Long Day Done

Went out a bit later than I wanted today for some Ad-Hoc Trailwork on Cabin John. When I'd visited a few weeks ago it was starting to get bad. Well the goya drive section was real bad. 1 mile of trail took me almost 3 hours alone to trim. Though I also did saw out the better part of one tree with a folding hand saw.

I got to about 1/4 of the way into the section to river rd at around 6:30 and decided to be done, rode out to River Rd and headed back. To towel down and pick the wyf up from here trip to NYC this weekend. Ran out of water crossing the powerlines near the baseball fields.

Quick rinse off in the bathroom at CJ of my head arms and torso and I was done. 13.5 miles of riding and probably walked 6 or 7 I figure in pruning/trimming. Still need to do the last .9 miles from river rd up to near uhm watchama-call it. Though the first .3 miles from river rd in doesn't need much, just one spot where there is a log down, and the ride around is in the bushes.

Maybe one day after work this week. We'll see.

I love the Sugoi RS bibs. Best money ever spent. Also traded in a recent gift and a gift card from the hols at City Sports on a posh new set of Oakley Jawbones. Sweet! Need to order some clear lenses for night riding stat.

TNR - Hot as H3ll Ed

Another warm nite tonight, not as warm supposedly as yesterday but pre-ride it felt WAY worse in the WF lot. Once out and riding it was better though. Even felt a few cool'ish breezes.

I had a rough incident pre-ride with a cliff bar gone wrong. Nearly hurled a few times. Not fun. Got a coke at WF and it helped a bunch. After a 2.5 mile spin I felt human and was able to lead a pretty snappy casual group of what was 7 riders but due to an early flat ended up at 5 including me-self.

We did a pretty epic loop at Accotink and only rode a tiny bit of the creek trail at the end. It's already getting dark earlier and I'm fucking bummed out. I've been really enjoy using no light the last few weeks. In the next month I intend to keep it up but will have to think about charging it soon. ugh.

Everyone had pretty good rides it seemed. Another good TNR.

Lake Fairfax Fun!

Finally got out to Lake Fairfax and followed the intermediate pace group around the trail last night, the new stuff out there is really pretty burly! Some good size ups and downs with logs makes it kinda tough. We then blazed out to Difficult run I think and back. Or maybe it was thru Wolf Trap stream park. I'll ask next time. It was the 7.5 mile out and back we dropped 1 section of single track on the way back and ended with 14.7 miles. I drank almost 60 oz of water I think. IT wasn't bad except in the lot and crossing major streets. Felt good to push my pace, I might be able to lead an intermediate minus in the future at wakefield without it being casual ++. 10.2 avg though that was due to the fact we flew on some sections of the CCT.

2 Moderate wrecks on the ride, 1st on the return was crossing that is apparently very bad normally and has some bad log/limb armoring, the guy tried to go thru some dips/gullys and basically endo/side crashed narrowly avoiding the log. The second guy went down in some gravel on a turn.

Lots of semi-gnarly gravel along the trails. I almost lost it once as I was riding to forward.

Looking forward to much torture and misery at WF tonight.

Another Slowwwwwwwwwww week

Last week was a slow riding week, 1 day of cycling to work, 1 night of riding, 14 miles. So last week was a 21 mile week.

This week I snuck out to Trail Work at Rosaryville yesterday and pickup up 5.5 miles while riding and clipping. Then I went ahead and blasted out a lap in what I think is a new record for me in 53 minutes, avg just over 10 mph. It was a hoot. I figure with the clipping and walking I did another 2 miles at least clearing trails. not bad. it was pretty miserable by the end when I finished around 2.

Rehydrated on the way home and enjoyed a nice Founder Scotch Ale afterwards.

Thinging about Lake FFX on Wednesday. We'll see.

Riding in Hell

DAMN it's stupid hot here in the capital.

Thursday I eecked out another 14 miles and Sunday I went nuts and pulled my first sucessful double of FH without cramping/dieing for a final 16 miles, putting me at around 45 for last week. Not shabby. Still not commuting to work much but reports are out that the heat is going to start relaxing in the next day or two!

SO hot on sunday the first lap the heat was miserable. The 2nd it was less noticable it felt probably because I was soaking at that point. Even a fall didn't bother me. Made it up a couple good hills and in both laps I never got passed and passed a few people. Moving times on the first lap was 1:05 and 2nd was 1:10. Not super fast but getting faster. week after this my goal is to move to 3 laps at FH.

Normalcy is not an Option

Things are in a semi-state of Normalcy right now, work has calmed a bit versus the last 3 weeks of 60-70 hour work weeks, I might only hit 55 hours this week on 6 days.

I got out for my first extra ride of the week last night at Wakefield and we got soaked by a very brief thunder storm. My bike was super muddy by the end. Spent 30 minutes cleaning it off last night after the drive home. It had dried up enough to be able to wipe most of the crud off. Still need to clean the chain fully though, gotta find where I stashed the degreazer.

New bike on order also finally. Moving up to Big Wheels (tm).



Just kidding but it is a big wheel bike (29'r) the new 2011 Trek Paragon by Gary Fisher. Not sure that I really care about the ending of the official brand of Gary Fisher and it now being a line of bikes for trek. Thats really how I've seen it for the last 2 years as tech from one has been very obvious in the other, especially 2010.

2011 Trek/GF Paragon

Upgrading the Cassette, Cranks and Chain will be the first things. Along with probably the stem and maybe the bars. Also it will start off being tubeless. Not sure on the 29-2 tires, I really think I may go with the XDX up front to start with, as I've had excellent luck/life out of the one on my Giant. The 10spd rear mech is also a bit of a question. When I do upgrade I will probably go 24-34 upfront and drop the 44T ring for a bashguard. Though I'll keep a spare 44 for those days when you want to mount a BIG GEAR!

Better Week than expected

Had a good group for TNR and the Casual-ties ran a pretty fast group knocking off 10.5 miles. Toonces/Neil lead a bunch in accotink and showed me a few trails I'd been looking for a while.

He also took a ton of great photo's! Big thanks.

Today I went out and cranked 35 mixed miles of trail/cct/road while tring to find my way to Laurel Hill. Stoopid bad blazing. Missed the turn right after popping out of the town house neighborhood on 7100. Again. Got a ways down Pohick rd but new I was nearing my limit at 25 miles already and turned around. Managed a quick run thru of Accotink on the way back and finished up in the lot. I had wanted to do the bowl but I was toast.

Had some fun cramps at home when I got out of the car. Should have stretched after finishing.

Big thumbs up for Moor Porter from Cisco Brewery in Nantucket. Very smooth with notes of caramel up front and a nice roast finish. Tasted almost like a homebrew!

To New Bike or to Craigslist

Well due to a glut of OT, and a few odd factors I appear to be on the verge of getting my new ride. Shocking I know.

Now the tough question. I have in my budget of general X enough to cover a Gary Fisher Paragon, from this year that is a pretty nice bike with damn good components (fox f29 rlc, x9 gear, elixir 5). I could easily move all this stuff over to a MCR later if I don't end up loving the thing. Excellent local support via The Bike Lane.

Or I found a good deal on an MCR on craigslist.
Fox Fork (info requested), tubeless on stans rims, hyrdos(i.r.) thompson stem/seatpost for a bit less $$ than the paragon.
CONS - Used, unknown source, cash deal (versus a it of CC to offset quick pocket hit), no idea who built it. Having that local support is nice for warranty/etc.
It's been on craigslist for a while so I might be able to levrage the price down a bit more. I think it's been up on there since late May.

Final CON on MCR - Root Beer might become the official color of Thursday Night at Wakefield.

Steel is Real.

Fridays I'm insane

Great ride last night trails were in fab shape due to Toonces hard work and the very dry heat of yesterday. I blasted a quick race look with Mike and Adam preriding then lead 4-5 other adventurers out onto a 8 mileish casual adventure. We warmed up on the creektrail, hit most of the bowl, then did the race course mostly including phase 4 which is in much better shape now. Did some skills sections in the phase 4. then creek trailed out. Nice nite for a ride.

Woke up late and tired and didn't ride in today. Still ATC I'm at around 33 miles for the week. I'll ride tomorrow for sure. That will push me to 40.

Work is killing me. And not softly. More like BOHICA.

New set of bib shorts on order from REI to lower usage on my poor felt set.

New Week good riding

Off to a better start this week by riding tonight at CJ and racking up a respectable 13 miles. Not bad for a back to back with Sundays FH visit. I'll do the short versionn into work, giving myself 8 miles of riding then. Wednesday due to storms looks to be a wash unfortunately, but who knows. I have high hopes for being back at Wake-o-tink on Thursday.

Got to figure an ad hoc trail day for CJ to do some trimming in a few area's and I have a tree down that must be removed. busy busy.

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.

New Year, More Riding I hope

I had my first ride of the year last night at WF. It was great to get out and spin a bit to clear my head, it helped me deal with a good bit of the stress that this weeks events have imparted, not all but enough to leave me feeling more clear headed. Thats why I do love cycling.

We had a TON of people out for the ride last night. I'll update with a count later but I think it was near 20 riders. I had 2 others with me in my group, a couple guys went out fast and the rest went on a large "intermediate but more casual" ride.

I looked at my log on my cycle comp and realized I'd logged about 860 miles on my bike this year (not counting various beach rides and other stuff while traveling). My question to myself is can I be 100 mile a month guy regularly and right now I just don't think so. 860 means at least i was riding about 72 miles of primarily ST a month, and thats nearly 20 a week. At this time until I can get a normal Monday thru friday work schedule I assume that I'll RARELY ever ride on Sunday's and Mondays are often spent TCB. Until I either take up road biking, can commute on bike I just don't see myself being 100 mile a month guy with any sort of regularity.

I need to get out to frickin Cabin John Trail and figure out WTF I want to try and accomplish this year, but this damn snow freeze/thaw cycle is working out badly for me making it out there on a Monday. Grrr.

Frozen for Life

Finally got to ride trails at WF last night. Forest trails were mostly fine excluding Salamander. A big mud hole has been put in Phase 4 near the S-Curve. Phase2/3 powerlines were a mess up until they froze later in the ride. By 7:45 they were mostly solid. People have been riding in general when its WAY too soft out there. Lots of ruts.

We were doing Scud's retirement ride so we started out as one HUGE group of 16-17'ish riders I think but after 40 mins I couldn't hold pace and didn't want to keep holding the group back so I dropped and had DC Tony take over as sweep.

Route as I went.
Back Edge of Bowl (495) to Creek side to Front of Bowl (WF Road), Under Road to CCT to Creek TRail to Phase 1 to Race Course Creek trail to far end, up access path to back edge of powerlines, to phase 4 to CCT. (DROP)
I then rode by myself
Ascent Hill, Berms, Reverse on Phase 1 Outside (Berm Side), Berms, Phase 1, Phase 4, Phase 1 Outside,Salemander Bypass, Ascent, Berms, CCT to Race Climb to Reversed Rusted Truck.

Near 12 miles. Not bad for an hour and twenty minutes. Probably a bit less counting warming up also.

Damn Cold

JEeez, I forgot what riding in the REAL cold was like till last night. We started off probably in the mid-low 30's and by the time we finished it was near 30 flat. With the wind and actual riding speed it felt wicked cold on those exposed parts of the face/neck. Need to find my buff. We did that ever present favorite of the locals riding the Counter Clockwise Thing north from Wakefield. Ended up with 13 miles and some change I believe. Good ride till near the end when someone had a semi-nasty fall on a cross bike due to some hidden roots during the final climb up in.

I was hoping to get in a lot of rides this week while the wyf is out of town. Based on current weather predictions my next ride will probably be the same next week with mix of rain and snow starting early sunday, rain again tuesday. And warmer temperatures keeping it from freezing. ARGH!

Dec, A new Leaf?

Trying to turn over a new leaf now here in Dec. Finally got a ride in on a gravel trail to and fro the WF Rec Ctr. Got in some nice miles, spun alright for being off for a month really.

Old Dominion Baltic Porter is back and I'm on a mission to find a case for the long dark spring and summer with their lack of dark beers.

Locked myself outa my car. Wasted $40 dollars on the first place I called after they BS'd me on the phone. Went to AAA and got service on the same day as sign up. WIN.

OFf to bang my head against a wall now.

Well it's not perfect but it's better than nothing.

Finally did labels for the homebrew. The only thing currently unlabeled is the Good ole Hefe, but as it has the golden BB cap it shall remain unlabeled, as now I always use the silver Ox barrier caps.

The new labels alas are just bottle cap round labels but it's way better than the nasty old sharpie letters. P and D are no longer confusing.

Avery 5472 - 3/4th Inch Round Labels in a 4x6 sheet.
Label Sample Here

Now to really plan my next 2 beers, with the IPA down to 1/3rd of original stock.

Favorite new beer title - Drunkle Weizen.

3+ weeks off the damn bike now. ARGH. Did run yesterday on the canal doing intervals for an hour with the wyf. Weight is creeping a bit towards 200 so this week will be a push-back week.

Busy-ness as Usual

Things remain there relative normal hectic pattern here. Rode on Thursday but it was mostly along the CCT. We did work in some of the less wet sections of WF but it was a small group anyways. We had 8 riders out and I think I saw 11 people in the lot vs the 20+ we'd been running on average up to this last week. Got in 23 miles. I'm happy with that but I was way to spun out by the end. Need to start working in some longer rides on monday even if it's just the craptastic canal.

Saturday we had a blast on Halloween, we met a couple down in DC. Had a bottle of wine at there place and went out to dinner at a great place on H street, Belgian food. And tons of good belgian beer. We started with a bottle of Carolous Keizer in 750ml size! WOW! it was damn good, I've gotta see if I can find some on payday for the cellar. Then I had a fabulous dark chocolate flavored called Troubadour. The wife had the Rochefort 8, and it was good. Our friends had the Orvel, and one I can't remember. Thankfully I have a picture at home :)

We tried to go to the palace of wonders after that but they were sold out so we opted for the red and black. We hung around and had another beer each with me opting for the Bell's 2 Hearted IPA, so I would sip. The girls both had Allagash white. Not sure what the guy had. Memory is a bit fuzzy. They were doing roadhouse night and had chicken wire up everywhere and a pretty good band up stairs. We rocked out for a while then chilled back downstairs and munched on Zapps chips.

Around 12:30 we went back to there place and ended up drinking 2 more bottles of wine and this bizarre appertief. They laughed at the faces I was making sipping it. Very interesting and unusual stuff :P.

Was going to ride tonight but J's night out got canceled so no extra night ride for me :(

Oh and I'll post pics of us in costume eventually, I went with my Kendo outfit, J went as fantasy-eve. Our friends were a roman noble and neo from the matrix :) I love Halloween.

Relaxation on a Vacation?

Was down in N.Fla for my anniversary this last weekend, missing the annual fall trip to PA which turned out to be a snow riding fest. Sad to miss, as it sounds like great times, chainsawing and snow riding was had by all.

In N.FLA where it was supposed to be a sunny 80's ish all the time this time of year we had 70 on Friday, 63 on Saturday and 67 on Sunday and 69 Monday. Needless to say I got into the ocean 2x in 5 days for a total of about half an hour. ARGH! We did get to bike a bit finally on Monday and early Tuesday before we flew back out as temps returned to mid 70's. We also kayaked a ton on Monday for about 2 hours covering a nice series of inlets. We racked up probably 18-20 miles those 2 days. And we were flying on those old single speed beach cruisers. Makes me appreciate part of the appeal of SS MTB.

Had a darn nice ride out at wakefield last night, about 20 riders out. Had a small group of 4 others with myself. Rode between the pre-ride and afterwards about 13-14 miles i guess. The main group was slow as we had a couple people practicing technical sections. I should do more sessioning of stuff. Maybe next week's preride.

Can I get a WTF?!?!?

Was up in Charm City last night for a performance by the Wyf, got to hit my fav Joe^2 (Squared) for pizza and a beer. It was a German, Köstritzer Black Beer. It was nice, smooth with a good balance of malt/toast. Good while I was waiting on ze Pizza. I always dig there Pizza, think crust, pretty crispy usually.

AT the main show I had a couple of Ommegang Hennepin. Tasty. Didn't realize it's technically a Saison. Good belgian style. Gotta try more Omme stuff. Wyf really liked it.

Thursday I rode like crazy, did 11.5 pre ride, then hauled the "casual" group around for another 11 miles, and still finished at 8:15. We were frickin flying. A bit cool by the end, I was pretty damp from sweat and couldn't push myself hard enough to work up a good steady sweat. Regardless 22.5 miles is a good night out. Though the plethora of limbs/branches down in Accotink almost took me out 2 times and 1 time in wake.

Note - Damn roundagon rotor the CB put on does create a REALLY annoying harmonic. Gotta order a g3 next week after payday.

Strangely some how last night (Friday) I messed up my right knee while doing either some walking or while doing some arm curls (Drinking beer). By this morning my right knee is sore and stiff, I'm hobbling around like House.

Gonna try and see Zombieland tonight I think. Then might hit a brew tasting up in B-more tomorrow for the end of Baltimore Beer Week.

TW Day and some thoughts on a few good beers.

Trailwork day went very well, a slightly lower turnout than I was hoping for, but overall we got most everything done that was on the list. And a few other things to, so it was a good day. Due to some minor issues we got a bit of a late start, not really till 9:30 I'd say.

J and I spent the afternoon in Glen Echo Park and it was a great afternoon. We picnicked and relaxed. Saw a cool film on the history of the park also. Very nice.

Some great beers I've had of late worth mentioning

Collaboration not Litigation Ale - Batch 3 - From Avery and Russian River Brewing - An excellent belgian celebrator style ale. They blended there to Salvation Ales back in Dec 2006 to produce this beast. Tons of nice malt, a bit of hoppiness to keep it from being the typical too cloying belgian. And TONS of yeast in the bottom. I and a buddy split this and I poured some of the bottom and it had a ton left also. Very smooth.

Founders Porter - An excellent malty and rich Porter, with notes of a hint of coffee. Very good.

Founders Breakfast Stout - YUM! Double Chocolate Oatmeal Coffee Stout - Yum, this dark rich devil is super smooth and super tasty. A hint less coffee would be my only real issue with this, but it was still damn good. The blend of the rest of the additives is excellent and the 60 IBU's keep it from sitting around in your mouth too long, cleaning the coffee etc out.

Savannah Chanelle - Tina Marie Vineyard Pinot Noir - Russian River Valley - 2005 - WOW! This was an excellent wine as I always expect from this winery involving their high end pinot's. Smooth as velvet, rich, and very good balance of tannin's vs fruit. A bit strong on the nose at first with the alcohol, but after a quick sit in a nice wide wine glass it was ready to quaff. I'd give this a 90 to 91 rating out of 100.

Cabin John Trail Work Day - FALL

Come on out to the CJ Trailwork Day, this Sunday, Oct 4 at 9 AM.

We will be performing a wide range of tasks:
Paint blazing the new route
Moving trail head signs
Closing the old route
Trimming the corridor as necessary
Additional Possible Tasks include:
Small sections of trail work such as bench cutting several small badly slopped area's
Small reroute of trail section
Trash cleanup
And anything else that can be addressed.

As of now the weather looks not bad for Sunday as some recent rain, and a little drizzle often makes trailwork easier if dirt must be worked with. You may want to layer yourself carefully as even in slightly damp 60 degree days you can build up quite a sweat. Do make sure you wear clothes that can get dirty, and good shoes for working outside, as you might in a garden. Also suggest you bring a pair of good work gloves, and a bottle or two of water. I often carry a small pack for this as I work.

We will have probably 2 crew leaders at the event so we may be working in separate multiple area's. Some of which we may drive/shuttle to (the campground or perhaps the Goya Dr trailhead). If you are getting dropped off we will get you safely there and back. But you may want to make sure you can call for an early pickup if we finish early.

Tools - We should have most of the tools needed but as usual feel free to bring your own. I'll have my own loppers with me. No machete's or chainsaws!!!!

Teens - Welcome for work, a parent will be necessary to sign the form.

Summarization:
Cabin John TW Day
7400 Tuckerman Ln (See Google Map, Across the street from the Maint Yard).
Bethesda/Rockville, MD
9AM Start, 8:45 Suggested Arrival
1PM Finish
Bring Water, Gloves, and Good Shoes.

My Cell # is 850-443-0181
My Email is atlantis.rob@gmail.com

Links:
Sign up with MoCo Parks:

Sign Up Page

Map:
Google Map

Nice Ride

Got out nice and early to WF for once last night and was pretty much ready to go at 5. Hung around the lot for a few mins to talk with Scud and then blasted off for Accotink. Ended up doing about 5-6 miles over there in the next hour plus the 1.5 miles each way or whatever, getting in 9 nice miles.

The dam maintenance is weird! The lake is super low!

The main ride we had a pretty good turn out of 20+ riders, with a monster combined Intermediate group, a small fast group, and a good sized casual+ group. Unfortunetely, we had a rider catch her foot on some deadfall in phase 4 early in the ride. I escorted her back to her car, she was able to ride out but was hurting a good bit.

Recaught the group at the top of the ascent trail and rode down the berms. At the end of the creek trail/cct rejoin my damn light cut out and wouldn't relight. Delmar hooked me up with one of his and it let me lead a nice death march on the bowl. I wrapped up at 8 as Delmar was done, a few others went back out.

16.25 miles of good riding. Next week should be even better with clear skies and 70's as the high all week.

Terror of some sort.

There was no Terror of Teaberry for me on Sunday alas, there was a different sort of terror though:

Terror of Repainting the Master Bedroom.
Act 1 - Primaring. - 1st coat. UGH. I would have rather pushed my bike the last 10 miles of teaberry. 6 hours of slow trimming, rolling, and arguing with the wyf about how to properly run a roller. Also discovering a previous owner of our house butchered on area below a window/above our bed and having to scrape out, sand, and scrape again to remove bad bad bad spackle/compound.

Act 2 - Yesterday I finished scrapping, re-caulked the window frame in the effected area and re-applied a better compound doing a better job. Then I spend about 2 hours or so maybe 3 trimming out the whole room in prep to roll it later. We rolled it in about an hour and a half with both of us working.

Act 3 - Color Choice. Now I'm just plain scared. More results later.

At least the bedroom is no longer orangish/pink/coral. White is just really white.

Snuck.

Snuck in 11 miles yesterday, as trails at WF under the canopied section weren't bad. And the Berms were PERFECT!

Over 40 miles this week. That means I'll get nearly no riding in the next week or so by murphy's law.

No Terror of Teaberry for me either, and I was really almost set to register to ride the 20.

Next year I'm gonna plan on doing all 3 rides with maybe trying teaberry as a 40.

Sneaky!

Snuck in a nice chill ride a WF last night, suprisingly avoiding all the rain that was in the area last night. Did about 9.5 miles with a pretty chill 7.5 pace, with a group of 2 other riders. It was nice we did a LOT of sections backwards. They seemed to enjoy the change. WF rides differently at night, especially in reverse to normal/typical direction (Race course).

Maybe I'll sneak in day 3 tomorrow if it isn't too rainy.

Good Riding

Lots of riding in lately, it's been a nice change. Not challenging but still nice.

Last week with 3 rides, this week I'm going to get my 2nd ride in tonight, for 2 in a row. Hoping for a 3rd on Thursday but the weather may not co-operate.

Yesterday I hit Laurel Hill for 12.5 miles running a 9.3 pace, then as I finished at dark I hit Wakefield for another 8.5 miles running a 8.8 pace. Damn it felt so fast, I really enjoy leading the casual group but I don't really get to push myself at all as a rider excluding technical type stuff. And small burts of speed.

The new gear setup continues to rock, though I do want to convert to a 2x9 soon I think and that also means re-adjusting the front D a bit as it's a bit hesitant to drop into 1x9 from 2x9 under any sort of load.

The koolaid...

So while picking up some RnR Extreme for the bikes today at CB, I decided to give a try of a Surly Steamroller.

Nice. I can see the appeal of the SS a bit more now. The bars felt EMPTY! Of course it was setup actually fixie, with only the front brake. Definetely a bit of a learning curve with having to keep spinning at all times and muscling down speed versus coasting/braking etc. The ability to directly crank to speed is FUN though. I didn't take it far enough to try muscling up a real hill or anything so it was no real test, but at least flat landing it, it was fun! I can see myself picking up a nice basic SS/Fixie for around the area riding for sure.

Looked at a bunch of different ones but nothing jumps out. Yet.

Took the bike on a short intownie yesterday with the wife and let me say the new drivetrain was super smooth and quiet!!! We did 10 miles in about an hour though a lot of that was more casual speed once we got to bethesda due to monster crowds on the CapCrescent Trail. Next weekend we're planning on a longer ride down thru Rock Creek Park.

Go away RAIN!

Upgrade-O-RAMA!

Well after languishing for a long time now the first phase of major upgrades to the Midget are alsmost done. I just need to size the new chain, apply lube and it's G2G. The crankset did by feel seem to way a GOOD bit less than the old, nasty Isoflow set.

The bigger question I'm pondering for now is to leave it a triple for the time being or go ahead get a bashguard and convert it down to a 2x9. Other than wakefield I really don't use it much, and thats really only when the CCT or the creek trail and honestly it's not super necessary.

I also have decided I want to try a new regiment for the cleaning and lubrication of my chain. For the past 2 years or so I've been using Finish Line Wet(teflon). I'm debating switching to Rock-N-Roll Extreme.

And next I've got a Captain Control 2Bliss in 2.2 to replace the Continental Mountain King out back thats starting to wear out. May give it another few weeks.

May try and ride Rosy on Monday, if I'm not repainting the bedroom all day. Going to keep my fingers crossed.

Somewhere in the Basement

Resides my bike.

Between boxes, over bags and crates of junk. Next to wedding gifts un-used, lives my sad bike. I will attempt to find it tonight. So it may be made ready for Thursday Night at Wakefield.

With sadness I see the departure of long days, however it makes me glad to be ready to use my lights again as fall approaches.

Still haven't upgraded the bike yet, maybe this weekend!

Had some damn good beers, St.Riel's Grand Cru Belgian Style, Dale's Pale, on deck next, Celebration not Litigation from Avery and Russian River Brewing. A co-mingled belgian blended in Dec 2006. Should be excellent.

The Big Moves.

Well, Saturday is the Big Moving Day in that we're schlepping our gear from the Bethesda location to the new Silver Spring location (EW Hwy near Beach).

If anyone out there in WebLand wants to come and help move I'll be supplying post move beer and grilled food. And it will be damn good beer for sure! :) I'm hoping to move my beer over tonight or tomorrow morning to the new house. Dale's, Founders Porter, some big IPA bombers, and a few Belgian Bombers also. If you want to help out for a bit drop me a post here.


The 2nd big move is that I FINALLY order the new drive train for the bike and it arrived last night. I almost had to bring the new cranks up to sleep with they are soooo sweet. And light I think. I'm going to do a comparison when I dis-assemble them either tonight or on Sunday. Depends on the state of the move.

Wet with a side of Wet.

Yesterday at wakefield ended up being a set of mixed results. We started out with better weather than expected in a beautiful mostly clear afternoon, though running about 8 degrees too warm. I got in a nice 8 miles of pre-riding Wakefield. Good Stuff. I ended up last night with a single rider in my Casual group, and we were SUPER casual over at accotink, the guy was making stuff I wasn't but every major hill set was killing him cardio wise. We trekked around Accotink for about an hour then we both noticed the sky was pretty dark. Low and behold about 3 minutes later the rain started. And it kept raining. Harder and harder. We got to the paved trail and decided to head back. Once we were on the lake trail it started raining even harder. Great. Back to the lot and soaking wet at about 8:10.

We then had a late birthday party for Ernesto with Cupcakes, Beer, Tequilla and misc snacks. It was good. And everyone liked my beer selection for the evening, Founders Porter. Damn good, nice and malty. At 9 we adjourned for normal post ride activities at Killroy's and had almost all the riders there, I'd say 15 people.

Ordering new drive train today hopefully, should get it Monday. I hope.

Newz from the North

Alas no biking happening this week as we ended up taking a Rental car up this way. So instead I've been keeping busy while the wife is off in her meetings everyday.

Monday I hit Sam Adams for the brew tour and tasting. The tour blew, the tasting was cool. I got to try the Boston Area only Boston Brick red, a nice Irish red ale. Plus 2 other regular favs of the Lager and Summer. Also got to vote on 2 new potential beers one was a pils and one was another lager, that was maltier than the regular Boston Lager.

Tuesday was spent packing the hotel room backup and then the afternoon wandering Medford Ma and then reading for about 2 hours in the public library, devouring a newer Clive Cussler book.

Today I've been wandering College hill of Providence and seeing sites and changes in the last 10+ years since I left. Its a mix of good and bad I suppose. The brown campus is under some heavy duty off session work right now.

ALSO yesterday we hit a Trendy little restaurant I will find the name and address of later and had a triple of good Belgians, starting out with a Karmelit Triple, then went to the Kasteel Donker and finished with a Kwak. The first 2 were in 750 ML bottles and not a bad value at 14-15 each. I had some awesome fish and chips done in a porter infused batter. Nice.

Tomorrow I'll probably troll around Downtown Providence and maybe tour some of RISD's art galleries. We'll see. Friday is still up in the air.

Ouch. The hammer of enlightenment.

Well today knowledge hit me in the head while I was working on my bike. Doing a pedal swap finally replacing my VERY warn out Time XE/Alium that the SingleSpeed Outlaw gave me last fall after one of my pedals blew up. Well the Alium's seals bit the dust recently and had developed about 3/4 an inch of play along the spindle. Well while loosening the damn thing I managed to get struck by knowledge I'd previously heard.

And well I hit myself in the head with the damn pedal wrench when it slipped off. Nice mark on the tip of my head. That will look real nice while we have the a bunch of C-level salad in the office (CTO, CSO, etc).

I applied rubber mallet to the wrench. hahaha. Went with the TIME Roc standard's I got Saturday from REI with the last of my dividend. I also changed out my cleats on my shoes. DAMN they are TIGHT now, I foresee a fall or two in the future before I remember that they are probably 75 to 100% tighter.

Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to do about fixing the drive train.

Cancer sucks.

FatCylist Blog

PA Part 2

Raystown Trails were a damn fine experience today. The weather was beautiful. The trails were bone dry (well mostly).

So taking off from the main lot near the Seven Points Rec/Campground entrance, I headed off up onto the Stony Trail to start with. Damn I was hurting on that climb in, my legs were not spun up at all and still tired from yesterdays 13 mile race. But the climb in was nice with some challenging rock goodness, nothing like Michaux, but 2 parts were tough. Once you gain some altitude, you get a nice set of whoop-de-do's for a while. Eventually I crossed the rocky lot and on up into Buck Trail, then down Fawn to Sleek dog. Sleek dog was nice and flowy I really enjoyed it. From there it was down the uber fun eagle. Damn good trail. Osprey was actual less hard than I thought it would be as a black, maybe due to it's length but I regularly ride a similar section at Schaeffer Farm. I did almost loose it in one section, nearly rolled off the edge.

The it was Osprey to Sidewinder. Once I got north of the crossing on Sidewinder I noticed a few damp to muddy spots in the northern section, it must have gotten more rain within the last week. Berry patch was a MOFO to ride up, might be nice to roll down the otherway. So I got to the top of the trails and ate my sandwich and took some photo's. Now I realize where the photo of Darius is from, right on section of trail between Berry Patch, Ray's Revenge and Ridge Trail meet.

Rays was tough, some nice but I was feeling tired already. 4 miles of fun and pain. Those last 2 bits on the final climb out to Berry Patch were crushing for that 2nd time. Loco Motive is a bit of a blur, Red Legs I recall a bit of rockiness up to the Grippis trail. That had some spectacular rollers. After that it was out Allie Trail to Buck. The last half/first half on return on Buck is WAY tougher than what you hit the other way! I was getting towards well done at this point and the ride back out Stony. The rollers in that first half were a blast, but the finally climb out left me done. It was sooo close I was cramping horribly but since I didn't get off I could keep pedaling. In the last berm while trying to take it aggressively I almost bit it. Ended up dropping my chain and rolling down the trail and into the parking lot.

Trails were in pretty good shape but a bit overgrown. Maybe I'll try and headup this fall for a trailwork day up there. And I will be back to ride the sections I didn't and ride the thing a different way.

Photo's soon. If I can find the bloody cable.

PA ROCKS.....err is full of Rocks.

Just got back from my PA Tour and hit 2 out of my 3 goals.
Did Dark Hollow Sunday and it was a blast. Maybe next year I will be ready for 25 instead of 10. Was still an excellent time. Supprised that only saw Denis there. I heard Camp was there also but I really don't know him IRL.
Drove up to Raystown (Susquehanna Campground) area after the races were over last night, pitched my sleeping setup and crashed out between 9-10. Some bone heads did wake me up around 2 being noisy but that ended within about 15 minutes. Slept till 6:30 with some occasional tossing and turning due to rocks. Packed up, had some more leftover pancakes and bacon and headed for the main lot of 7 Points Rec Area. Ooops took a wrong turn and had to back track from 26...d'oh.

Rolled out from the lot around 9AM and was back a hair after 1 with nearly 24 miles in just over 3 hours rolling time. NICE! Had a real blast on a LOT of the trails. Though coming back up Stony I was at my limit and felt the major cramp warning signs and was able to make it back to the car without stopping. Though my chain did fall off on the last berm out/first in and I was able to roll all the way into the lot!

Def want to hit that again. With fresh legs. Stony nearly killed me in the AM since I wasn't warmed up. Rays Revenge is LONG and that last climb out SUCKS!

Off to wash off all the poison oak/ivy and go hit hard times for some chili. More details later.

Sigh..............

Had a nice ride out at WF last night, I led a small WF only group of 3 other guys around and we racked up near 11 miles. One of my other leaders led a LARGE casual group out to Accotink with 10 riders total. The chillness of my ride was pretty damn nice.

Upon arriving home and starting to clean my bike I noticed that I had a broken spoke on the rear wheel. I remember hearing something while in the bowl last night, but it wasn't like I was even riding crazy there when it happened.

So I've gotta run outa work today for lunch and drop it somewhere for at least 1 spoke replacement, maybe 2 or 3 as there are a few slightly chewed up spokes on the drive side. Hopefully either Spokes or TBL can get it done by end of work tomorrow for me. I REALLY don't have time to do it myself and re-true the wheel.

Curse of Dark Hollow on Sunday. Just have to decide if I'm only going for the race or if I'm going to do some camping and ride a few other places.

CJ Report

Hit the CJ again today.

Tomorrow I should go up there and clear the northern section. Going to pickup a new personal set of loppers. Once you get near the creek its an overgrown beast.

There is also a tree down near the craptacular footbridge.

The rest of the trail wasn't in too bad, shape except where some "helpful" souls had put down some branches where the trail had gotten soft and rutted near the ball fields.

Also someone recently re-blazed the orange route around the Democracy Tennis center to Blue. Now the maps need updating. Off to send a report to the bosses at MNPCC.

Stoked for Michaux on Sunday and Raystown on Monday I think.

WV....What can I say.

Yesterday after waking up late the wyf and I decided to roll for the Harpers Ferry and do some hiking on the MD side, hitting Maryland Heights.

Maryland Heights Info

Damn that was some climbing up in. My calves are feeling WAY abused. Like really really abused. My quads feel it a bit. Knees were hurting a bit by the time we were done. That was new, I usually can do 10+ miles of moderate hiking. But that place was tough I think the initial ascent is 400 feet, then a bit of up and down to the overlook. Then back up and up to the stone fort at the far end of the trail. Then it's all down hill from there. We then walked from the trail lot to the town and had dinner and ice cream. The town really shuts down around 5-6 pm on Sundays. We got some of the last ice cream near 7pm. I'd like to re-hike that in the fall after the foliage has dropped, I bet the views are much better then.

Can't imagine how keeping the placed supplied was during the civil war. They had a bunch of BIG cannons up there some weighing up to 10000lbs. JEEZ they said it took 200-500 men to get each one up the mountain. Then each shot could way 70-100 lbs for the big guns. CRAZY!!!

Watched Wanted this morning and the action was pretty cool, but over all the movie is kinda depressing. Though from what I've net-read not as depressing/dark as the actual comic.

Curses

Yesterday I must have been cursed with slightly bad luck. It was almost a comedy of errors, but in the end I made it thru.

In order of appearance
A) - Missing shims/cones for Rear D - TBL hooked me up with a pair stripped of an old cantilever brake set.
B) - Had 2 people on the 2nd shift call out, 1 guy from my shift stepped up and another on 3rd came in early. Didn't have to miss the WF ride.
C) - Left bladder and brews at work only realized while at TBL. Made it back and to WF by 6:20. LUCKY! Bad traffic on 28 and other spots due to construction on 28 at willard/etc.
D) - Mechanicals Mechanicals Mechanicals on the ride. 1 Major, 2 minor. Still did 10 miles. The others probably got 11 while I fixed a new to the area riders chainline.
E) - Removed to protect the uh...well innocent.
F) - Ooops locked out the wyf last night with the security bolt...my bad.

To end this run of cursed luck I've taken the step of signing up for Curse of Dark Hollow. Relative tight budget has dictated that I pinch my pennies and keep my sanity and I opted to only sign up for the 10 miler after talk to Liz after WF last night. If it doesn't crush me or I feel I need more punishment I can go bigger for Teaberry. I'm strangely excited at the prospect of going somewhere new. To race. Thats apparently hard. Odd. And wow...the weather looks not bad for then. Keeping appropriate digits crossed.

Anyone heading up there thinking of camping Saturday to Sunday???

I'm debating hitting Raystown Lake on Monday if anyone is free.

Maintenance Success

Well I got some of the maintenance I wanted to done on the bike this week. However it has made several things very clear. The bottom bracket is DIEING. Over the last 2 months its gone from say maybe 1/16 inch in play to nearly 1/4. I may have to break down and do an emergency upgrade over the next month, though I'd prefer to avoid that with the upcoming moving/housing expenses. ugh.

I did tear down and re-grease my headset and it seems smoother and better adjusted...I think. Also did swapped out the jockey pulleys on the rear d with newly greased slightly less used ones.

And I finally found a successful method to changing out the pads on my J7's. Unfortunetely while removing the rear brake at WF last week apparently I forgot to put 1 set of the shims/washers/cupcone doo-dads into the plastic baggy and need to pickup a set tonight if possible so I can have rear brake again. It was a bit hairy for sure last week riding without them in the slightly damp conditions. Really made me get back off the saddle for sure!

Looking forward to riding a good bit tonight. Also picked up the Sierra Nevada Kellerweisse - an open fermented wheat beer that was REALLY damn good with my chili-potato last night.

Lots of Folks

Also ran into the LogPosse out at WF last night. It's been damn good to see a bunch of people I usually don't see in the last week including Arne, Nicky, (uh steve was it?), Yueqing, Chris, Denis, and Jason last Thursday.

I also realized the bike maintenance list is growing to super stupid lengths.
Chain for Wife's Bike to be installed.
New Crankset/bb, Chain, and Cogset, and pulley wheels on my bike
Relube the headset
New Pedals.
Re-true the primary wheelset and finish the old/spare wheel.
New brake pads on rear.
Change wife's stem (Shorter and with a slightly higher rise.
New Grips
New Seatbag for my bike so I don't ALWAYS have to carry the Camelback. I hate stuff tons of shit in my jersey.

3x the Fun

So last night was my third ride of the week, pushing me into the mid 30 mile range again, which for me is pretty good. As we were getting ready to roll out of the Wakefield lot a light sprinkle started and I booted the groups out of the lot 5 minutes early. The rain continued for about 20 mins lightly and by 7:30 most of it had already dried back up. I had to pass my ride over to Tom and go pick my wife up at DCA, she got back from NY a bit early.

Had a bit of an emergency in the lot prior to the ride. I went to clean and lube the chain at about 5:30'ish and when I went to spin the rear wheel.....Horrible clicking and sticking were present. WTF?!??! A quick investigation showed the issue was being caused by the rear brake. So I rip rear wheel off and unmount the caliper. Viola! Bent tension spring. Out come the pads and the spring, a few minutes of bending then the real battle begins. Re-inserting the pad. 10 Minutes later they are back in. Remount the caliper. Put the wheel back in. And after a few spins its back to not working. Time to implement my final fix for the evening. Off comes the whole rear brake system.

Wow! It was a bit hairy riding in the slightly wet conditions with no rear brake but I survived while I was out. But I definitely kept my speed down a bit.

After picking up the wife we hit Kendal Park Tavern on MacArthur Blvd and it was very good! Had a Sam Summer Ale with a lemon slice garnish and it was excellent. Gotta get a case before it's gone!

REI tomorrow to get a new set or two of organics for the rear brake.

Probably won't ride again till Thursday as my hand is bugging me a bit more than I'm comfortable with.

6 Points of Contact.

No, I'm not really talking about my technology slavish-ness (2 Work Emails, 2 Personal, Facebook, Twitter, LJ, MORE Forums, etC.

I'm actually talking about my fun little wreck at Schaeffer yesterday. Near the end of my ride I was fooling around on the stunts at the top of the white loop when I biffed and took a dumb/bad fall off the 2nd skinny set. I was riding it towards the lot and got to the logs at the end of it and whoops off I went and the bike took me for a final ride. I think I ended up getting very personal with the handle bars based on the locations of the contusions. About the 2 worst are where my thumbnail bent back about half way and my wrist took some sort of abuse, though I can't find any real marks.

I find it amusing I've managed 2 fairly good wrecks in 2 week'ish after going a long time with nothing worse than an emergency hop-off. Thats riding I guess and yesterday at least I was challenging myself. Skills riding is fun, I was just un-prepared mentally on that run. Oh well. I still got in a kick ass ride of about 15 miles around the farm. Even got to hang a bit the Yeuq, Chris, and Dennis. hahah I probably should have hung with them for the rest of the ride, but I couldn't have probably held the pace after already spending an hour and change out there already. Jeez I need to build the endurance so 20 miles isn't pushing it at all!

Afterwards I spent 45 minutes waiting to buy a power adapter for my phone at the verizon store near Agrodolce in G-town. I was ready to flip out! I will never own another phone that doesn't use mini-usb to charge!

Wakefield Thursday Night Ride hits the trails again.

Wow, for the first time in a MONTH I believe that the TNR at Wakefield actually was able to ride trails. It was a blast. I pre-rode for not quite an hour doing about 7 miles of easy spinning around the park. Did 2 repeats of the Ascent Hill and Berms in phase 3. It was a good warm up, felt pretty good but a bit tired for being at 23 miles in the past 2 days when the ride started. I lead my small casual group out to Accotink the back way so as to give my legs a chance to spin up after spending 30 mins in the lot. We rode a bunch of the trails reversed out there and damn, that was tough in a few spots. It was a nice change however, and I think the funnest part was when we did the normal entry loop at accotink in reverse, it flows even better than the normal way.

With CJ yesterday I hit nearly 33 miles for the week. NOt bad. I'm hoping to sneak out for a shorty on Saturday afterwork depending on the weather. Not sure where yet.

Also after my CJ ride yesterday I hit a new low on my weight, 190. Though last night post ride/beer/food I was back to 192. Going back thru here my previously noted weight back in January 2008 was 218! I think most of that has been in the last year and the last 10-15 has been since the end of the winter when I had plateaued at 202'ish. Now if I could add some leg muscle mass I'd be real happy.

SNOW DAY IPA rocked it last night. Nice citrus finish on it, gonna be a nice summer beer. And while it's fairly low alcohol, at not quiet 6%, it hit more like a 7%. But that may have been the dehydration :)

Age Came along. Just a few days late.

My birthday was fairly recent, it just waited a few days to reminder me that yes I am getting older.

The impact points from my stupid crash on Thursday are sore. Whats more sore are the tendons/etc from where I was forcefully unclipped from the bike. I can only assume it was due to banging around the top tube. So for now I'm medicating with advil and doing some light stretches and massaging out the kinks/etc slowly.

Went and saw Year One last night and it was pretty funny and pretty gross at many points. Oliver Platt is hilarious. And so are many of the other guests. And best yet Olivia Wilde (13 from House) is in it.

Going to spend some time today trying to think up label idea's for Snowday IPA.

Pratfall.

That should be the title of the ride I led last night at Wakefield. I went out with 3 others and did the CCT. On the first bridge out of the main WF parking lot our new group member lost it and fell on the bridge, while trying to turn a bit. And I grumbled that I should have warned everyone about that before we left. We all laughed. We ended up heading south on the CCT to 7100 and 640. About 7.8 miles out. Coming back down the big hill on the path I hit the first TINY wooden bridge and next thing I know I'm laying on my side on the ground! Ouch! A bit of an arm scrape and a sore hip later we were back on the trail. We cranked back and I was simply laughing at the absurdity of it. I think I was riding my front brake from coming down the hill when I hit the bridge. A bunch of the regulars did the PPTC road ride we chatted for a few minutes before retiring for some post ride beverage consumption while loading up the gear.

I'm pretty happy with this week of riding, a bit of 30 miles. Thats my best week in a while. Going to try and punch out some good distance on Monday. We'll see how the weather treats us.

A bitty bit of riding.

My central Florida trip was a bust for riding. Various factors kept me from getting in some riding at Santos. I did however spend an hour or so hiking over a few bits of the northern trailhead area and I can say, WOW! Some fast and fun singletrack and some challenging area's such as ant hill and john brown pit. Some fun looking area's. Alas it was too hot and I was in a bit of a rush to go see my brother. After examining the trail I determined that most of it would be fully ridable for the wife and so next time we're down in CFL, we'll hit it together. I'm also going to try and get an old friend I reconnected with to try it too!

Monday I hit Cabin John for the first time in a LOOOOONG TIME. It was almost like riding a new trail vs the winter/spring with all the green along it now. Some sections really need some trimming and the 2 final small bridges really need to be put in. Also better ramping needs to be done for the 2 existing bridges. Need to find some solutions in the trail builder guides I have I guess.

On the up hand also the Snow Day IPA should be about ready for it's first bottle tasting perhaps this week. I'm hoping to get a hefe in production around the end of the month. Then I'll be prepping porter for the fall in August.

Also on Monday I realized I'm real close to be non-clyde now with a post activity weight in of 192. Though after my dinner that night I'm sure I'm back up the scale a bit.

Wet and Wild

Despite the naysayers doubts I went to WF to ride last night on the CCT. Very light off and on sprinkles once I arrived at 6:20. Geared up, put the fenders on the bike (+1 only my legs and a bit of my pack got muddy this time), and headed out with another guy at 6:50'ish. We rode all the way out to 7100 and Rolling Rd area on CCT doing just over 14 miles.

Doing one of the stream crossings on the way back, I miss judged the 2nd half/up slope side and nearly endo'd barely pulling up enough to roll up the hill and get my feet down. My shoulders and hands were aching for sure after that for about 5 mins. Rob was laughing his ass off at me for so badly misjudging and nearly biting it. Next time I'm going to session that a bit.

Nice ride over all. The weather even cleared pretty nicely by about 30 mins in and we had few rain drops at all. It was nice to get out and blast out a bit of the cobwebs, haven't been going to the gym at all. I may just cancel it next month. We'll see.

Nice Weather

With this awesome week of weather, I hope folks are getting out and doing SOMETHING. I wish I had gotten in some rides this week, but due to insane commutes home the last 2 days I've had to skip sneak-rides.

Today i'm jetting from work On-time as possible, heading for WF and gonna pre-ride the hell outa accotink! Then I've got at least 1 relative noob to break in tonight at Wakefield. I'm looking forward to session some stuff with her and whatever group I take out. Might end up being like Delmar's ride last week.

Hoping to maybe sneak in the First FNL in a LOOOOOONG time maybe friday. We'll see if I can secure the night pass.

Took an hour'ish walk around the neighborhood with the wyf. Each time we do this we find a new section, last night it was some hidden little park I've never seen before.

Nice Friday

Nice night out last night if not a bit humid. Had a casual pre-ride and a later regular ride. We had a nice turn out for how questionable the weather was pretty good with the rain holding off till near 8:30 out at Wakefield.

I had a small casual ride group of 1 other person, another guy led a Casual+ of 3. It was nice and just what I needed for recovery reasons. Ended up with just about 12 miles for the night with a 7.4mph avg.

This morning I noticed my right knee was a bit sore. By the end of work it was VERY sore. 3 Motrin seem to have helped and now I'm hitting it with freezer packs.

Time to make some dinner. I'm thinking steak. Or maybe chili. HUNGRY!

PR +2

Today was a pretty good day, even after dealing with brake issues this morning. I hit FH at around 4:30 and by 4:45 was ready to go. I was stoked and took off. The lap felt a bit rough, as it's been since like maybe the FALL since I rode there, I couldn't remember all the best lines for the runs, and climbs, though suprisingly off the bat I made 2 climbs that have kicked my ass usually. Yah! I was stoked. I still couldn't beat woodpecker. And I still won't ride down shock-a-billy. I need to watch some peeps do it who I trust. But other than that good first lap, and I turned in a new lower time for me. 1:14 Riding, about 1:20 total! Yah that was pretty sweet. And so I went nuts from there and did something I've never done.

2nd Lap. I blasted away at first maintaining a avg pace of 6.7-7 on and off. Well I should fueled up more at the car and I knew I wasn't drinking enough and low and behold by mile 5 the cramps were showing up. Damn it! I actually had to stop at shock-a-billy and eat and take some potassium supplements and drink a ton of water to finish out but I was already cooked and had to push a few hillier sections. I made the last half of the final climb out. Ugh, but still a pretty fast time for me. !:17 moving. Though time was was my more normal 1:35'ish.

Not blazingly fast but a HUGE step up for me. I made all the climbs but Woodpecker. And had a damn good time even when my legs were protesting. I had a huge smile all the way home.

Wish the GPS was working it would be nice to have a track of both laps. Alas it's dead Jim and needs a reman/replace. Should run $100 through garmin but it's just not on my list now. Especially considering when I got home, put the bike in the stand and looked at the rear d and noticed the high gear adjustment screw was gone! WTF??!?!? I know it wasn't that loose. And the black plastic clip that holds it in/bolts to it was gone! UGh. Stripped one off and old X9 and tried getting it in...no dice. Gonna calll TBL tomorrow and see what they think. Probably gonna have to replace it. FURK! Oh well. I gotta a PILE of shit that I need to do on the bike really. Brake Pads front and rear, bottom bracket - Temp fix till new BB/Cogset/Chain can be replaced. Now a new D. And add in a few other things like the garmin. My L&M light needs some love also, the battery is getting wimpy. Argh. Maybe I can ifnd a surplus NIMH battery only.

But it was a damn good day to ride!

Extra Special. Really.

So this morning, as I was preparing to leave for work and riding after work, I decided to take a quick spin on the re-tuned bike, I noticed a HORRIBLE clicking from the rear whenever breaking. Insta-Panic. Check the rear roter, triangle....No breakage. Retry brakes...hmmm only happens when my weight is on the bike and breaking. I knew the pads were a bit close to worn out.

Off comes the caliper. Jackpot. One side is nearly truly gone and the other is almost fully gone. The organic pads are real nice most of the time but they seem to wear a bit quicker. Quick Time Check 6:25...shit.

Old pads out...Yep bad....And 1 side of the retainer spring is bent. Set aside. Try putting in set of new standard avid pads. Ugh...no way. Adjust out pad contact point....try again. Nope. Old pads back in. Apply screwdriver to spread/push in the damn pistons back in. This never seems to work...argh. Try again. Argh. Alright pull out the old original pads, they have a bit of life left. Cleam em with some rubbing alcohol, use the old spring from the organics. Ahhh and back in.

Put the junk back together....Argh 1 missing adjustment washer. 5 minutes later found it and it's all back on. Time check 6:48. Damn late late late. Quick test after adjusting. Better, braking is a bit off but no real noise/click. Take 15 minutes at lunch today to re-break in the brakes.

New pads on Friday I think I'm going to stick with the Organics.

The drive train readjustment was pretty easy excluding the cabling on the front. I assume it's due to the mix of Shimano Derailuer, and SRAM shifter. The front D is soon for replacement, its definitely a bit worn out on inspection of springs/etc.

Less Riding, More Learning.

With the rains the last week or two my riding has been pretty greatly curtailed. I got out last Thursday for perhaps the wettest, muddiest ride on the CCT south that I've been on since my teens. Including riding through a nearly foot deep crossing at one point.

So I've been taking the park tools bike school and it's been awesome so far. Like this week we learned how to properly tune shifting systems. Tomorrow I'm going to re-tune both my front and rear d from scratch. The front D needs height adjustment, and high/low adjustment for sure. The alignment is ok, but I imagine I'll be fiddling a good bit with it tomorrow. The rear isn't too bad but I think the B-Screw and the hi and low also need adjustment. Not to mention the damn cable itself. eesh.

Wednesday I'm going to shoot to re-ride Laurel Hill. Or maybe I'll go psycho and try Fountain Head out again. I hurt already at the thought. :) Something other than Wake, or Accotink. Maybe I'll shoot out to Rosaryville. I haven't been there in forever. I'd like to do Quantico but that's a bit further a field, saving that for a Monday trip soon. Along with another visit to Gambrills or maybe finally a shed trip.

Time to put a few beers in the fridge for tomorrow.

Suprisingly Dry

Last night at Wakefield I recieved what was almost the best present in a long time.

Suitably dry singletrack ready for riding. Especially since we had such a small turnout (Larry, Liz, Ernie, Lynn, Steve(late), and a new guy Bryan). I took the new guy on a casual tour of Accotink and then we hit a bit of Wakefield before it got too dark for Bryan who didn't have his lights. The final climb up the racecourse finish was in almost near darkness. Back at the lot Steve was waiting around for the intermediate group but with no sign of them he headed out. After letting bryan out I head back in and found Steve in Phase 1 working to put his tire back on. He'd knocked it off the rim on some root. We toured around Phase 1, the creek trail and phase 4 looking for the intermediate group. We ultimately determined they weren't in Wakefield at all. Back at the lot around 8:40 we found out they rode the Counter Clockwise Trail south and had a good time doing something different.

Post ride food and bev at Kilroys made for a darn good night of cycling. Also enjoyed a bit of Ernesto's remaining Porter I think it was as a PLB.

Though I couldn't get up at 6 this morning and slept till 6:30. Bad bad bad. :)

Beat up and Tired.

Thats how I've felt for the past week or so. Between prepping for the party 2 weeks ago, work kicking my ass repeatedly. Between that and the weather my riding this month TANKED. UGh. Maybe 60-70 miles, on the real bike. I did do some running in the gym and riding the cycles at the gym.

Last Thursday at the Wakefield Night ride, after doing my own 10 mile pre-ride, 10 miles later I was nearly tanked out and at 11 miles I was boinking. I was annoyed as hell to be wiped out after 22 miles of Wake-o-tink.

Tuesday I finally made it out to Laurel Hill and it's a hoot. You can really let go if you have the bawls. With a lower pressure in my front tire I feel I could have pushed my avg speed at least another .5 mph from 8.5 to 9. Or more.

The trails are fun and twisty. The skills section at Slaughter house is neat though the heavy rock section beat me twice, I just could get the momentum and line right. I made it halfway over the log skinny and had to bail. Need more pedaling. :) The actual trail was fun to. I think the best way to do that trail is go up the switch backs heading out of the middle of the figure 8.

The blue loop was fun, I took the 2nd enterance but I just didn't have the gas in me to really hammer it and fly on the rollers or hit the jumps there.

The Red (Apple Orchard?) was a neat downhill, and a bit of a grind back up doing it CW. I think finished out on Green to Red to back to the CCT then back the field trail to the parking lot. A nice bit of fun. Next week I want to hit there and get 2 laps.

Had an awesome dinner of Grilled Flank Steak, Broiled Polenta, a home made relish and a nice glass of wine. yes there it is. I do drink wine. Murphy Goode's Liar's Dice. A blend of Zins. Deep and smooth with mellow hints of spice.

No Bedlam for Moi.

Alas work has conspired against me. And so has the Federal Govt. And Fates, etc.

So I won't be making the bedlam in Bedford for this year. As I not only don't have the $$$ but I also have no new beer to sample, as I've been behind on stuff for over a month now. Ooops.

I did start Park Tools Bike Maint School last night and it's been very cool so far with even the intro and explanation on stuff such as hubs, freehubs, wheels and tires. The cool stuff gets going next week with Wheel Theory being a big one for me.

Hopefully this rain wraps up todya and thursday we can Ride at Wakefield.

But I'm not holding my breath.

Wednesday Blues

March 19th Entry From Kung Fu Monkey (kfmonkey.blogspot.com):

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's
life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish
fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its
unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially
crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of
course, involves orcs.

Now that explains why I'm so screwed up. Damn you Ayn Rand!

I still need to finish Return of the King.

Stupid rain, GO AWAY!

Thursday Wakefield. Semi Epic

It was a damn fine Thursday out for all cyclists I think! One of the best in a while for sure. I got out of work a bit later than I wanted but still made it to Wakefield right around 5. A slow gear up and I headed out 15 minutes later. Took a nice spin out by the rusted truck section as a short warm up. Then headed out for an equivalency lap of race course. Barely pushing I turned in a solid 20-21 minute lap. I think with a little more riding I may be able to turn in some solid sub 20 minute laps by race time in June. A quick visit over to Accotink followed that for some additional exploring. The Accotink workday had cleared up a lot of leaf covered trail and had 1 good reroute! Very nice work.

Back to the lot a bit before 6:30 to organize the group Night Ride. Had a pretty good turn out of 15 other riders. We headed out in 2 big groups of 8. Both groups stayed together till the first trail in Accotink where I had a rally point and offered quick thoughts on the trails. And we rode on, taking several legs I havent' before. Eventually I let Mike and Joel lead a bit including the section out of the park and back to the CCT as I don't know that way at all.

We rolled back into Wakefield at around 8 and after a time check and reorg we decided to ride till 8:30. We blasted off, doing the creek trail to phase 1, the creek trail race section and up and out on the high section of phase 1. We then did the climb up to the berms and rode down. And headed back to the lots. 12 miles in about 2 hours for our group and 22 total for me. I was stoked. A great night of riding, I was bummed out that I couldn't hang out afterwards. The wyf was having an existential crisis and I was late getting out due to session the berms. Oops. But an excellent night ride!

Cherry Blossoms and other blossoms

El Wyf and I took a gentle coast down into downtown Sunday for a visit to the craziness that is the cherry blossom festivus. The first part on the Canal wasn't too bad, but once we got onto the path along the river after G-town it was packed to crazy packed. I did make a sweet drop in off the benched sections there after avoiding a bunch of the crowds! Once we hit the tidal basin we walked about 1/2 way around it. Then after appreciating the nature we hoped back on the bikes and rode back down to the river and back, much quicker over all due to less crowds. It was a wonderful day to be out spinning.

I only felt bad that I was missing the shed trailwork day, but I'll hit the next one for sure!

Came back and hit Nest in downtown bethesda. Very good mussels and nice pizza. Enjoyed with a Rogue Dead Guy. Saturday I had a Milk Stout and wasn't really impressed. The DFH 60 that I followed it with was much better :)

Hoping to hit CJ tomorrow after owrk and see if the new section is seeing more action now with the entry bridge and the big bridge in.

100 Miles and Riding

Wow, its been a LONG while I think since I actually had a 100+ mile month. This month I hit 115 I think based on my cyclecomps starting mileage and ending today. Adjusting for a minor snafu that kept 3 miles off the record.

My GPS today decided it was too nice out to stay on and cut off all the time, after the 4th time I gave up. Gonna flash the mem/bios again and see if that helps.

For many guys out there 115 is nothing, a weekend maybe or a regular week. For me it's pretty spiffy. I average out probably between 40-60 miles a month. With the occasionally slightly higher month. My new goal is to push that number a bit more over the course of april....Maybe 150. We'll see I guess.

Today was a great day out at Wakefield. Didn't have time to hit Accotink, but wake was pretty good. Some wet spots but over all very ridable. Though I did see 1 or 2 spots that made me go Huh?

I'm off to finish digesting some good Thai food.

Cabin John Trail Work Day

Come one, Come All! To the great CJ Trail Work Day, Sunday March 29.

We'll be meeting at the Group Picnic Area on the north side of Tuckerman LN across from the maintenance yard at 7400 Tuckerman Ln.

We'll be rallying at 9am for what will hopefully be a busy and productive day of building bridges, maybe building a tool shed, some trimming of the trail corridor, blazing, maybe bench cutting a few spots. Depends on turn out.

Rain or Shine is the current plan. Currently we have 41 Low and 62 High with Few Showers (30%) in the forecast.

I'll bring out Coffee and Donuts and some a limited supply of bottled water in the AM. I'll also hopefully have at least 2 cordless drills. I'm also hoping to bring a EZ up shelter thing to work partially under in case of rain while bridge building.

You need to bring, gloves, water, snacks/food, and appropriate clothes, like work boots, or solid shoes. No sandals/etc.

Double Dip?

Inspired by riderx's triple dipple post of Monday I wanted to write up a decent post about my big Monday of riding. So on with the tale!

Monday we had weather indications that it would be a beautiful sunny day, and I had a newly re-tuned bike to put through the grinder. And the itch to ride somewhere different. Sure Schaeffer Farm is open again, but I wanted something tougher, to push myself. So I went back to Gambrills SP for a second tour of the yellow loop.

So after a late start I made it to Gambrills around noon, unpacked and got on the trail with a quick warm up spin up the parking lot side of yellow to near the top and back down, to cross the road and start the clockwise loop of yellow with extension. The first climb wasn't bad and I almost made it up the first climb with only a minor bump off. Alas the stairs kicked my ass, with pushing several sections, though I did make the last climb and damn that was a grind. Some nice flowing descents back down to the extension trail. The extension trail is really interesting. At the major rock outcrop I played around finding a nice line away from the trail on what looks to be a pretty fun play area, alas I minorly ditched on one try, the 2nd time I made it a simpler quick drop rather than trying to ride a line. Back on the trail it was a slow grind around the loop, with some climbing after crossing the road, coming down after the t section on a soft/loamy section I cut it to tight and dumped over real good. Banged my knee real good on a damn rock that was in the perfect place. Murphy's law. I quickly hopped on the bike swearing at myself and whatever diety placed that rock. I rode on with good climbs/etc until I hit the CRAZY climb at about 1:30'ish in my ride. It is rocky as hell. I dunno how to hit any of it honestly, except maybe on a dirt bike :) After that I made good on the climbs back to the road crossing and had fun on the bike rock formation descent. Then it was a grind back along the road till the blast down to the lot, I was too tired to really let go alas. Maybe next time. I did session several good climbs, and rocky area's finding better lines and trying to make some climbs.

Gambrills Ride

On the way back down out of the mountains, I had a crazy notion. Why not stop for a quick loop at Schaeffer Farm??? It's too nice a day and the riding should be good. So a drive down to the farm and a quick load out and I was ready to go.

It was an excellent day out at SF. The trail had a good bit of rogue branches down, but thanks to DKEG and Wrench's efforts the trail was clear of all major trees. So I went out the stunt section of white to yellow. The trail faeries have been hard at work building a few dirt jumps it appears. I skipped em due to being a bit tired. Out the yellow to the blue bypasses and back out on the far yellow loop. Trail definetely has some growth issues, the thorny stuff is already growing into the trail. In a feat of silly-assed-ness I rode the orange offshoot trail and it was fun, once I made the initial climb in, that was rough. Nice and flowing once I got going, and out back to the yellow loop. The field trails were fine by then. Probably 3 PM. It was a bit of a slog for sure coming back up the final climb to the big intersection. I met up with a rider I'd been chasing for a while, we both recovered and I took off first, he held pretty close the entire way back with me pulling away a bit on the descents. The armored stream crossing KICKS ASS! I was stoked, we both commented on how nice it was now. The final slog back up that yellow section to the white/orange meet up was hellish at that point. I just kept pushing the pedals. The final ride in was a bit slow. At first I was pulling a nice 9.1 MPH pace, but by the end I had dropped back to a 8.1. Oh well, not bad.

It was a excellent day out. It was not perhaps my best 16/17 miles. But it was better than any day at work, and a lot of fun. Now I just need to find a riding cohort who is off Mondays and wants to explore. Or else someone to lead me around the shed a bit, who doesn't mind slow riding, on one of my rare free Sundays or on a Monday.

Trail Building School

Had a good trail building/maintenance class at Wakefield for MORE trail liaisons on Saturday. Lots of good info for sure. Got to do some fun field work, play with Cannycom mechinized wheelbarrow/dump system. I'm now certified to borrow it for use on my trail work days. We also got to play clinometer's to measure the grade of slopes and to try our hand at planning good trail. I learned the 3 big rules, the 15% rule (trail grade). the half rule (of which your trail grade should be half what your actual grade is). And the 10% rule for the averaging of your trail grade over all.

After wards we did a ride of Wakefield, but i had to bail after 40 mins due to a late start on the ride. But got in about 6.5 miles anyways. We were flying, I was wondering why I was dieing. We avg'd out like 9.7 mph. On main trails at wake I usually run fro 7-8 depending on if I'm leading the casual rider group.

Hoping to hit gambrills tomorrow. I redid both derailer's cables this weekend and it needs a bit of tweaking in the morning on the rear d. Gotta pack the stand and cable adjustment tools I guess.

Finally moved Snow Day IPA to secondary. Tastes pretty good so far. Hopefully bottle at the end of next week or so. Rock Bottom beer isn't bad, the stout is got a good bit of coffee'ness and the brown is pretty good. Didn't try anything else.

Restaurant Review

Ceiba in downtown DC. - Give it 4.5 out of 5. Excellent Latin/Caribbean food. Though I feel it tends a bit more towards cuban almost. We started off with mojito's. I had the standard and wife had the Hemingway. I liked mine a bit better as it was a tad sweeter. Very well balanced without too much mint, and the piece of sugarcane as garnish/swizzle stick rocked, and was fun to chew/suck on while drinking. We then order a bottle of Chardonnay-Viogner (vee-ohn-yay), Chardonnay/Viognier, Nieto Senetiner, Don Nicanor, Mendoza, Argentina, 2007 $39. Super nice went extremely well with everything. We started with the wild Sea Stripped Bass Ceviche. Nice and tangy with a nice spice. For dinner I had the whole roasted snapper that was excellent. Moist and flaky, the sauce and garnish was terrific. J had the pork tenderloin medallions cuban style and they were superb. We finished off with a keylime apple tart type dessert with a super smooth coconut ice cream. Excellent service, a wonderful place to eat. A bit more management on my part and it could have been only a $100 meal. But it was well worth the chunk more. Almost 3 hours of dining.

Friday's stop by Whole foods provided a taste of the wonderful North Coast Brewery's Pranqster Belgian Ale. 7.6%. Was super drinkable with BBQ.

Beer Entertainment

I was listening to 98 rock on the way home from a meeting with the Volunteer Coordinator from MCParks. And I heard what I thought was a comedy bit they sometimes play, but alas it was just a commercial from America's Favorite Brew-lords.

Anheuser Busch....New Budweiser about the new butt-weiser specific glass so as maximize flavor, head, etc. They especially mention the "Natural" carbonation in budweiser. HAHAHAHAHAH. I was laughing my head off in the car.

I picked up a 4 pack of Sam Adams Imperial Style Doublebock. I tried a taste there along with the Imperial stout and a few other of theirs. I liked this one the best. Just had one now with dinner and it was really nice and malty. Good hop balance to clear the palate afterwards. I liked it better colder than on the warm end, went well with my dessert, cheapo brownie pieces.

I'll make my own, Thank You!

Hmmm, I've found out that an opportunity that I thought had been closed to me is now open if I can make the stars align (find a car pool).

Snow Day IPA - Based on Brewers Best HopNog kit from the fall of 2008. With a bit of pristine snow melted into the boil. It was supposed to be an ABV of 6-7% but I think between spillage and other I'm going to only hit an Abv of 6 max...It's had almost 2 weeks in primary, so this weekend I'll move it to secondary and plan to bottle by the first of April.

Moving ahead with becoming the main Trail Liaison for Cabin John Trail in Bethesda. Should have crewe leader training next Monday is the plan.

Rode wake and accotink last night for the first time in a month for actually real trail riding. It was awesome, did 12 miles with the casual group.

Lots of new beers tried lately including

471 IPA - A nice hop load but a hair to bitter for enjoyment.

Steve R at WFTNR hooked a brother up with an AWESome beer
Erdinger Octoberfest HefeWeisen - A super awesome Hefe that is smooth as hell and stronger than usual. Very minor yeast character.

Chunk also had his IPA out and it was super smooth. Very drinkable with nice fruity hop nose.

New Holland brewing The Poet - Nice and smooth and rich but it had an odd odor. Maybe it was a bit skunked...Nice otherwise

I just had another Punk DFH and I actually REALLY liked it this time.

Tommorow I shall brew Snow Day Pale Ale. :) I'm REALLY tempted to melt down some snow for a bit of the water base. :P

I need to ride more.

The title says it all. I have been hitting the gym much more regularly than since last spring and I know my core/shoulders are definitely getting stronger, I need to start doing more leg work. My power I think is increasing but the endurance boost just ain't happening.

Case in point, I rode about 30 on Thursday night around the CCT with a tiny bit of Wakefield (less than a mile i'd say). And I went out this morning for a snow ride. Damn my legs were still acting stupid. Now I admit i haven't been eating great and that was on a pretty light breakfast, so I will head out again later once it starts snowing hopefully later this afternoon, or tomorrow I will definitely try and do 10-15.

Ultimately I think to build my endurance it's going to require my getting a road bike. Well I've been looking at some budget SS/Cross rides and i hope maybe after taxes next month I might be able to pony down. Probably something like a Motobecane Fantom Cross Uno or Mercier.

Back to cleaning for me....Brunch break in an 45 mins.

Hope everyone out there is getting in some rides.

Also this afternoon or tomorrow I believe I will finally start what will be called Snow Day Ale, a hoppy little number. Almost an IPA but not quite.