Return to Little Bennett

Last night I got a chance to return to one of my favorite stomping grounds for night rides, probably the 2nd place I ever did a night ride, Little Bennett Park. It was a fabulous night for riding temperature wise. Looking back at my GPS logs, I see this as my 10th logged ride at LB, since May 2007 and my first in over 3 years! I think there may have been one or two un-logged ones, but I'm sure it's been about 2 years at least since I'd ridden there. Crazy!

The new trails Trail Conservancy has put in will be a BLAST once they bed in and dry up fully, even on a few of the dry sections we started to really pick up some speed! Kinda like Rosaryville but a bit more rolling at least on the Browning Run reroute so far. The final climb back up Kingsley towards Purdum sucks! Nothing like a 15 degree pitch or two to make you suck wind. Parking at the Burnt Hill lot makes it a fairly interesting and somewhat different ride. Flying down from the top of Tobacco Barn is still a BLAST! And Pine Grove is still a nice challenging climb. Good times. LB doesn't get the props it should, when it's dry its a real blast, when it's moist/wet in low area's like last night it's a real work out.

Also got in a quick pre-ride at Schaeffer, doing 2 laps of the whoops, the first was terrible the 2nd was better, need to spend some time learning the slight changes in the lines and the difference in momentum my 29'r requires versus the old Giant. Did white down to the orange whoops cut off, then at the merge I rode white down to the stream and took the green bypass over to yellow and did the sections of yellow I hate back to the lot, not bad. Saw Joel, Sharron and Mark getting ready to head out with the Tuesday Night group.

With the rain today I'm surprised both rides didn't have a WAY bigger turn out as I suspect tomorrow's rides will be canceled, the trails were still all on the marginal side. Maybe a CCT or a Bar Ride for Wakefieldians.

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.

Biking Week!

Busy week for biking, I didn't end up hitting my thursday ride due to being tired from taking the wife to the airport early and storms coming in that evening. I did ride friday doing the monthly Little Bennett night ride. We rode almost 15 miles though my gps log only shows 12 due to me forgetting to turn it back on once we went out for a last lap up the first big climb and back down loggers. I did crash and burn on a small stump. Around then I somehow lost my damn glasses! Argh. I didn't need em I shoulda left em in the car. So the next morning I rolled outa the house in the same gear at 5:30 and started riding again near 6. I covered almost all the same ground and looked around the 3 spots I figured I could have lost them in as well as possible. No sign. Oh well ended upp with another hour and fifteen minutes of ride time for 9 miles.

So not bad that made it a nice 36 miles. Today I tacked on a pair more and made it a nice 38 miles. Those 2 miles were trial miles. Trying out a new change to the bike.... I finally switched to blood clipless. Yep. I got a set of TIME Atac XE's on Saturday and tried on a number of shoes. They were all to wide and slipped off. So today I went back out on the shoe hunt. Tried on a lot of stuff and still didn't find the right fit. So I treked out to columbia to hit race pace, the nearest Sidi MTB center. I'd tried the regular dominator 5 and it was a bit to wide. The guy in here right away hits me with a 6 series Eagle. Has the new heel securing system. Tighten it right edown and wam feels good. Plus they have half sizes and the 46.5 fits the best in the front/side that I've tried. 47 felt too huge. 46 a bit tight.

So i got home, installed the new pedals. Installed the cleats. Tried on one shoe and tried cruising around the basement. Hmm not bad. Tried the other. Not bad. Off to the lawn. Tool around a bit in the lawn....not bad foot commes out okay. A few adjustments. Better. A pair of laps around the neighborhood. Good start.

Tommorow I'm gonna try and hit damn cabin john. After picking J up at the airport and a physical...hmmm well see..