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.