it up and with a bit of work re-inflated it to 35lbs. I then spent 10 mins doing a VERY thorough job of their shake and turn procedure to seal the tire/rim and any holes. I then did 2 long cycles of the laying it on the side, then I repeated the shaking and side laying. I inflated it to 40 lbs and remounted it on the bike. And when I rechecked this morning, Viola! Tire was super solid still. I'm gonna drop the pressure and ride tonight and see how it does.

Then I just need to get that front break adjusted in right!

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Brewery Update

DNK Update

So yesterday morning I checked on the fermenting beer and found it to be slow going, nearly 12 hours later. I attributed it to a couple of factors. My basement runs around 60 degrees right now. And will until into July when it finally hits the 70's. Also my basement gets some ambient light during the day. So I decided to warm the carboy. After searching my basement I found my wife's ski jacket. I wrapped it up nice and tight and left it alone. A check last night and things were progressing nicely, nice big gas bubbles releasing every couple of seconds. And a bit faster even this morning. There was at least an inch of "stuff" ontop of the brew from where it was a light film the morning before.

Ahhhh. Beer.

A co-worked mentioned his brews coming out a bit more bitter than they should and after discussing their brew-procedure I figure I had it pretty well figured. After a re-read of CJHB I confirmed my thoughts. Turns out they aren't straining the wort before fermentation. Ewww. I know how much crud I removed. I do need to find a better strainer setup. Mine was way to slow.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Technology Re-tread

I must be technological a re-tread, fine for most uses, but has already been worn down once from usage. And always a bit suspeect.

So I finally turned on comment notification here, sorry especially to DT for my not replying a bit more quickly. Oh well.

Beer is now fermenting. Just a bit slowly I suspect since it's a bit cold in my basement. I could alost lager beers in there!!!

Riding due to rain is a bit limited as I ddon't feel like going out and slogging ANOTHER 40 on the canal. The rain/freeze/defrost cycle is keeping the top layer pretty damn moist. With yesterdays winds things dried out a bit but still not enough. Guess I'll go suffer at the gym this afternoon.

Sunday, March 09, 2008

DoesNotKnow Brewery Now Open!

Thats right folks! Does Not Know Brewery has opened in my backyard in lovely, chilly, windy Bethesda, MD this morning.

I started brewing my first batch of beer this morning on the newsed rig I got earlier this week. I started out with a Brewers Best Wheat Beer. I'm using a different yeast to give it a more German/European styling than american. The wort smells great and only has about 20 minutes left. So here is my log:

Start around 1pm

2 Gals Distilled Water in Wort/Brew Pot
2 Cans of Muntons Wheat LME (1.5 Kg)
1 OZ Mt Hood Bittering Hops at 5.2% (28.35g)
Boil for 55 Minutes

1/2 OZ Mt Hood Finishing Hops at (5.2%) (14.17g)
Boil for 5 Minutes

The submersible wort cooler will go in at 15 mins total left, and will be hooked to my outside cold water line, which is FREEZING cold. Probably 40 Degrees.
Chill to 70 Degrees.
Siphon to Carboy through filtered funnel to remove and trub.
At 70 Degrees Take Original Gravity Reading

Original Gravity Reading: 1.044 - 1.041's
Fermentor Temp: 59-61 degrees.
Primary Fermentation Started 3:15 PM (Yeast added)

1 Packet Safbrew WB-06 - Dry Wheat Beer Yeast (11.5g)

Pitch yeast directly to wort in fermenter and agitate

Damn it smells good in my basement.

Siphoning could really use to be a 2 person job. Or a better anti-trub tip on the siphon!

Thursday, March 06, 2008

oy....Runner Jealousy

Somedays I'm jealous of runners. Well you ask why be jealous?

NO Frickin Driveline Maintenance - I spend at least 10 mins after every ride cleaning the driveline on my bike and once a month at least I spend at least an hour fully cleaning the chain, lubing it, cleaning the cog set and the chainrings up front. Maybe all told closer to 2 hours. Also clean and lubing the derailers various parts.

Cleaning the bike in General - During the winter it's really just been dry cloth wipedowns and removing the dried mud off all the major components, another 15 minutes after most rides, and sometimes more.

Storing Gear - Helmets, Shoes, Boots, Jackets, Socks, Tights, Shorts, Parts, Lights, etc.

Camelback - Cleaning out the damn bladder is a pain. Reloading consumables in the pack (Gels, Bars, GU, Supplements, etc)

Washing the Gear - Runners have a similar range of gear, so I'm not so jealous here. Though the nuts who run year round in the thin shirts and tops do seem to get one over on all of us.

Bike - Jeez, I've upgraded major components on my ride this year including lights, gps, wheels set, tires, cogset, brakes (front and back).

Argh! On the other hand I love the advantages of bikes. I cover a lot of ground and the wind of motion can be nice, sure on mountain biking I can average anywhere from 6 mph to 9 or so. On trails I can run anywhere from 13 to 18 mph. Zoom!

My feet and knees take a LOT less pounding damage. I enjoy running somewhat but after 5 miles my knees are miserable these days. Though biking does make my knees hurt in a different way, I think I need to raise my seat.

I can frickin COAST! HA!

And really, I don't MIND the bike maintenance, it fills my need for tinkering quite well, its just the time to do needed work is sometimes a bit tough to find, and runners just pull on gear and shoes and can go. In the warmer months its a bit better but still mountain biking is way to gear dependant. I plan on being out west in april and I want to ride, but that means probably at least packing my helmet, gloves, shoes, and pedals. Plus maybe other gear. We'll have to see.

Monday, March 03, 2008

Distance of pain

Wow! I went nutso today and road like a nut. In fact what may be a new distance record for me, admittedly it wasn't that far, but for me it was longer in terms of distance than any ride before. I road 40 miles on the Canal path today, 20 from a nearby neighborhood out and back. Damn a bit of wind on the way out but it was really rough on the way back. Plus I was hosed after the 30 mile mark. My legs and lower quads are dead. Good ridee though, probably 7 miles longer than my other longest previous ride. Took about 3 and a half hours with brakes. I had to do a bit of walking to loosen up my legs in the last 10 miles.

Gotta dump the data from the gps. My legs are damn tired.

Watched the latest Die hard movie and it was pretty damn cool, some crazy stunts.
The Tenacious D movie was so so, I don't care for a lot of the music but the duo is very funny. Oh well.
Dinner time. Fried eggs ho!!!!!!!

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Technical Frustration

Went to ride at Wake tonight. Got all geared up, unloaded the bike started mounting everything, pumped up my leaky tire went to give it a test rolll in the lot. Good to go it seems, ride was getting ready to head out and.....blirp..... My light won't light....uh...wtf.....gloves off, try again. nope. DAMN it. Unplug, replug....Nothing. Fuxor!!!!! NO ride for me tonight. At least I didn't make the pilgrimage out to Rosary as I had started to contemplate earlier in the afternoon. THAT WOULD HAVE BLOWN!

New brakes seem to be good but I need to do some more adjusting to get the power to where it should be and get the rotor to stop squealing while breaking.

Now to find out if i can get that damn light working myself or if it's off to repair land tommorow. Damn. And I can't justify a second (backup) at this time. Probably will be june at least. Oh well.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Tired....

I need a nap.....No, I need 4 more hours of sleep. I have no frickin clue how I used to run on 4 hours sleep regularly in CA.

Anyways, I got home from my ride at 9:30 to find my new Juicy 7's waiting for me. And my wife panicking about possible Copper compound exposure. After reviewing the MSDS and other stuff I saw it was potentially pretty nasty but her symptoms were only of minor inhalation. Still worrying I took her to the ER at 10:30'ish. Fortunetly not much of a line. By 1am they had decided based on CDC/Posoin Control info that it was best to keep her in for 12 more hours of observation in case of the Pulmonary edema, a build up of fluid in the lungs. I had to run home and pick up her meds (a mile and change from the ER to home). I got back home at about 1:50 AM. I got up to go to work early due to frickin ice/sleet/freezing rain storm here in DC at 5:40. Ugh.

The ride, I wasn't ready for the accotink preride so I just went and tooled around the regular area's. I did 5 miles and headed back. The group returned 10 minutes after me. We all then spun out as a big group of 11 riders, alas I was already pasted and struggled to keep up with the moderate pace the leader was on. So after 5 and change more miles I spun off to get another GU and ride a bit slower. I did 5 more almost after that for a total of 15.1 miles in an hour and 50 mins. 7.8'ish miles per hour. The gps I started late recorded 14 miles, though it did miss the first half mile at least.

Power Nap Time at work.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Of Brakes and Kings

Watching dune after a busy evening. Waiting for the wife to get in from being out and about. My heat still doesn't work all the time, I had to fight with it for almost half an hour to get it to come on correctly. The house got down to 56 degrees. Brrrr!!!! It was working when I first got home.

After getting home I went directly to the bike cave and tried out my new tools I picked up at Sears, to try and remove the stubborn torx bolts holding it. The screwdriver version wasn't enough but the 1/4 inch drive socket version did the trick! Nice! So I swapped the disk. Swapped the QR and popped it in. Uh..Hu? It was tight going in? So I played with it, checked it vs the old wheel. Damn, disk is rubbing very hard on the fixed/adjustable inner pad. I adjust it out....all the way out. Nope. I realize that this is gonna require an easier brake setup to adjust as the Hayes sole require sucky spacers, and it is gonna take a few!! Might as well wait for the new Juicy 7 for the front to come in. Much easier to adjust. Hoped it would come in today but no luck, probably tommorow or friday. So back went the damn disc to the old wheel, and such. Re-adjusted the innerpad and back it went. Lubed the chain, but it needs a full cleaning probably after this next ride.

Worked out today with a warmup jog, box jumping, pull ups, chin ups, push ups, a bike ride for 30 mins, planking, and a few quick single sets of chest, shoulders, and leg press. Actually showered at the gym. Not bad. Gotta do that more to make use of the damn $60 a month I pay, at least I'm using it 2 times a week. Minimum cheap drop in at any gym is probably at least $5 so when I hit 12 a month I really do make it fully worth while. Towel service rocks, the large towels are just to darn small!

Tommorow I'm hopefully off to Rosary afterwork hopefully for a ride.

Monday, February 18, 2008

WOOO HOO!!

SWEET RIDE TODAY!!!!!

I met with a ton cool people near Quantico VA this morning and we went down to Ashland VA and rode Poor Farm. It ended up with 8 DC folks, and 5 locals/semilocals from the Richmond Area. We had a very knowledgable leader, Kevin and Dave as sweep. They hooked us up some great loops. We ended up riding near 13 miles. I was with the faster group till really the last few miles. And I probably could've/should've hung in and pushed harder.

This is the Motionbased.com Map Player of my ride!
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/player/5003457

The weather was frickin AMAZING!
70 Degrees, Nice Breeze, Trail was moist. BBQ afterwards and finding out it had been raining on and off in DC made today's ride TRULY PRICELESS! The new rear wheel was awesome, I ran it at around 38 psi, but probably would have been cool in the mid/low thirty's. Climbed really well, and was solid. Gonna monkey with them a bit more soon.

Rain on the way home cleaned up the bike nicely.

Great place to ride, gotta get down there with the wife on a planned ride this spring.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Fitness Disease, Beer Cure

oy....Busy week here in the natty capital. Ice storms and elections played hell with the town yesterday. 2 Hour commute and icing roads kept me from the gym last night. It was rather nice to have a calm night.

Today I was determined to hit the gym and put in a solid workout A. After interminable shopping hell for tomorrow's festivities, I hit the gym a bit after 8. I warmed up for 7 minutes on the treadmill then kicked off with lunges, trying to optimize my lunges especially to improve my weaker left leg. Another few of those workouts and I hope to step up to a 30lb lunge from 25. I feel like I'm getting closer to being solid there. My right leg is to the point I can thrust up off of it out of the lunge pretty strongly. Step ups at 40lbs were a bit harder than last time. NOt sure if i struggled more with legs or arms....ugh. Pull ups weren't gonna happen but I did managed 6 chinups. Pushups were good I started out with 25, then did 12 then 15. Explosions sucked, especially doing them after so much other arms. The 25 was very challenging. Ugh.

The real disease is upon getting I home I picked a bit of chicken off a roast chicken then while toasting a english muffin I decided to try some Whey Protein supplement. Straight up in cold water. UGH. That was gross. A new low, but still not a bad way to make sure I got in plenty of good protein quick to help muscle building.

To make up for it I will drink an extra beer tommorow :) To remind myself being health is good, but living and enjoying is better.