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.

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.

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.

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.

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!!!!!

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!

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!!!!!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.