Slow Week

Due to work stuff, rain/storm threats and such last week was a SLOW start to June with a whopping 16 miles, in 2 rides. An extra-sized work loop on Tuesday and Sunday I got out and road FountainHell. It was miserable for the first half as I kept feeling breakfast about to return, the bad way. I need to finish eating at least an hour before riding somewhere like that. And I only took 1 water bottle with me. It wasn't really enough, by the I really had to regulate and when I got to the car I drank about 12 ounces straight off.

Today I'm going to hit Cabin John after an appointment at 3:30. Hopefully the rain yesterday will have dried up mostly. Would be nice to roll out 12-16 miles tonight to start the new week. Hopefully we'll have better weather also, as things look now.

Big Finish

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

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

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

Tick Tick Boom

Well got my first tick today.

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

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

BTW Day

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

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

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

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

68 miles for me this month.

Blame it on the Rain

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

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

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

Fuel Ex 8

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

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

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

Cub Run Around

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

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

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

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

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

Stone Smoke porter continues to rock my socks!

May I have this Ride?

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

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

112 Miles..

17 Miles today put my with a strong finish of 112 total for april. I think I have a good opportunity to smack that down a bit in May. We'll see.

Did a 6 mile pre-ride and for me scorched around Wakefield avg 10 mph. Thats pretty good for me and I felt like I wasn't full pushing either. That kind of pace would put me on a 17-18 minute lap for W@W which would be real nice. Might even get me near podium in beginner on a weak raceday. Of course as a 3 year rider I feel a bit silly riding beginner, especially there. May have to consider sport. Who knows.

Anyways I'm off to shower to remove poison ivy residue I suspect I got into.

Yup

Once again between saying I wanted to hit 120 to 150 this month with my ambitious plan, fate smacked me down delivering a 1-2 punch of Rain alot of the weekend and being sick Saturday thru Monday really. And being behind on other stuff means I can't go out tonight really. I might do a short spin up a nearby paved path if I can get out of work on time.

Due to breeze and sun, we'll be up for a big ride I think at Wakefield on Thursday.

Riding We Go....Bad Rob

I was a bad ride leader yesterday and blew off part of the Casual Ride group at WF. It was chris, a new girl who was taking it slowly/carefully, and Jason V. I felt bad, but led the other new area rider around showing him all the trails/etc. WF was in pretty good shape and a blast to ride as everything was nice and tacky. I did a 7.5 mile pre ride and ended up with just shy of 17.

The week before i racked up another 8 miles, so for the month as of today I'm at 95 miles, with potentially 3 more ride days available on Sunday, Monday and Thursday again. I'm hoping to crack say maybe 120 to 150. I intend to push like a MOfo pace wise. Hmmm weather indicates Monday may be the day to ride, so I'd still like to break the 120 mark.

Come may I'm going to up the mileage a good bit, hopefully with some other rides.

Had a great beer I hadn't before from Long Trail in Vermont that Sarah brought down called Double Bag, a strong Amber. Very good I wiped it out REALLY fast. Had a Dale's second it was good, especially with Skittles. Chips ahoy however didn't go quite as well. Also had some of Tony's old stout joel found a growler of that was excellent! I think maybe the same one from the Bootleggers Bliss 3.

Current Weight 195 post ride just for my own tracking.

Cabin John Return

Finally got a FULL ride of CJ end to end. About 15.5 miles currently from Goya Drive to the bridge on 7 Locks past river and all the way back. Some mud in 2 spots, that are known bad area's the rest was great. The last section from River/7Locks to the Bridge on Seven Lochs was in need of some more trimming, but it's actually a pretty fun little addition. Not sure though if it's worth the half mile road connection each way though. Still pretty cool. Trails in pretty good shape. Only 2 small trees that could be cut out.

The new area for the shed on the Sunday trail work is set behind the tennis court building. I'm stoked.

Gotta pick up tools I guess 1 day this week incase we do get to some trimming work. Hu.

Schaeffer Farms next monday for sure! If I don't have ot do finishing work on the shed that is. Pushing milage on this month. I'm at 70 so far, not bad considering I've ebeen stuck at 20 a month since the beginning of november. UGH! Legs still aren't at optimal strength. Need to spend some time suffering at accotink the next few thursdays.

A little bit of Better

I think I'm finally having some success in beefing up my conditioning with 4 or 5 Thursday rides now in a row and getting in last Sunday's semi-epic ride. Maybe I can get Jen to hit schaeffer gently tomorrow. hmmm.

I REALLY need to tear down the rear wheel and fix the still not right spoke/nut issue and then reseal it, but that requires a bit o Stans so it will have to wait till after next thursday I guess.

And once again I proved thinking while riding is a big no no, in that after JoJo made a comment about me not compressing the fork before hitting an logover or such, I went up to a curb and proceed to hold my brake while trying to hop it and pulled an OTB and ended up resting on my back with a nice roll. Ouch.

Todd and a fair bunch were out we had I think 26 riders! Boy did it pour from about 5 till 8 till about 8:10. We then had clear skies from 8:15 till we rolled out at 8:45. Trails at Wake should be perfect by this Thursday.

Beer Notes

Also while downtown for the cherry blossom fest we stopped at the elephant and crate (not positive) and they had 3 fuller's ale's on cask! I had the regular ale. The esb would have been a bit hoppy and the porter a bit heavy for the return ride I suspect. Pretty good, and good food!

Another raging bitch and beer garden from flying dog. Both excellent!

Jeez my posterior is outa condition.

Did a 30 miler down to the cherry blossom festival on Sunday and by the ride back my posterior/sitbones/etc were just sore as heck. My seat conditioning has really suffered over the winter it seems. A 30 shouldn't be any bother, especially a smooth 30 like that. Eeesh. Legs actually felt okay but it wasn't that strenuous of a ride either.

Thursday we had a pretty large turn out for Wakefield TNR with near 30 people. Casual started off small with 4 people but by the end we hit 9 or 10 I think, picking up stragglers of other groups. We did near 11 miles and had at least 1 night riding newbie. It was good.

Busy is Good.

Been a busy couple weeks, we've now had our 3rd TNR at Wakefield in a row, and it was the third one with 20+ peeps out on the trails. Last nights casual group started out at 10, but broke down into 2 or 3 groups since we had a complete new guy out. Sarah and I took him around and showed him the ropes. Sarah really has the teaching thing down, must be from being a ski instructor!

And managed a respectable 8 miles, not bad. The new guy had only done 4 miles of pretty flat stuff before.

Now if only the trails would get a chance to get really good and dry.

And the SHED is in for our trailday build at Cabin John. Hopefully we'll have enough volunteers to have a shed crew and a trailwork crew.

Beers Ahoy!

Had a few other good beers recently that I forgot to mention.

DCTony had his new imperial stout along for tasting, it was super tasty and smooth with real nice balance of hops and malts make it very drinkable with a very smooth mouthfeel/drinking experience. Well done my friend!

Had a FlyingDog Raging bitch tonight on the way home waiting for traffic to die down at Wholefoods. Very nice, and with a hint of candy-sweetnesso of belgian beers against the bitter hops worked suprisingly well.

The new high end counter at the cheese stand is amazing in what they have, stuff like Golden Carlous, Founders Red Rye and a few other monsters I can't remember. Very cool.

So THATS what mountain biking is!

Had our first MTB Ride on TRAILS at Wakefield since the end of January. It was only the 4th trail ride of the year. Casual knocked down near 8 miles. Everyone was I think feeling a bit off their A game from so many weeks of trail riding. Even road riding isn't quite the same. Had 20 riders out in total. Larry took out one group with about 6 or 7 and the Jason Fast Group went out with 5 or 6 also.

Afterwards some of the Fasties were trying to ride over one of the last snow piles in the parking lot. A few people made it over but it tended to be the lighter weight guys I think. Frank rolled around in the snow on his 2nd attempt!

It was a really nice night out and I was over dressed, shorts, tech long sleeve with MORE wooly over that. Didn't really need the tech shirt I suspect.

I do need some new gloves my hands we're killing me! Several tears in the palms have rendered them too torn up for regular use. Time for another pair. DirtPaw Gloves

Now that our riding chances are getting better I need to do a teardown maintenance on the bike. Especially the drive train. Lube the cables and all that jazz. I will say having the rear brake line finally trimmed and bled has made a huge difference in control with it. I really need to do the front.

At some point I can mount my snazzy new 2010 X9 rd, but I think I'll wait till the current one gives up the ghost. Averages show that my current one will die at some point over the summer.

A little bit of this, a little bit of that.

I have had some REALLY good beers lately, 2 major standouts

Avery Maharaja 2009, Batch 9. A hop monster with nice malt. Amazing hop balance for how hopped it was. Smelled like gold. Tastee,drank the whole bomber myself on Friday. Felt like crap though the next morning. 10.5%. Hope they make it again this year. Imperial IPA.

Terrapin Brewer (GA, not md suprisingly) Dark Side Belgian Stout - Project beer for them. We had this on Saturday before thisone at Jen's birthday thing and it was amazing! The mouth feel alone was superb, excellent balance. No one thing really jumped out at you like say toast, coffee or chocolate. It was all just damn fine and really strong. Very nice to sip and drink and savor. I got the last bottle WF Fairfax had on Friday. Yeh haw!

Other good beer. Tuppers Hop Pocket, Duck Rabbit Milk Stout (v.nice) and Bells Consecrator Double Bock.

bad beer - Yeungling Double Bock, Butt Wipe wheat, it was on a dare.

Did about 3 hours of cleaning up the north section of cabin john today, some clean up and some prep for the season pruning back annoying plants in bad sections.

Tomorrow I may ride it or work on another section. not sure.

Less Riding so far.

By my current calculations if i maintain my riding pace currently. I may log 100 miles this year! WOW! Thats so f'ing much, I thinking I'm going to cry.

The snow has murdered riding for the last 3 weeks. Unless your a roadie or love your trainer. Neither of which describes me.

We did a TNR last night with 3 other brave souls in 5-15 mile an hour winds with gusts in the 30's, thru a mostly well plowed series of neighborhoods near Wakefield, racking 18 miles in an hour and 20 minutes.

March better be a damn good month or my next race will be the kiddy division at W@W. And my new epic ride will be Wakefield with Accotink.

Busy weekend on the horizon, with a play tonight (Anthony and Cleopatra), MORE Winter Party Saturday, a Birthday Party Saturday Night, Sunday (god knows what?) and Monday a return to the dentist for some tooth grinding action.

Had some good beers recently including a Coffee House Stout from some williamsburg brew co. I'm really digging flying dog's porter these days also.