Monday, May 31, 2010

Big Finish

Well I'm pushing thru in the last day of March to increase my riding/mileage. This week I will be near 50 miles in the last 7 days. Tue and Wed I road in for 14.6 miles, picked up 16.4 at Wakefield on Thursday. Yesterday I rolled another 12 at Laurel Hill. Today I racked 7+4 on my commute to total out at 53 for the week.

That would put me at 114 miles for the month. Not too shabby considering I was bikeless for a week and change.

Also danced like a fiend at a good friends wedding on Saturday, things we're really just getting going when it had to end at 10! Great tunes from the dj. Bowie, Cure, lots of good old alt/progessive.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Tick Tick Boom

Well got my first tick today.

Riding up to my car drop point. Riding near some tall grass near Westfields High. Wasn't even in the grass and all of a sudden I feel something scuttling on my leg and look down! TICK! Pick him off and flicked him off into the road. Take that you damn vermin!

Nice day for a ride otherwise. Even passed a ton of people and my new trick saves me I think about 15 minutes versus how I used to get to 66 via 28.

Friday, May 21, 2010

BTW Day

Well I got the bike fully back together Wednesday evening after the parts came in on Tuesday. The front D change/adjustment took a while so that's my wimpy excuse for not getting it done Tuesday. Wednesday I took a casual spin around the hood to test it out and made a few small follow up adjustments. Just a mile or a bit more.

So last night I hit WF but just wasn't feeling it really. Did a 6 mile preride but felt off my game. Racked up another 8 with the casual group but it was a somewhat light weight considering a 3+ miles of that was the over and back to Accotink. We even wrapped a bit early for the first time in a few weeks finishing up at 8:20.

Got to enjoy some tasty brews thanks to Bandit and SteveO. The terrapin brown ipa was very tasty as was Steve0's Lagunita's WTF.

I'll pick up another 7 today. Still having a pretty good month for being off the bike for basically a week and change.

68 miles for me this month.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Blame it on the Rain

AARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can only blame my wife for this, I was working on cleaning up a Karaoke song for her, Put the Blame on Mame sung by Rita Hayworth in Gilda (1945), when while checking the weather for the week my twisted mind morphed it into Milli Vanilli's Blame it on the Rain! ARGH! Can I get my head lopped off now. ARGH. One of my best friends sisters loved them during their heyday. I heard that album all the bloody time while watching PPV WWF in the early 90's! SUCK! And nothings clearing it out right now!

New brakes should be in tomorrow night, plenty of time to set them up for Thursday with all this rain, no riding Tuesday I'm sure and wednesday's looking non-good either.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Fuel Ex 8

Borrowed a sweet Trek Fuel Ex 8 from Todd and Anne at The Bike Lane for last nights Thursday night ride. Casual group was not super casual. We rocked down a solid 12 miles ish even with fairly regular regroup stops. We did all of Accotink in both directions then did the all of the Bowl, creek trail to phase 1 to powerlines, down the berms and then back up the final section of powerlines to finish around 8:40. Ended up hanging around in the 'lot till around 9:30. Good times.

The Fuel was a very different ride as it was my first Full Suspension in probably 3+ years on trail (Vs some light monkeying around in parking lots). It was sized large and I needed to raise the seat I think another inch or maybe 2 over where I had it for most of the ride. Also a setback seatpost would give me a hair more rear balance. In general the balance of the bike felt weird with all the extra weight of the rear suspension/plus sag was odd for sure. But when riding flat/twisty non drop/up terrain the damn thing flew! It tracked super nice. I had some speed sprint sections where it felt like a sled just keep going faster. Doing boyscout on the way out was a blast as were powerlines, creek trail, etc.

I REALLY want to try out a HT/Steel Niner or such. Maybe I'll pester scud to borrow his SIR9 I think it is.

Saturday, May 08, 2010

Cub Run Around

After 3 years of being in the area I finally stopped and visited Cub Run Rec Center in Chantilly. Its' insanely close to work, but its not really a MAJOR trail. In fact the real trails there are very limited, though riding the powerline/area around the golf course in each direction turned it into a nice ride. Though on the way back out I had a bad restart and managed to crash and burn in a small rock garden beating the hell outa my left knee. It impacted right on a rock of course. Thanks Murphy. This was after tackling a signal box with my shoulder. Damn, its getting stiff already.

Neat area in some ways. The area down by the damn was pretty fun/cool.

So lets see here is my riding this week. 1 Day of Commute, 7 Mi, 9 miles at WF, and just shy of 16 miles. So that makes it about 32 miles. Not Bad. Next week I'm going to try a couple more commutes and with WF and some other riding I hope to hit 50 miles. But we'll see on the knee.

Monday if the knee is up to it I'm going to pay my dues at Fountain Hell.

Also considering what my next mtb really will be. I'm strongly leaning towards an MCR right now. As cheap as I figure I can do it is the 1800-2k mark.

Stone Smoke porter continues to rock my socks!

Friday, May 07, 2010

May I have this Ride?

Wimped out big time this morning on riding in. I doing remember even turning off my alarm clock, just waking up at 6:50 and being like, OOPS! Way to late to ride in. I'll do it tomorrow is my goal. My alergies are also blowing up.

With last nights ride I've logged about 16 miles this week. I'm thinking I may venture out to Fountain Hell on Sunday. We'll see. Hmmm storms on Saturday, maybe monday for Fountain Hell.