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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!

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.

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.

Self at WatW #4

Thanks to Antony for taking and posting a photo.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

IRON MAN!

Iron Man FRICKIN RULES!!!

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

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.

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!

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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!

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.

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. :)

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!!!!!!!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Going Places, New Faces

I guess my working out is starting to show the beginnings of dividends. Today I went and rode two laps at Rosaryville SP. The first lap was done in 1h:9m and the 2nd was 1h:11 min according to my cyclecomp. The GPS is a bit off as my first lap I didn't start it till almost a mile in. IN distance I got a measurement of 18.8 or so. I finished the entire ride in less than 2:30 which is pretty impressive to me as stops used to take me much longer. Basically I stopped once on each lap to eat a GU and then had to walk across 2 log sets. The final lap i did end up pushing the last hill but much better than my first ride where thats what I did that final hill on 1 lap. Once I got going and warmed up I felt decent only after mile 15 or so did the tiredness catch up a bit. Gotta continue to push myself for more endurance I guess. Met a guy in the lot there for his first ride, Mark. I let him lead off, caught him on the bastard climb before mile 4. I lead up till about 5 or so and let him pass. And he was gone...heheh. I coulda tried to keep up more but oh well, he said he only beat me to the lot by about 3 minutes. He ended after 1 loop. Cool guy.

At the gym, I am pushing myself more. Doing my A circuit a lot but working in bits of C also. B sucks, as often when I'm there the main room is in use and I can't use it. Oh well. I'm doing much better on push ups, my pull ups are up to 6. I did some box jumps yesterdya and they didn't seem to leave me in bad shape for today. Saturday I rode for an hour. Sunday I walked for half an hour, hoping to ride today.

Tommorow, I will probably try and do a full circuit of A again. We'll see.

Too Much Rest???

Feast or famine in all things it seems. Last week I was definitely famine on sleep, moderate on cycling/working out and such. This week I am determined to turn that around and have a good week of sleep and activity. Weather wise though I don't think there are going to be many rides, so it's probably the gym. I caught up on sleep majorly on sunday with almost 11 hours of beautiful sleep, monday I got another 9 I think.

At the gym yesterday I upped my A program weights on many of my exercises, where I am now doing

4x8 Step ups at 40#
3x10 Squat Explosions at 25#
Pushups I did 17 first set, then I did 14 and 12 respectively, thats a huge jump.
Pull ups 5 chin ups 4
3x10 Lunges at 25# (didn't increase this one..lefty is still too weak).
3 30Second Planks
Then i did 20 minutes of intervals on the stationary bike.

Today, its been feasting on Chili. My 2nd Tier boss brought in some great chili, spagetti, fixins, cornbread and brownies. I pigged down on 1 bowl of spagetti and chili then a bowl of just spagetti. UGH. Damnit.

I need a nap. :)

Rest?

Wednesday I met with the trainer for my final PT session at the gym for now. Unfortunetely one of the classes was using half the gear the trainer wanted me to, but he did show me what he wanted to do. So I only ended up doing 3 new exercises. The first was a push up on one of those big inflated rubber balls, next he had me hold myself stable as he would slap the ball and I had to use abs to stabilize myself. UGH! HARD!! The final exercise was the lateral box jump. 2 sets of 8 on the 18, and 4 on the 24. Do each side with at least a minute break between each half set.

Thursday I was originally hoping to ride Rosaryville but the rain left all trails way to muddy, so I went to Wakefield and rode the CCT, I did a 6 mile warm up then did 14.5 miles with the group ride towards rt 50. By the end my fingers were freezing and so were my poor big toes! There is a huge difference in wind chill between 7mph and 12-15 and open trail and hills/valley riding.

Rain Friday has unfortunately made it very unlikely that I will be able to ride much of anywhere fun by Sunday and maybe even Monday. We'll see. I'd love to go ride Rosary again.

Gonna try and spruce this thing up with some video/photo's and such over the next few days.

Grrr gotta go deal with a Heat problem @ home.

Fairland First Ride

So this morning I loaded up and went out to check out Fairland. Over all I'm going to give it a consideration somewhere between Cabin John and hmmmm Schaeffer? I dunno. At first the looping twisting unblazed trails were somewhat boring with a few notable exceptions, but I eventually found my way to the blue trail to the trail head suggested on the more site. Nice. Then I rode the entire blue trail out and back. Very Very nice on the out and not bad on the back though a bit climby but hey, its mountain biking. I was just tired. I guess the workout yesterday may have haunted me a bit. After a brief parking lot tour to find a dons-john I returned to the blue path to exit back to the other side. On the way down I finally came up on some horses. I followed a ways back for about a quarter of a mile. Finally they noticed me a switch back up and let me pass right near the paved path. I shot off and went away from blue where I thought they were going, I looped upto a point I'd hit earlier then found a recently built skinny trail section back towards the lake. Unfortunetly it was warming up speedily and I wanted to get done. As I was finishing that part I repassed the horse folk by about 50 yards and went on. I did a few laps of the lake and a couple runs down the path to the road. A quick final grind back to the lot, greeting a pair finishing up that i hadn't seen the entire 2 hours or so I was out.

Not bad, I got 12.3 miles on the cyclecomop. The gps came up with 1400 feet of climbing in 1h45mins of in motion time, covering 11.6 miles.

NOt awesome, but still. Not bad either. My legs are SORE! :)

215! Nice!!

Sunday wrap up

Well, I fell a bit off the pace after hitting Wakefield on Thursday Night, I did 8 miles in just under an hour there. Not bad considering I was feeling pretty wimpy and wiped out by the end on a whole 400ft of climbing. Egads. Thats like 1 climb at greenbriar. With J getting back in late Friday night I had cleanup duty at home waiting Friday afternoon, and saturday became a wash for the gym as I went home with the intention of a 15 minute power nap before working out only to zonk out for an hour or more. It was quite nice though. Today I intended to hit the gym early but errands, lunch, and other things kept me in till 4:30. I did get in a pretty solid set for not having been in since the painful monday session, though I did skip 1 set of lunges, my shoes were killing me. I wore the complete wrong shoes and consider myself lucky I did as well as I did.

For a change I also included 5-6 minutes of jumping rope. Holy cow, I get way to easily out sync on that, back as a kid I used to be able to go forever. When I was 11-12 I used to regularly go to a boxing gym/school in Phoenix and that was one of the regular activities. Though ultimately I'm glad I didn't get into really boxing. I'm already addle brained enough as it is.

My plan tommorow is to get up and go out early when J leaves and either hit Rosaryville again or maybe go check out Fairland. Not sure, fairland sounds a bit easier to hit but I'd like to hit Rosary and actually get a chance to REALLY improve my riding there on the outer Loop. I'd love to try for 2 laps, but who knows.

Off to cleanup the bike from Wed/Thursdays rides. Yucky!

New Places, New Faces

Last night i made the pilgrimage up to Greenbriar State Park Md, Damn thats quite a haul! I got up there a bit after 6 and wrestled my way into my gear in the car. Ugh. I need the bike gear booth! 3 other guys showed up at first. We took off just after 7pm and I knew ever after the first climb I was in trouble. The rockiness and the climbs there are simply much harder than any others I've ridden. Patapsco might be a good place to build up to riding greenbriar better/more often. I'm almost excited to challenge wakefield tonight. We'll see.

Damn fun descents for the most part, we did a lot of the red, some of the orange, and parts of blue and white. On a long climb I did get way seperated from the group and took a wrong turn and lost the group for 5-6 minutes. By the end I was doing a bit better on climbs but my legs were still worn out. We descended the dam to get out on time and that was a rush, my front break definetly could use and upgrade also before I go back. Around 8 miles total in the 2 hours we were out. UGH!!! I bet I hike-a-biked at least a mile maybe. SUCK!

I need to show some love to the house before J gets back tommorow, so I won't be super dissapointed if the ride gets cancelled tonight. I'll just go and pound for an hour on the stationairy bikes. Maybe i'll try and find a spinning class...hmmmm.

Clean as a Whistle

Monday night I started cleaning up my poor dirty neglected bike, it had 2 good rides on it since any cleaning and a bunch more since a major cleaning and when the drive train was upgraded.

So I pulled the chain and soaked in degreaser, giving it a good few minutes of shaking at times, pulled the rear wheel. The rear cogs received a very good cleaning, and I cleaned up the wheel in general, removing a lot of caked on crap. I then gave the cogs a couple good coats of teflon spray lube after covering the rear disc so as not to get anything on it. I then rinsed the chain and re-submerged it again in clean degreaser as the first wash was filthy. In between I worked the chain to get out more stuff and wiped off all the crap I could. I gave the bike a very thorough wipe down removing all dirt, grime and crud. I repositioned my cadence sensor and the magnets to get it working again. I also finally fully cleaned and replaced the bad o-ring on the non drive side of the crankset. It was fully of dirt and the ring was almost fully off, only the pedal keeping it on. I now have a spare o-ring, though they aren't quite wide enough, but I cleaned and put in new grease and it should be a huge improvement. I also finally found the spare mount for my GPS and fixed it to work right and mounted that up.

The chain recieved 2 treatments of lube one Tuesday Morning, the other Tuesday Evening. I also cleaned the jockey wheels on the Rear D. After installing it and cycling through all gears I wiped the chain down very well removing all excess, and the rag was still very clean! Lubed all the shifting cables and cleaned up and lubed the troublesome Front D as well as possible. Tightened and adjusted a few other things.

My frickin back is killing me and I'm not sure of my status for tonights ride. ARGH!@!!! Even after 2 advil it seems still a bit to sore....:( Guess I'll decide when I get closer to ride time. UGH.

Working for the Weekend

Busy weekend, even with J away. Man, where did the weekend go?

Friday before she left we went to Benihana for dinner, it was pretty entertaining but not as good as the one we liked in Tallahassee, no fire, and some rude customers. Almost everytable was having a birthday party, very noisy with the way they do it. No noodles either and the soup was an onion based one, but pretty good, I still like miso. J was packing after we got home till midnight. Ugh

Dropped J at the airport early and went to work. After work I had a new friends new year party to hit, and it was a good time, too bad I had to split at midnight. met a ton of cool people.

Sunday I got up at 7'sh for a 10:15 meetup and 10:30 ride up at Patapsco Park, my first ride up there. Very cool place, though I was hike-a-biking way more than i wanted to, plus I didn't keep up very well. I was suffering at like 6mph average. Some real mix of nice terrain and some hard climbs with some technical descents be it rocky or some drops. I think I rode a bit over 7 miles.

Today (err Monday), I rode out at Roseryville Park for the first time. Good group of guys also at this ride, the 4 of us made a bit stronger pace, I paced out at 7.6 as its a much faster feeling loop, even though the interior advanced loop took me forever as I had some bad mistakes in there on some simple stuff. I did take a few nice logs that I was actually happy with my attempts. Definitely gonna make that at least a monthly trip if I can. A bit far but not bad. Fun Fun loop. I hope to get J out there this spring. Only one hike a bike near the end do to being outa gas so to speak, and then slipped in the mud. Oh well.

Also did my new workout today, very simple but surprisingly hard. !0 Minutes of boxing on the heavy bag, 3 minutes of both fists, 3 of left only, 3 of right only, 1 final minute of both. The other exercise is 5 to 10 sets of 12 reps on each arm of kettle ball swing. You grab it one hand squat down and as you explode up out of the squat, you swing the ball up in the air. Also the trainer suggested that switching out the boxxing for jumprope for 10 minutes. All i know is I am pooped!!!

Time for shower and bed.

Is pain your friend???

This was my thought last night as I crawled under my covers before falling asleep last night. I was pondering this due to the fact I did my 2nd workout of my new type yesterday. I felt pretty good doing it after the 2 rest days (well I ran and cycled on Wednesday). Doing the step ups I only felt a bit weak near the very end of the last set. The explosion squats were fine. Did better on push ups and pullups also. Where I felt the pain was the lunges. My left leg was having problems when being the support leg. My quad there is simply weaker I guess. But by the end I was hurting. I cycled for 25 mins afterwards to break up the muscles a bit more. I was quite sore when stair climbing at home last night. DAmn laundry. This morning though I noticed my recovery was MUCH better. I'm hoping for hitting it again Saturday maybe. Though maybe not as I may try and ride Sunday.

But back to my point originally, what is that point when working out when you say enough. That when do you say, okay time to modify the workout? I felt not just lactic acid build up but some real soreness in my leg. We'll see how it goes today.

I also went by GNC and grabbed a bottle of whats now my favorite post workout protein drink, muscle milk. I also find there carmel peanut bars to be my favorite of several high protein bars I've tried.

Rocking the Scales, Week 2.

Alright at the start of my 2nd week of fitness I can look back on last week and see some real positives, and a few negatives.

Positives - Hit the gym 3 times last week. Ate better in general, subway on the 2nd day for the 2nd half of a foot long is rough. I can loose weight (218 as of yesterday). I also managed to not pig out and eat a whole box of lowfat cheeze-its in 1 sitting, I ate maybe 2 servings, at a time. Not great, but better.

Improvement Areas - I binge, therefore I am. Its tough for me to eat according to any normal meal plans, being as alergic as I am to most fruits and veg. Find supplements to that is more important than ever. Tomato juice and V8 are new ideas for this week. I eat WAY To much Peanut Butter. It's my general snack food of choice. I need to get some pickles also. 2% Cheddar cheese snacks are also on my shopping list. I need more snack options. I need to hit the gym consistently through out the week, not just early, I crapped out after thursday. I need to hit 4-5 times minus for each real ride.

REAL NEGATIVE - My bike is still in the FRICKIN SHOP! I'm pissed. Friday it might get done, more likely Saturday. If the part was ordered. Moron wasn't sure. No more city bikes, they are over priced on labor and kinda slack. I suspect their overhead is just too high.

2nd Week of Program and I am at 218.

I started a new weight training setup with my personal trainer at the gym. He gave me a first workout of
4x8 Step Ups @ 35 Lbs - 30 seconds rest
3x8 Explosion Squats @ 22.5 Lbs -45 Seconds
Push ups to exhaustion - 45 Seconds
Pull ups/chin ups (Goal 10) of either/then both. 30-45
2 Sets of Pushups for 20 seconds.30 seconds rest
3x10 Lunges @ ?? (20?) 45 seconds.

My shoulders are killing me today, my arms are a little sore. My legs are a bit sore. Gotta push it today when I hit the gym. Not hard but I need to loosen up as I plan to hit the same workout tommorow....I hope.

Fitness Drive

My wife and I are starting a new drive to improve our fitness here in 2008. Not really new year resolutions, but just in general. She wants to work towards her new goal weight and drop at least 20 more pounds. For me its a mixture of dropping 10-15 lbs ideally and improving my endurance for Mountain Biking. I want to think about racing Wakefield this summer. I want to strangely ponder the idea of racing Greenbriar this spring like I wanted to last year. My goal is to be able to go out on some of the Sunday epics this year and ride the whole damn 30-50 miles and keep up with the faster group. So really its 2 part. Up my endurance and increase my average ride speed by 1.5 to 2 mph.

Hu? 2mph...thats nothing. NOT. For me going out and running 7.5 last week at wakefield was hard as hell. I couldn't have done a 2nd lap at that pace. Though thats more about endurance. Being able to ride a solid 8-8.5 at wake would put me in good shape to do well at the wake races in the summer at least in terms for me.

The endurance is really the issue for me. I can go out and do 2 hour rides, where I cover 14 or more miles, no problem but I'm shot the next day. I want to go out and do 20's and be good for a lighter 10-15 the next day or go out and push 30-40 and only need a day recovery.

The other issue I want to work on is what I call spin up. It takes me sometimes upto 45 minutes to get REALLY warmed up sometimes on the bike where my legs no longer care about what is asked of them, they just do it to the best of their ability. Maybe its my first wall of "tired", I dunno. It just sucks, eventually I am able to just keep spinning, and basically ignore my legs complaints. Maybe its just mental toughness. Have to consider that part further.

So on 1-7-08 starting the program I was at 221. I've got a ways to go, then to hold it off forever, but I want this now more than ever. This is the right time. My fitness is going to have to carry on really for the rest of my life. I don't want to end up diabetic, or wearing size 38 pants or whatever.

Sping Suprise???

Well at the rate we had been going, I didn't think we were going to get a spring in winter like they did last year. However its not obvious I was wrong as rain. The last 3 days have been marvelous. Yesterday I went mud-riding along the C&O canal. It was muddy as hell, thankfully I brought my fenders along, I slogged thru at a tremendously slow 12mph. Add in my ongoing issues with my rear free hub (pawls that stick) and it wasn't a fun as possible ride. After the main ride, I road a lap around my wife's old neighborhood to get some hills in. Managed to hit 27mph in once section for a quick burst. Not bad. I need to do more off-trail riding to improve my distance conditioning I guess.

Friday sucked. I left work an hour early to go ride at Little Bennett. Alas a traffic jam took an hour and 45 minutes for me to clear 6 miles. ugh. I got there and we rode the last 45 mins together from 9:10 to 9:55'ish. Only got in slightly less than 4 miles.

Now my bike is in at city bikes for getting the rear hub serviced. Also discovered a broken spoke. Though at $25 to fix that I'm a bit peeved. I think last time I had a spoke replaced it was $15, at of all places, Spokes here in VA.

Wakey Wakey.

I was stoked to be out and riding again last night. I was kitted out, early and ready to ride. Or mostly ready. I prepped the bike and a few others were ready and the ride boss took us out on a bit late pre-ride at 6:20'ish. We road a LOT of the trails in about 25 mins and it was sweet. It was all frozen we could ride the whole thing. Nice! It had been a while since we could ride much/any of phase 2.

I went back out with the casual group, Punga was leading but he was blowing us all away, after intermediate passed us we told him to hit the bricks :P and the slow ride slowed down. Over on phase 2 I bit it on 2 switchbacks in a row. I've never had problems with either of these and blam. After riding more of 2 we transitioned back into the woods and after a small climb. POW. My damn chain broke. Fortunetly it wasn't under load but it still sucked. I had to walk/coast out. Took me 10 mins to catch my group as at first I thought it was just a dropped chain. I couldn't get the new quick link in and said it was time to roll home. Everyone else rolled back in then. The 20 degree temps were assuring a short night. Probably an hour 20 to an hour 30 for most rides that night. The trails were blazingly fast though and that was cool.

My left knee/lower leg is a bit messed up from my first crash which happened on the preride in a really st00pid way.

May try and ride at little bennett tonight, depends on if the wife is otu with friends and when I can get off work. Also gotta see if my guy here can do a quick adjustment on my rear derail, as it appears the cable stretch is mostly done now.
Adn damn, stupid sram pc-991 is pissing me off for breaking. It isn't even hollowpin. The damn plates just pulled away from the pin. Gonna try and get a swap out maybe sunday or monday.

Riding Again

Finally got a ride in last night at Wakefield with my new equipment setup. SWEET!!!! The lake boots make a huge difference my toes were only a little cold. With toe warmers the should work down into even 0 degree conditions.

I was actually ride leader last night.....uhhhh wtf. We started out with 4 riders, picked up another. 1 Guy bailed a bit after an hour, The next guy went out after another 20 mins. We last 3 went and did another half hour. Cheers to Daniel, Rich, Dave, Alex. We final 3 did a total of about 8.75 miles.

I was pretty happy with my riding for being sick and off the bike due to rain/etc for 2 weeks. My legs felt moderately fresh and I spun pretty well most of the time except for the third spin up to the top to hit the berms. We stayed mostly out of phase 2 except for a couple of mins and a quick ride up the hill on the access road/trail.

My frickin gps mount broke and fortunetly I realized before I lost the damn thing. Thank god!

Anyways back to work for me. Happy Commercial-mas!

Trailwork is good for the soul.

Sunday I finally made the trip up to Gambrill's for a trailwork day. I was a bit worried at first that not many would be up there with it rainy and cold, but we ended up with 12 hardcore workers. A few people I've ridden with before including Todd, Dave, Julie, Joe and some others. New folks included clyde, frank, charlie, and a few others. We got a ton done and finished up with some beers before we tripped down to Brewers Alley, pretty good food and the oatmeal stout was nice.

Today I was going to go for a ride in the afternoon but the rain kicked back up and back in I went. Opted for a Run and ride at the gym. The new running shoes I picked up this morning were great. Very nice.

Friday the wyf and I went to a champagne tasting. It was pretty good, we ended up with 2 nice bottles in the $30 range. I liked a couple of the nice $60 ones too. I also picked up a 6pack of Full Moon, Blue Moon's winter ale version. Very Nice!

Black Hills Friday Night Lights Inagural Edition

First Black Hills Friday Night Lights was last night. Damn good time for the most part. Though at the end I was bonking majorly. But back to the beginning.

Got there a bit later than I wanted do to Traffic, Spending to long BS'ing with Phil at G-Town Cycles, and missing the West Old Baltimore Rd Turn off. Ugh. So I had to change in the car and that was exciting as usual...And cramped. But 15 minutes later I was ready to go.

New cassette check, new chain check, new rear tire (Some big tears phil spotted) check.

We started off as one large group, and rode the first short section together. At that point we realized we needed to split. A fast and not so fast, with a few of us straggling the fast, as tweeners. Our group was led by Jim with Yeuq, Mark, Harry and myself bringing up the rear. We tackled Hard Rock and looped around to the boat house.

We then rolled onto the HMC trail all the way to the big bridge. During the last section we lost a rider and that sucked. He was behind me then he wasn't. When I got to the end we all turned back. No sign of him at the first lot and so 2 guys went back to double check while I called the ride leader. The county sheriff patrol stopped to check on us and thought we were crazy but cool for riding. They didn't care about our permit even. hahaha. A bit later the ride leader called back having seen our missing rider heading back to the lot by the road. I call the search party back. After they return we take off.

Well they do, but I'm burnt and frozen. Got way to cold during the 12 minute plus stop and I can't crank well anymore. So I convince Harry to head back the "easy" way back. Roads to the main center lot. But there are 1 major 1 minor grind back. UGH. We made it back in about 9:48'ish. But I'm toast. A quick change of shoes helps, my poor toes are frozen and barely feel my feet. Load gear and head home. Time for a final purchase for now.

A pair of Lake Men's Winter Mtn Biking Boots. Ahhhh warm feet and toes ho!

Ended up doing near 10 miles with a moving pace of 8.3mpg average. Pretty cool. Without that stop I probably would have gotten 12 or so and maybe been a bit faster.

First Night Ride at Wakefield.

So this Thursday, I did my first night ride out at Wakefield Park in Springfield, Va. It was a good time. Got out there nice and early and spent an 40 minutes gearing up, adjusting equipment. A new pair of gloves, socks, and headwarmer. Very nice. I now just need my new fleece tights and I'll be almost good to go for the season.

Did a little preride to warmer up and see how things would go. And it was pretty damn good. Put on a extra pair of socks and was good to go. I went out with a nice casual group, we had 8-9 riders through out. We made an average pace of 7.1 according to my cycle computer odometer. We went down to the creekside trail, then climbed to the power lines. The most of us hit the bowl. We then rode the trail back up and out to the parking lot. We then headed over to Accotink and rode most of the trails over there. A bit more challenging. We kept having people not make it up and out of stream crossings. We had a woman along who'd never mountain biked before excluding one light trail ride and never night rode before. She kicked ass and rode hard! I was impressed.

I did head over to kilroy's but it was too noise and smokey and my wife bailed on her late class so I headed home.

Maybe there will be a post ride stop at DFH after Black Hills tonight.

Descente Wombat Gloves Review

So I went out yesterday and picked up a pair of Descente Wombat gloves. Pretty darn nice. I like the knit cuff, the construction of the main seams. Not sure how I feel about the grip material but i bet it will last well. The snot wipers on the back of the thumb(s) are nice and soft. Temp wise I think they are pretty good. I was riding in the mid-40's last night pretty comfortable excluding my already damaged finger. So I did the poor man's warmer and took the glove off and a few breaths into it later jammed my fingers back in. Much better. So now I know I just need to pre-warm them. I'm now thinking about what kind of liner glove I want. My other bone to pick is the the thumb length is a bit short.

Now I also need to deal with my cold feet issue. I wore a pair of Smartwool socks under a pair of snowboarding socks and it was better. I just can't find a pair of booties that will cover my shoes correctly yet. ARGH.

Colder than a Well Diggers @ss in Alaska

Last night here in the Nations Capital Area was our first REALLY REALLY cold night. Even right now the outside is reading 26Degrees at 9AM.

So last night we had the Friday Night Lights at Little Bennett Park. It was cold at the start and damn cold by the end. I was pretty happy with my warmth level in general. The 2 dark spots were gloves/hands at first and shoes/toes at the end, err well by 2/3'rds of the way through. I should have sprung for these at HudsonTrail before the ride.

http://www.hudsontrail.com/viewItem/10/596/7695/
http://www.hudsontrail.com/viewItem/10/596/11622/ - These look good too!

I mainly went there looking for some biking booties to help keep the feet warm, it was really only my toes that were cold, and that was from swelling I think. I need to adjust my shoes a bit out for winter near the front.

http://www.hudsontrail.com/viewItem/10/82/9180/
http://www.hudsontrail.com/viewItem/10/82/12616/

It was a damn nice ride otherwise. Though a bit tricky as a ton of leaves hid a few tree limbs/etc down in the trail. I only partially dumped once though I had to dab a few more times than usual. The full moon made it really bright and nice. By the end of the ride the grass was frozen and the dew on trees was also putting a white frosting on everything. I was back from the 3 guys a lot of the longer sections and it lent a nice feel of being a bit out on my own. Though I hung in pretty well on a couple of the big climbs. Nice for not riding much.

My layers were as such. Lower - Thermal LongJohns, BikeShorts, legwarmers over the LJ's and then a long pair of snowboarding socks. Up Top I had a Thermal LJ shirt with a riding jersey over that with a tech fleece thermal over that then finally a HaleyHansen jacket shell (No liner). I wore a neck warmer/buff but i used a new breath mask and that served as my earwarmer/face mask and it worked pretty well. If only my nose wasn't so runny! So a new pair of gloves heavier than my 661's and a pair of shoe covers and I'll be good to go down to that level again.

I hate my Car, Somedays

Monday was hellish. Rain delayed my car inspection for almost 5 hours, and I didn't get my car back till 3pm. UGH. Then I find out I have 1000 of stupid repairs to do before it's street legal in MD! DAMN IT! How frickin annoying. I may try and do some of the work myself. I dunno its annoying. I want to find a job closer to home where I can walk/ride/metro commute in some fashion.

Afterwards I did pickup my bike at GTown and the new dérailleur was installed and it looks sweet and shifts even better. Nice, quiet and sure. I didn't test it too much but preliminaries show that it is better. I upped to an 07 X9 from the 04/05 X7.

I also got a few pieces of new cold weather gear in but the tights I ordered were too damn small. So they are going back.

And its raining like crazy and it looks like the last Schaefer Farm Night ride is probably gonna be a wash.

WTF is wrong with People?

http://petermckay.blogspot.com/2007/11/not-typical-commute-home.html

Damn this guy was lucky, but it just shows how damn scary and weird the world is getting. Whats next, wearing Body Armor while biking??? (well I'd wear it when doing more extreme mt biking....:)

Calendar Season

Calendar Season is upon us once again. Last year I found 2 cool ones that I wasn't in time to buy due to limited quantity :(

This year one of them just released Nov 4, and I got mine Satudary. It rocks its from the girls up at www.point83.com, check out the calendar itself at:

http://www.point83.com/calendar/

The other calendar I dug last year that doesn't appear to be back this year so far is:

http://www.nsmb.com/shore_news/mudbunnies_calendar_11_06.php
www.muddbunnies.com

Alas, no sign of one from them this year, the group seems a bit less active....Keep an eye out through November though!

Monday was a good day....

Damn it was a great day to ride!

After a coffee trip with the wyf this morning I made a few stops and made my way out to Germantown, a quick stop at Germantown Cycles and Phil hooked me up with a new Thompson seatpost, decided to stay with the leanback/whatever like my original Easton 50, but its a bit less back...A bit of fiddling in the car and viola. Out to schaeffer and i'm off. Its nice and warm so the jacket stays in the car. I layed down a nice almost 12 miles. Not a bad pace either....7mph ish....much better than thursday....

Need to tune the seat height and position a bit more, but thats gonna have to wait for the new x9 to be installed later this week. I'm excited!

Ran into a bunch of bikes all the way from Purceville VA, from the Lands End shop, they said its one of their closest rides, but they are hoping to get somethign going out at Round Hill eventually. County or city lands.....That would be cool for them.

Off to finish my batch of chili! Ye HAW!

The Good, Bad and Scary

Rode a late Halloween ride at Schaeffer Farms last night. Good ride till the near end when a mechanical totally burned me. The bolt that holds the seat bracket on sheared off out on the orange bypass off the main yellow loop. My group ride leader todd saved the day and took his own seat off and lent me his as I was already wiped out and couldn't stand-ride the whole way back. I also inadvertenly unplugged Gwadzilla's light while putting it in his jersey pocket (Face-palm).

For not being active the last 3 weeks I actually felt pretty good, between being sick for a week or more, rain, and travel I was pretty happy though by the end I was blown out and cramped up after a bad failed log hopover.

The ride otherwise was pretty good darn good, the white loop had awesome decorations and stuff. We had a great turnout and everyone had a damn good ride.

I also took the ride into G-Town cycles and phil hooked me up with the best adjustment possible. i also went ahead and ordered a new X9 to replace my slightly worn but sad x7. There was a bit of play in it, that just couldn't be adjusted out.

I want to ride at least 1 more time this weekend. Or at least get into the gym on Saturday and ride on Monday.

Jeez - its almost November.

Crud. Where does time go? I dunno. My riding has been pretty eratic here in the last few months, between extreme Overtime, and commute delays leaving me stuck in traffic. The final straw is that my damn shifting setup is giving me a migraine. I think I could use to replace my rear derailleur but its just not in the cards. The other thing that would serve me well is learning to actually adjust it by myself. Add in a few trips, in Aug, Sept and Oct.....And wow...its been busy.

Winter and night rides bring some new challenges to me in the form a suitable riding cloths. I'm right now considering what kind of windbreaker is going to be optimal. A new pair of clear safety glasses for all riding is also on my list.

I did finally hit a new park for me, Fountain Head in Fairfax Co, Va. Nice with some semi technical descents and a few climbs that broke me utterly. I also made like humpty-dumpty and took a small fall off the 2nd Teeter-totter, due to a lack of that all important momentum. It was a challenging ride plus dark was creeping up on my and I lost my map pretty early on so I had not a great idea of where I was on the ride. Gonna try and ride it one or two more times before it closes for the season.

I need a nap but alas I've got another 4 hours of fun here at work.

So cheers and have a drink for me!