Down with the.....

Pew.  Pew. Pew.  said Curiosity's laser. 

Hack.  Hack.  Hack said Rob's lungs.

Since Wednesday night I've been coming down with something thats going around the office.  Thursday was rough as I was tired from not sleeping well and several very long days on Tuesday and Wednesday.  The ride was okay, felt not too bad but a bit easily winded.  Good group and good fun though.  Huge crowd of 35+ riders. 

Friday it all went to hell over night, way more drainage and by Saturday morning I was hacking up new life forms yet to be discovered by Curiosity on Mars.  uGH.  Still sleeping like crap.  Woke around work time on Sunday and couldn't get back to sleep so I ended up running errands then doing 3 hours of solo trimming on my trial before the rains came in.  My shoulders are killing me as apparently I had the pack straps mis-adjusted and was rubbing myself the wrong way with it. 

I did get some new extendable clippers that are AWESOME!  with 2+ feet long handles my back is actually fine versus how bad it hurt after my last trimming effort.  Now I just have 3 more sections that need trimming.  Groan.  One of them is pretty short so I may try and get it tonight if it's not raining again.  I should complain about the rain but honestly it's a good thing right now open trails are extremely dry and dusty.

Tonight's real major project assuming I leave work ontime/nearly ontime is to STORE all the picnic left over supplies at the storage ctr.  Then maybe Tuesday after work I will try and return the mega cooler that pork came in leaving me almost done with picnic stuff. 

Gotta plan a fall trip but I'm waiting on seeing how some projects work out and then how J's new roommate works out with the cats.  If she doesn't then my vacation limits for Sept/Oct really change. 

Still bummed I didn't get a ride in Yesterday but there was no way I was doing something epic, being sick like this stinks.  My goal is to have it mostly kicked by the end of this week.

Ramping up for the big 2012 MORE Fall Camping trip to Davis, WV that is about a month away. 

Did sneak in some beers this week of note the Red Hoptober from New Belgium is very tasty.  Also did a 4 beer flight at WF on saturday including DFH Burton Baton, Firestone's Walkers Double DBA, Alewerks Bourbon Barrel Porter, and Weyerbacher's Imperial Pumpkin.  The first 3 are all Bourbon Barrel aged and were tasty.  The porter was VERY sweet and was honestly my least favorite at the time.  The DDBA was almost too much.  The punkin beer wasn't bad, but with the cold I have I don't know how much I could trust my sense of taste and I had absolutely no nose.  Yesterday I picked up a bottle of Widmer Bro's Kill Devil Brown Ale special release and am really looking forward to it.

Rainy Tuesday Morning to yah.

Apparently all the Breck Epic participants had a bad day on the trails yesterday with a moderately strong and very cold rain for much of the day, eventually leading to pulling riders off the course.  Saw Dicky and some others hot-tubbing to warm up.  That kind of riding sucks, went through an hour of downpour in the not too cold summer in PA and it sucked.  Can't imagine how cold that felt in Breckenridge.

PICNIC is done.  Well not the wrap up parts but the event is done,  I have to store/return things still but the main part is dealt with and I"m sooooooo happy.  Really.  It went very well and we did end up with too much food.  Probably 100 attendees, about 50 riders.  It was all good. 

Ran again yesterday.  Damn running sucks but I'm slowly getting....better I suppose is the correct word for now.  Before it was a lot of stopping and walking, now I'm doing the main run of 3.5 miles in about 33 minutes.  Felt pretty damn good.  Main running section of 3.2 miles, with 4 of walking was done in just under 32 minutes.  Another week and my goal is to finish the whole damn thing running.

Today I suspect will be a long day at work on major projects due Friday.  Would like to ride but if I do happen to get home at a decent time I'm going to return a cooler up to the person I borrowed it from near Rockburn Park. 

Maybe Wednesday I'll slip in a ride to DC.

Had an EXCELLENT beer on Friday, Firestone's Wookey Jack - Black Rye IPA in a big boy.   Damn tasty, well balanced, smooth for a rye.  Went down good cold, and the last few drinks were at room temp and it was still very nice. 

Dusty-field

Wakefield was a dust bowl again last night, but hopefully this mornings rain is tamping that down to a more manageable level.

I kept casual in Wakefield for a change and it was okay.  We had Jason's wife Lisa go down hard early on the reverse race-course descent into the last creek crossing.  She stopped before then tried to restart after dropping in and went OTB due to being to far forward and going too slow I think.  Ouchy.  She was okay after 5 minutes and we rode on.  But she was panicked and had issues for a bit so we stopped and sessioned the big hairpin in Phase 1's upper half till she had it cold.  After that she was a lot better.  We hit a ton of stuff and got a nice ride in. 

As we were finishing we watched a storm start to come in but it never rained or directly thundered over us last night.  Now the rain is fine :)

Unfortunately after our ride finished and most of the groups were back we heard a friend who was out with some others (but who hadn't been on the official rides) went down and broke his collerbone in the bowl on some loose material.  Also think his pretty Niner took a beating too.  Hope he's feeling better soon. 

Picnic is Sunday and all I can say is I will be very GLAD when it's over.

WoB - Arlington VA

Hit the new World of Beer in Arlington last night for the grand opening, pretty early a bit before 6.  Killed a bunch of beer and went home to have more.  Nice place as expected.  Food they offer is minimal but they have BGR, BW3 and other stuff near by. 

Rogue Shakespear Stout on Nitro - Super smooth stout, went down sooooo easy.  Well balanced, it's not trying to be one of the Founders mega stouts. 
Troubadour Magma - Belgian IPA - The IPA part is pretty minimal but a good belgian beer.
Terrapin Samurai Krunkles - Jeez I dunno what STYLE this is but it was surprisingly good for a beer with Ginger and Green Tea.  :Not too sweat, but pretty drinkable since I killed most of the tall boy myself. 
Rogue XS Imperial/double Ipa - Wow great IPA, very nice balance of Malt and Hops.  The hop flavor lingered for a LONG time but not in an unpleasant way to me. 

Price is Definitely higher than in orlando by a third or more.  Gotta watch all the prices as some stuff is not a bad deal but other things are BAD like a Flying Dog draft for 9.25!  And it wasn't even one of the special ones like El Dorado or such.

Went home and had a Lagunita's WTF while playing some Left for Dead 2 with a buddy Jeff.  Damn I'm terrible at that game. 

Today I'm off to Gaithersburg to pick up a cargo rack for my car to help haul stuff for the Picnic of Doom on Sunday. 

MTB on Mars

Today I diverge slightly from the normal things I talk about here to something more related on the periphery of my geek-dom. 

Curiosity the #MSL (Mars Science Lab) landed sucessfully on Mars last night, after launching from Kennedy Space Center in Florida back in November.  I got the priveledge/opportunity to watch the launch from on KSC at the Apollo Rocket facility.  It didn't have the earth shaking, unbelievable power of a shuttle launch, but it had more in some ways.  Hundreds or thousands of people who built it, put together everything and sent it on it's journey.  J herself works on the SAM module of MSL and is also part of the general science team for MSL and will be at JPL on and off for at least the next 3 months to help run the rover and SAM.  The level of stress leading up to this was almost unbearable.  The number of jobs riding on it landing was amazing.  This shows NASA still has the right stuff to push boundaries and be the leaders of America's Dream.  The EDL system alone was a feat of amazing engineering.  The rover is built by a ton of different groups putting together a nearly 1 ton monster.  Most people get nervous shipping their car across the country.  Now imagine shipping it to another planet. 

Not many people may know but when NASA and JPL were figuring out how to build the rover, they made a decision to go with Titanium for the arms that the wheels run on.  But back when the rover was under design in the early 2000's they didn't have the knowledge on how to work with Ti.  Well NASA instead went to experts at pushing the boundary of working with Ti.  Lynskey Bikes.  Yep, they went to mountain (and other bike) builders Lynskey to learn how to optimally weld and bend Ti tubes/etc used in the frame and power train of the rover.  Pretty cool.  I know a handful of people who ride Lynskey bikes.  Their bikes and the rover share some distant DNA almost. 

If you haven't yet go check out the photo's do it.  Here is my favorite showing a shadow of the rover. 

Click Here

I've been an space geek since my earliest memories with the shuttle back when it's tank was still white.  I remember the day Challenger explosion very clearly.  Sitting in the school library with all the other kids in shock.  Our 6th grade science teacher had been in the final 5 to be selected.  I remember seeing shuttles up close on the back of transports, fly overs in Florida.  Moving to Orlando and hearing the twin booms of it landing.  The first launch I saw, then the first night launch.  Amazing stuff.  Then Columbia happened while in Tallahassee.  No booms as it passed over.  Bad.  Space exploration is not safe, nothing is guaranteed except you are always taking a risk.  We must take risks in moving forward and advancing our selves, and our knowledge.  NASA has problems but it does a LOT of stuff right also.  So for now all I will say is

Go #Curiosity, #MSL, #SAM  go!

Whooops there it is

Been a busy bunch of weeks.

Vacation down to OBX was great.  Rode bikes, played/relaxed on the beach, drank beer and wine, flew my kites, almost killed a few people with my BIG kite, ate some awesome food.  J t-boned a car on a bike path at about 5-6 miles an hour (from 16).  Bent the hell outa her bikes front wheel but a replacement and it was mostly good.

Food and Beer/Wine recommendations -
The Brine and Bottle - Wow try the Tuna Carpaccio if it's available and the other food is great also.  Good wines and beer.
Trio - Wow, 15 taps of good to amazing beers, 1 on cask, amazing small plates, sandwiches, etc.  Wish we had tried dinner here but probably would have needed a cab ride home.
The Full Moon Cafe and Brewery - Go to the brewery side.  Great small pub feel.  Solid beers, well done.  Tiny brewery.  Food's pretty good also, did lunch and really enjoyed it after a ride.

Plenty of good beer places if you look but not many offering DARK or Imperial IPA's.  A LOT of Ambers/etc are available for a nice change.  

There were 2 other places that were pretty good but I can't remember the names right now.  However I did want to SLAM a few places.

OBX Brew Station - Beers were lame, food was a bit weird but well done.  My wasabi mashed potatoes were HULK green.  You don't need to add that much food coloring!
Ice Cream Stands (General) - Hersheys and Blue Bunny are not a big deal folks.  How about some REAL store/home made icecream like I get at the northern beaches.

Biking - Pretty good and generally felt safe rode about 50 miles in 3 rides.  Would have been 60 but the car incident.  It was a badly/well hidden drive and the old lady just pulled right on out, J was going a bit fast and not considering the potential for pull outs.

Beaches - Love em, though the undertow/etc could be rough.

Jockey's Ridge State Park - Amazing place to watch sunset, fly smaller kites.  My big 6 foot delta-v stunt kite almost killed a few people who wouldn't get out of the way.  Way too much wind and too big of a kite to fly the night I tried.  I wanna try hang gliding.

Kite Surfing - Expensive ass sport to learn/do.  A one day class series runs 400-500 typically.  Some schools have 2 day schools that run $600 and is the way to go.  Next time maybe.  Watched a ton of this from   The school down near Rodanthe is pretty cool and has good beer.  The food at the cafe is pretty lame though.

Got back from Vakay and started prepping for the Big Summer Picnic only to find - SURPRISE!  It started raining Friday night and didn't really stop till Sunday AM.  Postponed.

Now rescheduled for Rosaryville on Aug 12.  Don't think we are going to get a huge turnout.

We've been averaging 25 rides over the summer since W@W started and that's up again from last year we were pulling maybe 20. Trying to get back into road also on the CX, my mileage really died in July due to the heat/etc.  Going running tonight though.

Did a big bunch of bike maintenance this last week and it payed off, the MTB is riding nice and not making tons of creaking/etc.

Olympics have been pretty good so far, looking forward to MTB and BMX.

Escape Velocity Built

Wow, after what feels like forever, my vacation starts next week.  My last one was back in early March to see my folks and well, visiting the parents, isn't really a vacation :)  Say it's a half-cation.

This time I'm off to the OBX which I haven't been to since probably Reagan was in his first term as president.  I want to say I was in 1st grade but not positive.  Staying in Nags Head and hoping to get some good riding, good relaxing and good swiming in.  Also hoping to make it to the Wright Bro's museum.  

Wakefield ride last night was pretty good, we rode mostly Accotink which is sort of amazingly clear excluding 1 or 2 spots, especially the last big descent near the dam area which is blocked by a HUGE tree.  Got 8 miles and change, no pre-ride as I stayed late at work.  Post ride was good time chilling, drinking beer and hanging out.   The girl who damaged a tooth a few years ago came back for the first time.  Felt horriible hearing a few others were also damaged!  Ouch!  Major dental work for her.  Damn.  Now she wears a mouth guard, probably not a bad idea really.  

Put a deposit down for J on a bike to checkout on our way outa town on Saturday.

Tonight it's Dream Theater at the Warner.  Should be another awesome show, saw them earlier on tour and was really impressed.

Oh and Happy Friday the 13th.  :P

Sawing Along

Well it's been a long and busy week.  Work has been stupid due to working an extra hour everyday and the 2 extra on Thursday morning REALLY sucked.  Been playing catchup on sleep since then still need a few more.

Thursday we did a ride and clear at Accotink.  Damn.  A TON of trees down.  We cleared a bunch of stuff and some smaller trees using hand saws but a lot simply requires chainsaws.  Larry C sawed out a MEGA ton of timber, probably 100+ cuts or more in 2 hours. 

Also "found" a wasp nest on the Gas Plant trails near the BIG Grass Field.  One of my guys was stung 10-15 times, another maybe more but on the head and body and he bailed out.  Not that I got away without being stung, I got taped once, on the thumb thru my glove.  Oy I was damn lucky.  And very glad I wore my 3/4's shorts over my tights. 

Still a lot of stuff to clear on the new interior trail I believe, though WF is now fully clear.  Actually trimmed the lower third of Phase 4 that was just horribly over growing.  Got tired of battling plants while riding thru.  Another week or two and it will be clear for a good while.

Ran again yesterday, felt much better than on last Friday's same run, this time running probably 2.5 and walking 1 mile of it.  Not sure of time, but definetely ran further and better so my estimate for last week should have been like 1.75 and 1.75 I think.  So thats about  11 miles of run/walking in the last 2 weeks, starting to feel better.  Now I have a major goal to be in good shape as I'm doing this run at the end of October:

Run for Your Lives - Baltimore - Oct 27 2012.

Well that BLEW!

I was one of the lucky folks in the DC area in that my power only flickered on Friday, never fully lost power at all!    Who knew buried power lines were a good idea????

My work wasn't so lucky their power went out and didn't come back on till 21 hours later at 8PM.  We were on generator through that time.  Unfortunately the COM Room for our whole building is not on Gen-set so we lost phones and some of our networks as the UPS's in there are just too old.  So things are STILL catching up as of 12 hours later and it looks like the queue's won't finish for another 4 to 6 hours. 

Cabin John park is reported CLOSED due to down lines. 

Other trails I've heard about include 17 trees down at Schaeffer and WF and Accotink are war-zones.

Day 7 straight of work is sucking.  Hard.

The Dusty Trail

Dusty-field should be the new name for Wakefield.   After a relatively dry and VERY dusty 2 weeks wakefield's trails are ALL very dustry especially the ones in the open.  Powerlines was super dusty I kept coughing from all the crap.  Can't imagine how bad it was during the race.

This week I did another race lap to start off with after a quick spin around the lower fields/courts.  Somehow turned a 19:58 lap which is pretty damn good in my books.  Way faster than last week and felt like I still could have been even a bit faster, wasn't pushing it in some area's at all. 

The main ride went well other than finding out the gentleman who crashed horribly off the infamous Tree-Zilla Log-Over was on my ride.  He tried to pull a manual off it apparently and had a bad fall ending up paralyzed for about 2 months after hitting head first.  And that was the end of Tree-Zilla.  Oh well.  He was struggling a bit and seemed unsteady when trying to get out of the saddle and hammer up hills/etc.  He bailed at the far end of Accotink to ride out.

On the way back down Danbury Forest I gate it a good hard spin and hit 33.4 MPH.  Zoom.

Riding will be limited this weekend between working all weekend and the insane heat today and tomorrow with temps at 100+.

If you are out riding, stay safe, keep hydrated and wear your sunscreen. 

Amazing day of weather

Truly awesome weather today other than the 15mph wind when headed into it.  Sub 80's!

Did a quick 12 mile spin in the hood to stretch the legs out from the running punishment the day before.  Legs were sore and not up to full power but felt okay by the end.  The timed mile was a bit quicker than before so thats good but due to pedestrian traffic on the trails I let up a bit more than I should have and missed a chance for 2:40 mile or less. Oh well next time. 

Heats coming in BIG time with temps hitting near 100 by the weekend.  fck.  At least I'm working and not sitting at home in the crap weather. 

Had a new beer today at Whole Foods, DuClaw's Serum a 9% IPA.  Pretty damn good.  Tried a taste of Re-PENT at 14% barley wine.  Maybe as a 8oz sipping/dessert beer.  Off to bed it's been a long day.  Tomorrow I think I'm gonna see about dropping the Volpe off for a tune up after work.

Meep Meep....

Well I did it again.  Oops.  Nope I didn't run into Ms.Spears but I did go jogging for the first time in 3+ years.  My out door running/jogging days are long past and I was never very serious.  In my 2nd college stint I got up to doing a fair amount of indoor track running (Too hot in FL for outdoor) and had a love/hate relationship with many treadmills on and off till I quit my gym 3.5 years ago.  Best $50 I've saved a month in a long time I still think. 

Today I went with a really slow pace and alternated slow jogging (walking) with slow running  (jogging).  A total of 35 minutes with about 17 in running.  I'm sure my legs will enter full rebellion tomorrow or will leave me looking like Vader post volcanic beauty treatment.  But it wasn't terrible.  The tech shirt was very nice to have and new shoes made a huge difference over my old ones.  I see getting a few pairs of running shorts in the future also, as my old gym shorts spandex has died.  When I put them on I heard more Snap, Crackle and Pop then a bowl of Rice Crispies. 

Just Gmap Pedometer calculated my route and it is just about 1.5 miles per lap and I did 2 plus a bit.  Wow, probably ran the equivalent of a whole lap. 

My new bibs for cycling still aren't in it appears the address may have been slightly borked but I figure they should have had a human eventually look at it and fix it.  ugh.

Bikes need cleaning but I'm pretty wiped.  Trying to figure out tomorrow's ride plan but that may be a bit aggressive knowing how my legs are feeling at the moment.  We shall see! 

Great weather tomorrow but then the heat of hell is back starting Thur and rocketing to 100'ish over the weekend again.  At least I'm stuck at work.  Maybe I'll do some after dark rides. 

Hotter than a .....

It was simply HOT last night.  A bit more humid than yesterday. 

Got to Wakefield around 5pm.  Took a while to get ready and I wasn't rushing.  Had to lube the damn chain and clean the bike a bit.  About 5:35 I headed out and ended up doing a modified 1st race course lap then a normal 2nd lap.  The times were unimpressive.  I wasn't feeling super strong.  My measured pace was 9.2 MPH on both my laps meaning probably 9.5. Looking back in Connect I see the last time I logged an Official W@W lap in Jully 2008 I was a tenth faster but my AVG heart rate was WAY higher. 

On my 2nd lap my Race Strap gave up and all my @#$@ went fling off the back of the bike (tube, levers, and CO2 cart).  Ugh.  Finding the 2nd lever was a bit of work, then stuffing all the crap in my jersey pockets due to stupid zippers. 

Only had 20 signed in riders this week versus 40 last week due to the race, the movie and the heat I suspect, still it was a good group.  On casual we had a ride start on heat exhaustion/stroke so I took her back on the CCT and she felt better after getting off the punishing hills in Accotink so we spun up to 236 and back.  I ended up with 16 and change logged meaning probably 17.5, which means I'm at 65 miles again for the week.  Not bad , just under 200 miles this month and 242 miles in the last 30 days.

Big weekend on the plans again, Beer Fest in sLeesburg tomorrow afternoon, and more bike buying work with J on Sunday probably.  I'd like to get in a good 30 to 40 but dunno if that will be possible. 

Tonight I may finally try going for my first jog in years and I have to clean out the Rogue.  The amount of crap I've let pile-up is a bit shocking. 

Had Southern Tier's Iniquity Black IPA - Nice and malty with a decent hop load, a maltier less hoppy version than say 21st Amendment's Black IPA. 

In foody news the owner of Volt up in Frederick MD is opening a diner serving traditional diner food modernized and it will probably be excellent but a fair hit pricey.  It's on my to-do list next time I'm up in Fred-neck and not sweaty, dirty and such.  It's name is Family Meal on N. East Street.  Yep another wonderfully confusing Frederick street name. North East Street.  sigh. 

Another week of Blah!

Got in a couple rides last week, thursday night was a bit low mileage but hey I did clip/trim back near a mile and a half of race course single track in case I do any of the W@W series this year.  Right now based on how hot Wednesday may be I plan on skipping week 1 for sure.  MId 90's would suck. 

Thursday this week has been lowered from 100/99 to only 96!  Phew.  I was wondering who was going to show up for a ride again along with the devil.  Maybe I'll bring popsicle's instead of beer.  Regardless it's going to be a warm middle of the week. 

Yesterday I only got 24 miles so tonight I'm planning on riding down into DC for another 20'ish.  Last 3 week's I've been avg 65 miles or so a week, and that feels pretty awesome.  Changed my seat position about a quarter of an inch higher on the CX bike for a "change" to see if that helped improve power/ease up.  What I noticed today is the soreness is in my VERY low quads so not sure. 

My Sunday ride was more of a touring/road riding test to see how the ride to Whole Foods in Lk Fairfax would be.  Not bad excluding 2 parts that would be a bit sketchy in traffic.  Not pushing made it over in about 30 minutes and back 26 or so. 

So as the Jester typically says, "Stay Frosty".

Riding more is fun!

I will say since getting the cross bike a month ago my riding has really shot up, I've done about 50 miles a week extra on average since getting it as my currently mileage this month up till today is around 210 on that bike, which to me is pretty mind blowing, for me really thats 2 GOOD months of MTB.  I enjoy being able to get out and spin out a quick 10-15 miles of distance in an hour from the house or in 3 hours be able to lay down 40 or 50.  Not quite ready to say it's making me a stronger rider yet but I feel like I'm advancing my always keep pedaling mentality a bit away from MTB of coast and pedal that I've lived in.

I still love my MTB and railing Accotink last week was a blast.  The first really dry week in a while, trails were lots of fun to just zoom on.  Also trying to brake less.  Now that seems harder than not pedaling.  I waste a lot of speed/momentum as I brake way too much according to a pretty trusted friend. 

Crap weather is really killing the ability to MTB more or I would have ridden last night or tonight but it was threatening storms last night and raining today.  ugh.  ugh.  ugh. 

Jen was complaining about my car smelling like dirty gym clothes due to biking stuff. So I sniffed out the culprit.  My shoes, the clothes I had in were clean, not dirty.  It's the damn shoes.  Maybe a shoe bag is in order to keep the stink down after I air it out soon.  But I love having the shoes always in the car it prevents forgetting them at home.  Maybe some of that sport febreeze is in order on the shoes.  ugh. 

Stormy Times

It's been pretty hecticc over the last week and change between the epic holiday parties for Memorial Day (2 BBQ's and 1 street festival), storms on and off and getting a few good rides in.

Unfortunately my plans for a big ride last weekend went up in BBQ Smoke, but a good time was had regardless.  The Sowebo festival in B-more was a good time, saw some good bands, drank a fair amount of beers, bought some t-shirts and relaxed. 

I got my rear mtb tire back on Thursday from the shop, having it re-tensioned after whatever went wrong with it and caused it to de-tension almost half way apparently.  I could have done the ride on the cross bike again, but this was funner for sure doing the bigger stuff in the 2nd half of Accotink. 

Had a HUGE turn out for the ride due to one of the regular's birthday being that day.  I think we had 36 or 37 riders in 5 groups.  Trails were in better shape in general than the last 2 weeks for sure. 

The next morning though I hurt, shoulders and abs in a way I don't usually feel from mtb.  Must have been from being off it for 2 weeks really.

Also had a self fitness sprint out the WO&D on wednesday doing about 28 miles in a bit over 90 minutes.  Forgot to start the gps at first.  D'oh.  The street crossings really suck as I wasn't in a group so I usually fully stopped or almost did to cross roads.  Didn't get passed the whole way out or back which felt good, passed a fair amount of people at various paces.  18 mph is a gas. 

Finally bottling the Choco-PeanutButter-Milk Stout tonight.  Bottling sucks but it's gotta be done and I want to get the IPA under way soon.  It's a Rogue clone.

God I hate lawn work.

A complete first for me yesterday. 

NO ONE turned out for my trailwork day.  I admit I didn't publicize it like I wished but I still usually get a few late arrivals or a few kids who need volunteer hours.  This year I got 0.  Not that I was really disappointed.  It meant less thinking and some self time out to reflect as I murdered plant life up and down the CJ Trail.  So I started with cleaning up the Tuckerman RD to Goya section entrance.  Trimmed that way back.  Hopefully soon it will have a REAL sign.  Then cleared the corridor a bit up the hill, this section isn't ever to bad and only the entrance area will need a follow up before the fall/winter.    Then I drove up to the shopping center and started from the double bridge area first I worked my way back up the trail toward the entrance to pick off 2 bad spots I noticed then I cleared a bridge of debris and a creek also.  Then it was the long march.  I then worked all the way up till the next bridge.  Some area's I REALLY cleared heavily some were more minimal and will require follow up at the end of June for sure.  This was now a bit before 1pm and I wasn't quite done.  I drove over to the Bradley Rd trail intersections and cleared the big bridge entrance WAY back then crossed back over bradley and worked about half way up that section also.  1 or 2 more evenings in the next few weeks should have the basics in good shape. 

The re-route i wanted to do had to be postponed for major inspections/etc.  Looks like it may also involve more sections and end up on an old roadbed possible,  Good in that it will be high up and will dry off quick, bad in that it won't be as fun or flowy as some of the low area's stuff.    We have flagged a temporary line to move the tread up onto to make it okay but with only myself that didn't happen. 

And now it's raining again, looks like another wet early week and drying out a bit towards the end, though this week it's scattered or smothered or covered T-storms (Sorry have a bit of waffle house on the brain this morning it seems).  Hoping it lets up enough for a quick 10 miles or so at least this afternoon.

Big kudo's out to Rich D for winning the Single Speed class at the Pisgah 111k.  I can't imagine riding 69 miles of pisgah in one day.  I've done a fair chunk of the race.  Across 3 seperate days.  oy.

Off to find some slow moving lunch.

Oh Wakefield my friend.

Was feeling a bit tired in the legs last night so I did a pretty mimimal 4 mile'ish pre-ride staying in Wakefield.  Based on my power of the pre-ride I opted to keep the casual group in Wakefield and it was a nice change.  We've been riding mostly Accotink pretty regularly since mid March. 

Had 4 groups out with 32 signed riders and I think .  Most went to Accotink exlcluding us.  So we only saw a few bikers near the end like the fast guys who were coming up thru the bowl on their way back at 10 till 8.  Damn.

By the end my legs were pretty tired with probably about 14 miles total and 10 miles with the casual group.

Good times hanging out in the parking lot post ride and shooting the breeze. 

So far I haven't missed having my big ring much at all at Wake-o-Tink.  The rear wheel is going in on Sunday for spoke fix/retension after bashing a spoke up in PA 2 weeks ago.  I consider that not really the wheels fault but my own so I'm not putting that towards replacement. 

Urban Assault on Arlington.

Great ride with some REAL nutters last night.  These guys have apparently been doing UA rides together in DC for 12 years or more.  Currently they leave out of the Sangamore Safeway.  Since they new some of us joining for this weeks ride wouldn't be on MTB's but road bikes and such a couple of them were also on roadbikes. 

We took off on time and hauled ass back down the hill to MacArthur Blvd and made our way down some goat paths to cross at Chain Bridge.  CRAZY!  Up 123 we went and then the back way leaving 123 up the hill.  ARGH it sucked I made it most of the way but crapped out up the hill.  Then down a bunch of back roads I used to use in REALLY bad beltway traffic, till I realized the Beltway was quicker.  ugh.  Some nice hills.  We eventually made it to the WO&D and I was trying to hang on.  Had a scary crossing on the way. WOW.  We eventually hit Columbia Pike and we motored on for the Arlington Drafthouse and Cinema.

We then saw a screening of 24 Hour Solo from 2006 with the director Jason Berry and the star, Chris Eat-off.  :P

Damn compelling movie, well done showing just how crazy you must be to ride your MTB on some insane course for up to 25 hours straight.  The guy who actually won that specific event ended up pushing himself way to hard and in the hospital for 3 days facing potential kidney failure.  And he didn't re-enter the 24 hour worlds again until 2010.  He did do some 24 hour events in AUS but admitted the traveling made it very hard to have a good crew. 

So back we went by way of WO&D to Mt.Vernon Trail to the C&O Canal to the CCT and back.  Ended up with 29 miles total (I forgot to start my gps at the very beginning.).  Avg speed of 15.2 with a max of 33.3 and that felt blazing!  Left knee is a bit sore/stiff from sleeping sprawled. 

Another ride tonight will add probably 10 miles and friday I'll add probably ANOTHER 10 on top, to bring my weekly mileage for the week to a completely SICK 70 miles.  That is for me.  Damn garmin connect's ability to graph stuff sucks!  I'd like to see a weekly activity graph/chart.  Oh well maybe I'll make a spreadsheet. 

It's the i-Talians for the win.

Got out of work late Saturday and opted to spike Spokes and head directly down to Bikenetic in Falls Church.  Due to stupid traffic didn't make it in till 5:30'ish.  Ugh. 

Looked around a bit on my own and spotted something nice and basic on the wall.  A Bianchi Volpe.

Got the info on it (it was in my cheapo price range, and it was steel).  Had em throw a set of flats on since I was still in heavy pants from work and took it out for a quick spin at 5:45.  A couple laps of the parking area's and I took off for a bit more ended up going up the wo&d a bit before doubling back on back streets.  Was really impressed with it and the position was pretty damn good.  Later I found out why. 

Back at the shop at 6:05 feeling bad they were closed and I was a bit late they were still busy in the store.  I decided I need a longer ride to REALLY get the feel for it.  Go back tomorrow after a morning ride.

Well the morning ride didn't happen as I need to do some grooming with the caps loss, I could finally shave my ratty-ass-beard.  Then I hit the barbershop for a close date with Mrs.#1 Clipper.  I'd forgotten how REALLY short a #1 is.  Between the shave and a haircut a few people today didn't recognize me. 

Back at Noon for shop opening but there a bit late due to Bike DC.  No biggie.  They change out the flats for my clipless and I change into a riding shirt and shoes, forgoing the tights. A nice spin down and back the WO&D, taking a few detours for hills and doing some mini-trails and some gravel sections.  WOOT!

I'm SOLD!

Back at the shop I tell Yon to pack it up I'm taking it home, we look at it and realize it's not a 57 but a 55. He has me get one and while I'm a bit smooshed full in the hoods/drops when up or on the main bar I'm fine if not a bit upright.  Also this one has a layback/setback seat post and with the seat adjusted we gave it an eyeballed measurement making the top tube effective the just about the 59 And I can raise my seat a bit more.  Also if I want to stretch a bit more I can rotate the bars a hair more down. 

After a beer lunch I came home and fought off the nap demons to go out on another spin to set the bike a bit more.  Adjusted the seat a bit higher and headed out.  Another damn fun spin around the land of exile.  As I get more comfortable I'm sure I'll end up a bit faster and as I ride more too.  Also the WTB All-terrain-asorous tires are not the fastest things out there.  I do plan to pick up some gatorskin slicks in the future to try.  Whee!

Now to grill and chill.

10000 Views. All those slow days at work paying off!

Just wanted to mention this blog is about to pass the 10K view mark after 20 years in the making.  Those long days of  hitting refresh from co-workers unlocked workstation are about to pay off in a big way once all the advertisers get a load of this!  hhahaha. 

Had a damn good group of 7/8 last night at Wake-o-Tink.  We railed and road the trails of Accotink which were damp but mostly ride able. We did the whole of Accotink from Boyscout and back.  Kept rolling and had good climbs. 

Had to bail directly after the ride due to work stuff alas, so didn't get to chill much.

So far I haven't noticed not having my big ring any more but WF/Accotink isn't log over city or the flatest place on earth though me and the other Rob did sprint down Danbury Forest after the school.  Can't wait to see the GPS, felt like I was flying.  Damn glad I had my glasses dirt/mud from the tires kept flinging up and hitting my face and chest.

Also while prepping I noticed the rear d was loose and tightened that back up and that I have a massively mashed rear spoke that needs replacement.  Argh.  Maybe it's more about where I ride these days.  It's not just Wakefield/etc so I loose more spokes to damage then I'm used to.  I'll give this rear wheel another 6 months and if it's still being a pain I'm gonna switch to some sort of straight pull spoke setup. Like C29ssmax from Mavic's or Sun Ringle Black Flag's. 

Hopefully going on a big ride Sunday morning or afternoon.  Still need to see the Avengers but not sure I want to go with the hordes on the weekend.  Dark Shadows also looks excellent.

As I suspected.

I came back into work today to un-surprisingly find my 2 new BBG bash guards sitting on my desk, apparently since Friday of all things.  Surprise!   Though realizing the last time I could have checked here was at 11'ish and the mail doesn't always come by then so it was 50/50 odds that they would have been here.  Oh well.

What can I say but chain ring scars on my right leg are sexy, chicks dig scars right?

Looking at The Diesel's logs of what the group did on the other side on Sunday I was VERY glad I did my own thing, they did another 1000 feet of climbing and I would have died and not held that pace either.

Tonight I should finish cleaning my bike, yesterday became a full on recovery day of taking it pretty easy and such.

 Also I cooked my un-used MC appetizer of a Fig, Prosciutto and Arugula Pizza and it was AWESOME.  I accidentally had gotten balsamic fig chutney and it worked out really well as it cut the sweetness of the figs and went well.  The mozzarella was awesome and adding bits of goat cheese really helped also.  Grilled on the gas grill it was amazingly good.  

So on to cleaning the bike and hopefully installing the bash guard tonight, then maybe hit the Avengers.  $207M is pretty sick for a movie opening on a non 3-day weekend. 

Man Camp Spring 2012 Wrap Up

Just a few highlights from Man Camp Spring 2012 Ed.

Day 3 - Descending Mt View.  Wow.  If that tree wasn't down half way it would be insane.
Day 3 - Descending Rock N Ridge (starting at 13)
Day 3 - Sitting in the CRAZY Cold creek where we parked to get the damn itchy grass spots to go away.
Day 3 - Darius making Toad's in the Hole.
Day 2 - Amazing dinner and post dinner drinks with a bunch of cool folks.
Day 2 - Death Wing at Boulevard Grill.
Day 2 - Getting the ABSOLUTELY FILTHIEST I've ever been on a MTB.  Way dirtier than the Dozen of 2011.  Riding in wet trails is BAD but it does feel a bit more real.  We did take the road where we could.
Day 2 - Making it up lots of rock garden stuff I couldn't have done last year for sure
Day 2 - Going between those big ass bolders.  Wish I could have ridden more of it without fear of grinding off a stray arm.
Day 2 - Big breakfast, and showing off my mad bacon cooking skills via the oven.  Thanks Hasaan! Though I didn't burn the bacon.
Day 1 - Starting cooking dinner at 10pm, finishing dinner at midnight with Creme Brule Ice Cream and Asparagus baked with prosciutto. 
Day 1 - Damn good beers and wings and Windbere Hotel with a bunch of cycling nutters.
Day 1 - Rode an amazing park nearly in a town with 16 miles of trail in a 1x1 mile area.
Day 1 - Meeting up with Dkeg and Darius for an unplanned lunch at Jean Bonnet Tavern.
Day 1 - Leaving on Time/almost early.

The Rough Stuff
Day 3 - Getting cut off and forced to go 35 miles in the wrong way on PA State Turnpike.
Day 3 - Rock thrown up by front wheel into ankle.  Still hurts.  Ouch.
Day 3 -  uh yah....never mind.
Day 2 - Getting Absolutely Soaked
Day 2 - No bug spray and my camp chair was in someone elses car.  D'oh.
Day 1 - Big Ring leaving me 10 new scars.


Big Thanks to:
Mike and Deb Mucker (sp) for leading, organizing, guidance!
Darius for the Invite
Craig for hanging back so I didn't feel so damn slow

Demo Day Madness

Yesterday I was out at Accotink for Spokes/Trek's demo day at the park.  I ended up taking 4 riders out for MTB rides.

1 guy was cool guy down visiting from Minnesota who does a lot of MTB up there and reports this was definetely the year of the Fat Bike.  He said one race he was at had 40 guys in their own Fat Bike class.  Crazy!  But up there it sounds more usefully/necessary.  Still not sure why RickyD has one.  2.4's would be almost the same between him and me :P

Waiting for my BBG Bashguards to come in so I can try then and see if I want the 34 or 32.

It's always sweet to ride on a newly tuned ride.  The speed of the shifts, the general quietness of the gears and chain meshing well.  It's really nice. 

And then you hit a branch/stick of minimal size that decides to dance in your chainline.  You pull it out and ride on but shifting is OFF.  Eventually  you stop and give it the evil eye.  OH!  The rear D is up at about 60 degrees above normal.  A swift kick and it's back in place.  A bit of grinding and an occasional ghost shift/pop now.  GRRRR.  Back to the lab tonight I guess. 

The bash guard I ordered yesterday is apparently out of stock, so I'm SOL on that for the moment.  Going to post up on the forums and see if anyone has a 34 or 36 T 104 BCD bash guard. 

Good ride though ended up with 15.5 miles logged so I figure close to 17 miles total.

Bad choice in clothes taking only the woolie.  It was WAY to warm and didn't cool down until later last night.  Trails were damp but not muddy at all.  Should be good by today.  Most of the mud I picked up was on the CCT and riding a construction path near the tennis courts at Wakefield. 

A little bit of shopping, and a few more fixes.

Went out after work to get the vehicle a wash and wax. Damn thing was soooo clean I couldn't believe it. The front window was soooo clean it really didn't seem to be there almost, excluding the lack of wind on my face. Wow. I wish I could get the windows THAT clean. Off to Spokes then to pick up some parts and see what they had laying around. First I grabbed a new set of cleats and a new bottle of RnR Extreme lube for the bike. I prefer Gold in the bedroom personally, the ladies like it better! Then I started looking at bikes. Strangely enough they carry Trek and Specialized. I thought that was like carrying Chevy and Ford or Toyota and Honda. Hmmm. So after some browsing I notice they have 2 sets of CX Stuff in, Surly and Specialized. The Specialized was kinda neat as it was setup more for commuting but could handle up to 35's and had disc brakes (BB7). The Surly CC was the wrong size. I played around a bit with the high end Aluminum specialized but it was a harsh mistress I could tell. So then I noticed they had an LHT in 58 so I took that out. Whee! It was a blast. I do believe 58 is the right size for me on CX'ish style frames, though I still need to try the CC in 58. No joy on bash guards and they didn't have the specialized shoe I wanted to try on in my size in stock. So off I went again. Next stop. Performance. Initially I planned for a quick in and out, but in the end I tried out a Fuji CX Pro in 58 and REALLY liked it. It was running SRAM double tap and not bad. The carbon fork up front handled the bumps REALLY well, better than any other carbon front ended bike I'd ridden yet. Did feel a bit too in the race position. A guy there suggested the Fuji CX 2.0 instead as it has a more upright geometry and it has an ultegra rear derailleur. Didn't ride it as it was getting a bit late and I had some other stuff to do. On the way back I stoped at my home supply store and got a set of star drive bits for removing the outer chain ring to eventually put on a bash guard and some super insane glue to try and fix my spinning bottle cage things. I glued the hell out of the one that is out last night, hopefully it's well set and solid today. Otherwise I'll be ziptieing the water bottle cage outa the way. Weather tonight is looking like a mess with a chance of rain at 4 and 5 then t-storms after. Enjoyed a Bells Porter last night. Well done, very smooth and tasty porter that went down with an awesome Willards BBQ burrito with Pulled Pork. Damn good. I did also replace my very worn front break pads are now replaced, unfortunately I couldn't find organics locally so for now its metal scintillated. Noisier. Grrr. Also been working on the ride calendar on the MORE website getting some of the regular rides back on the listing that hadn't yet including 2 Tuesday Rides and 1 Alternating Saturday ride. Also the new map for FH is pimpin. Can't wait for it's official release. Weather is clearing up, looks like the ride is ON!

Spring Rebuilding and Rainy Days

Wow. It's been a while. Last few weeks have been really busy between extra work, going to the old house, and riding a bit. Bike's been showing some signs of un-happiness so last week I order a few major parts to fix a bunch of the crud. Including a new SLX crankset and a few other things. Last night I started the clean up and rebuild. I pulled the old crankset and the bb-30 PITA and cleaned the who set, before re-installing the BB30 and then installing the new SLX cranks. Felt a bit lighter, but I will say the arms while being HollowTech do feel more durable. The interesting bits I noticed is my m550 I pulled off is the same as whats on the SLX, just better spindle/arms I think. Also cleaned and lubed the cables, pulling the housings out and cleaning all the good bits of gunk out. Nasty. A new rear d-hanger was also on the menu, but that meant playing with shifting. Today I'm going to try and pickup a Bash Guard and some other stuff, and maybe a new chain setup specifically for 2x10. That means I've gotta pull the 42, install the BG, possible do the chain, and also need to replace the front disc pads. Again. They are nearly done I noticed. Stupid organics burn quick! Last week I had a good ride on Tuesday at Cabin John doing trailwork recon and Thursday had a decent ride at Wake-o-tink. Oh wait, no it sorta sucked. I was off my game and fell down 1x and nearly wiped out 3 others. My brain was either to active or the eyes/body/mind weren't connecting right. The groups pace was a mess and we had 3 mechanicals. I was done as of hitting the lot at 8:10. Usually I would have pushed on to 8:30. Had a Deviant Dales from Oskar Blues. Awesome. Had a couple others. Then this week I hit a few bars and enjoyed in addition Flying Dog's In Heat Wheat, Oskar Blues G'Knight Red on Draft, Mooseriver Porter, and an Oyster Stout from Ireland that was a bit too Oyster heavy. The porter was excellent. Pictures to come. Also I don't rave about food very often, but hot damn. Went to 8407 Kitchen bar the other night and had Duck Proscuitto wrapped Dates, stuffed with goat cheese. Yum. Yum. Yum. Off to pickup parts/etc.

Cool Ridings

Great night out on the trail last night, got out a bit late and spent a while shooting the breeze with Mark Cox in the parking lot before starting my ride so I only got in 5 or 6 miles before not the 10 or so I wanted. But it's all good. Had a huge ton of riders out I think near 30! Crazy! 4 Groups, a Casual Minus, the Casual (Plus'ish), Moderate, and a Mix Kids Ride.

Damn good.

Intermediate was huge with 14 riders, casual started with 6 but dropped to 5 after 1 member jumped ship to Intermediate.

The main ride covered almost 11 miles. So total I got near 16/17 I think. Weather was perfect at first, I was able to wear just a jersey on my top, but as sun went down I was very glad I added the tech-layer under. After the ride everyone was freezing and it wasn't quite 50. A lot of us forgot to take into account that it was cooler.

Joel K won the grand prize for turning a fleece blanket into a super warm cape. I should have taken a picture. It was hilarious. Especially with him in shorts and flip flops. If he had long hair he could have been the Super Lebowski!

Also scored one of my FAVORITE beers at Giant last night, Leffe Brune. I like it way better than the regular Leffe Blonde. More malty, less yeasty. Hoping to see some non-chilled so I can archive another 6 of it at least.

2 Shows at The Filmore that I want to see. The Cult on June 12 and The Big Faux 4 on June 8. A bunch of mostly chick bands covering metal bands. Supposed to be pretty damn cool.

Sore and Tired

I felt all beat up yesterday, at first I thought from riding Fountainhead. But then I had an epiphany. Fountainhead isn't that rough anymore excluding 2 spots really. So why was I sore? I pondered this for many hours till my light bulb went on. Viola!

I spent about an hour and a half on Tuesday wrestling with our 2 big projects and trying to change the lamps in them. This involves human contortion-ism to climb under the screens, under the projects and then laying on the beams/supports at a VERY uncomfortable angle and then undoing the back plate, fans, and such. Due to issues with bulbs I got to do it 4 times. Argh. If I assume the standing version of the position I was in my body starts complaining loudly.

Fountainhead from where we parked was 11.03 miles. My gps only came up with 8.74. On the cyclecomputer I averaged just above 7.1 miles per hour. Not stunningly fast but not slow either.

Wake-o-Tink again today. Looking forward on trying to push maybe 20+ miles today but we'll see.

Gotta start getting ready for the Big PA trip in May.

Nice weather for a night ride

Last night was a great night for riding, honestly if I wasn't sorta sick I probably would have ridden for another hour. Cool, trails were good and had a good group.

Had a monster group in casual with 12 riders to start with. We got most of Accotink in one way. Another few weeks and we'll be able to do both ways I bet. Normally I don't get to this point till maybe June. Everyone is riding stronger this year I think.

Had a monster group at kilroys' probably 12-13 people. Good times and the PLB fund is now +$20.

Slept soooo bad. Kept waking up, sleeping restlessly feeling dry so I drank water. I think I actually had a slight fever maybe. Just really miserable. I think from 2 till 5:45 I slept okay. Should just adjusted my alarm clock out to 6:35 instead of leaving it at 6:10. Ugh.

I REALLY want to go to Raystown on Sunday but right now I have to feel a LOT better tomorrow. Also debating driving up on Saturday night and staying in a hotel so I can sleep in a bit versus getting up at 6 on Sunday.

Mass Effect 3 recovery plan for tonight.

Now I'm really confused.

Winter has returned apparently un-announced last night. I came out this morning and promptly went F@#$ it's cold, and went back in for a jacket and glove (only found 1 of my light pair of course). 32 Degrees! Stupid weather.

And looking at the rest of the week I see odd low/normal temps again! Oh where have you gone 80 degrees? I should't complain though, this cold snap may deal the really annoying bugs a deathblow. Go away ticks, gnats, etc!

Due to the explosion of allergens I got a minor sinus attack this weekend and it's really put me down hard. Add in the TON of rain we got Saturday/Sunday and I haven't gotten in much biking since Thursday. Or more correctly, any biking. At the rate I'm going with other commitments it will be Thursday before I ride again.

Sunday is supposed to be the Big Raystown Lake Day Trip, might rain a bit but that may just make for good riding. We shall see. It would be nice to try the legs out for a 30+ mile ride. To see how I'm ready for the big rides coming up in May.

Also prepping for the Big Spring TW at CJ. Going to actually try and get flyers/info out to all the local shops this year and get some flyers up at the park.

Allergy Hell.

Woke up this morning with a most lovely scratchy throat and my eyes feeling like I took a few "fun" punches from Mike Tyson back in his glory days. Swollen and itchy to say the least.

So it was off to the Midget to get food and allergy drugs this morning on the way to work. Now I'm enjoying a light and admittedly tasteless Bob Evans breakfast thing. I can now also see my monitors at work, so that's a win!

Last nights WF/AT ride turned out better than I thought it would. I was feeling REALLY un-motivated on the way to the ride and when I first got there, so my pre-ride didn't even start till just before 6. My legs felt okay but I just didn't have the "Go forth and conquer" spirit. Apparently though once the group portion started I changed into my alter ego, Hell Ride Leader and nearly at one point caught up to the Intermediates. OOps. A bit fast.

We rode Accotink in a slightly new way for me and as we were running out of time/light I cut us out to the gravel a bit early and we ended up taking the long way back and was it dark by the time we got under the Braddock Rd bridge. Too bad I didn't have my lights! Oops back to the car for my headlamp. And off I went.

Finished up with Punga, JoJo and a new guy who I can't remember his name. Technically new guy is wrong, he lead casual a number of years ago after Pete B quit. He's just getting back in after a while out.

The Gemini Xera continues to impress me. It was fine for riding WF on medium by itself last night. Did notice it was a tad warm but hey temps are WAY up also. Not like it's 50 or 40 out at night now.

I've gotta start making myself shower at night, not just fall into bed and pass out.

This weekend is looking pretty light on the biking front due to incoming weather and commitments to doing stuff, was hoping for a ride down in DC on Sunday but who knows.

Good Week of riding

Even though it was a short week, last week was a good week of riding. Thursday I got in near 15 miles at Wakefield and yesterday I went north to The Shed and did close to 20. Though the GPS says 16.3, my other friend logged 17.3 with push less and moving a bit faster. I'm going to guess on top of that it dropped at least 10% if not 20%.

Had a ton of mechanicals include 2 flats or was it 3. Plus a destroyed derailleur hanger at the start of Rock Candy. Fortunately the gent had a spare.

Neat day to ride started off VERY foggy and wet. I was soaked pretty well thru the morning, but once we started to head back up the mountain towards vandal things were pretty clear and drying. Vandal was mostly dry. I feel like I even got some sun on my neck!

This week may be a bit rough for getting rides due to scattered storms. I've got paperwork stuff to do tonight on FSA catch up for 2011. But it is staying warm. Stuff is sooooo green already.

Back in the NVA!

Back in the DC Area. Damn warm, must hit mid 70's today, almost as warm as Orlando was yesterday (84). Crazy!

My brother is about 80% better according to him, he just gets stiff and sore over night. Not surprised, followed my guess nearly exactly.

Lots of good beer at WOB while in O-town this week including, Stone Sublimely Self Righteous, Old Rasputin on Draft, MadRiver Steelhead and others. Gotta say I'm back in the IPA frame of mind and belgian wheats. Especially down there.

Picked up at Speakeasy - Butchertown Black IPA. Big fan of there regular IPA, kinda like Rogue Dead Guy, but hoppier of course.

Awesome riding weather on deck tomorrow. Stoked for the return of regular Accotink season and such.

Cleaned the bike up from the mud-fest that the CCT was 2 weeks ago. Ugh. It was gross. Also cleaned and lubed the seat post, and realized also my rear break pads are shot. Picked up a new set to put in tomorrow at REI.

Starting to think about my early summer bike trip. Coldwater Mountain in AL is calls, along with FATS in GA. Of course I'd love to have 2 days more of Pisgah and a day at Dupont. Tsali is in the mix. More Ride and then travel days is the big change versus spending a whole week in Pisgah at Davidson River as the Base.

Short trips on deck for PA in early and maybe mid may. Not sure about Dirt fest though. tempting. But the crowds are harshing me a bit. Hmm.

Fail. Fail. Fail.

Started off strong this morning, my brother and I were on the road, pretty early for him at 9:30 and we were at Ocala right around 10:45. Tons of people in town for their big Spring Break Fat Tire fest, looks like a ton of Bike Mfg's and others were in town already and setup. Trails were really well marked. Headed out around 11:15, taking Pine Tree around and south to the main entrance to the Vortex area.

My brother made the entry gate ride no problem, hell I freaked a bit on them last year. So we rode some of the basic stuff in the easy side of the vortex, almost pump track like but not fully. We looked at some of the big drops in the quary pit that were all closed due to the rain coming later today. So back we went. Not thinking I went along a elevated boardwalk that drops at foot halfway thru to a lower section. A few seconds later I hear HUFF, crash, WHUFF. Crap.

My brother had tried to follow and gone off right before the drop from the 4ft high section. He was rolling onto his back when I got back. Wheezing. I got his bike out of the way and told him to relax and just breath. Not gonna repeat his response here. Eventually after 10 minutes he sat up and got up but still very sore. Took of his helmet. Good mark on this forehead where the helmet really did it's job.

Other riders came by, apparently I left my bike in the near middle of the trail. Oops. Moved it and came back, now he can speak a bit so I ask him where it hurts. Head, neck, back, stomach, ribs. Another 10 minutes and we go thru the basics. No concussion, arm lift check, collarbone and ribs are mostly okay. Bruised probably. We hang at the picnic tables another 15 minutes and we head back. Sore but riding we take the road and get back to the shop just as it starts to POUR rain! I return the bikes he's trying to get relaxed in the car but really can't.

Long drive back to Orlando.

I fail as a beginning ride instructor is my only conclusion after similar failures with the Wyf and now the Bro-ham. He's resting.

I will ride there again, but I doubt with him again. We'll see, maybe he is made of tougher stuff. Hope this doesn't put him off the bike forever though.

Road Bike-Tard

That's my self determined name as of now involving spinning on skinny tires on pavement.

Ability to ride straight - Negative
Ability to self pace - Negative
Ability to hold a steady pace - Negative
Ability to ride till I puke - Negative
Ability to avoid indicated potholes - Negative
Ability to deal with speed - Negative
Ability to friction shift in group - Negative

Results - Somehow I finished the ride and was only a bit off the main pace, but if you look at my gps data my hr stayed pretty steady. Maybe because I was off the group and working more often to pull myself than if I'd been in the pack.

Riding a classic 1983 (The year my little brother was delivered unto this world) bike with Friction Shifting and the whole 9 yards was interesting. It had a majorly down slopped stem so in the hoods I felt more bent over than at my last annual review at work. A flat stem or slight riser would help, but hey it was a loaner and it worked. I can see how the difference between a road tire and a CX and Semi-CX tire could make a difference also trying to do that.

Total milage was probably around 27.5 or so for yesterday with 20 on the road section and 7 and change on the CCT/Accotink loop.

Accotink was drying out quickly and the 2 sections I checked were nearly dry including Boy Scout which had 2 bad puddles where some berming/cupping is happening and a wee bit o trail work would fix it up in a hurry.

Tried a new RYE IPA from Widmer last night, pretty good but not as good as He'brew's DIPA Rye.

The Search for Spock CX continues....

In my now never ending quest for CX bike action I went to The Bike Lane Reston and tried out a 58CM steed, a Trek ION CX Pro. Nice looking bike, VERY light. They adjusted it up and off I went into the night of Reston Town Center. Couldn't really push it like I did the bikes out on the Silver Spring gravel trail. But it rode nicely in town. Felt like the carbon fork on this did better than the others absorbing stuff, but still not used to the harshness of riding high pressure tires on the road. Even those 34c tires on it. Maybe I can see about arranging a longer test or getting it moved up to TBL Burke where I can take it out to Accotink/CCT and ride it more. A strong contender.

1 Point of Hate - The fucking bars piss me off, those weird humped-assed bars KB cooked up for use that aren't the traditional bull horns. They felt short at the far end of the drops (Closest to saddle). And the hump hurt my hands at least without gloves, and I don't think it's a matter of padding. Also riding "in town" I realized that I really would LIKE to have a cheater. At least for the front. Also due to the "humps" it felt like the reach for the brake levers was REALLY long.

Position wise the bike felt like a good fit. Wouldn't know whether to use clipless or clips on this bike. Noticed it less on this than the others the loss of "power" The gearing felt HUGE. It's running a 36/48 and 11-28 in the rear. I guess maybe it was the "HILLS" me thinks I'm in for some suffering on my first few rides when I start trying to ride shit I road on my beater bmx as a kid. Sigh.

Still on the list to try is hit Bikenetic and see what they have and I also want to try and hit spokes as I'd like to try some Salsa rides out.

Winter Party - Survived.

The MORE 2012 Winter Party was survived by all attendee's/participants/etc.

I was WAY late to the setup due to unfortunate issues with a big frickin screw in my rear passenger tire. I did help re-allign the tables so that row 4 didn't have room to drive a car in anymore and row 2 would have to sit on row 1 and 3's laps. IE. Row 1 had 4 paces from wall to far side of the chairs. Row/Table 2 had 2. Row 3 had 3. Row 4 had 7 paces of width.

Tons of food, I saw several people make it out with 5lbs of mixed brisket, chicken and potatoes.

Band was awesome.

20 Year Video - MORE Than Enough: 20 years of the Mid-Atlantic Off Road Enthusiasts.

MC wasn't very drunk till the near end.

Links to come to vid's and pictures.

Gave away my grand prize of ride leading to of all people Larry.
Quarterly winners were Debbie, Eric C, Joel K, and Debbie (Again).
Big cheers to all my leaders who get their paperwork in. Big shaking of finger at several who epic fail including JoeP (who gets a partial pass for organizing the winter party), Eric B, Pat M, Anne M, and a few others. GET YOUR WAIVERS IN!

Big thanks to our Beer Sponsor, Sierra Nevada for providing 2 kegs.

Now I'm going to process the first 2 months of 2012 ride entries.

Sunday I got to ride 3 cx bikes, the cross check was my favorite, the CDale AL bike wasn't terrible. The giant kinda blew, bad components, and the 58 left me feeling WAY stretched out. Looking to try a cross check in 58 and try some more bikes before making a decision. Not getting into cross racing, this is more for mixed surface rides/etc.

Thursday is BACK!

And we are back after 7 weeks of being shut out at WF for trail rides, we had almost 20 riders out for great conditions yesterday. Trails were near perfect, fast. a hint of tackiness in corners. Damn. The rollers on the power line were FAST!. Did phase 4 2x. Ended up with 10+ miles with the casual group at Wakefield on a semi late start.

Did a bunch of Accotink but my gps was paused apparently for a lot of it. ugh. ugh. ugh. Felt a bit stronger over there, climbed the damn Dam climb with no real problems for the first time and made the other climb that had stumped me on 1st try for most of last season.

Probably 45 miles so far this week and I may get to do FH with the WF Krewe on Saturday since I'm off.

I'm looking forward to kicking back with a good dinner and a brew tonight.

Is it possible? A Thursday night trail ride at Wakefield?

Stay tuned on this bat channel, at this bat time!

Anyways old Batman reruns aside, I think we've got a VERY VERY good chance of having a trail ride tonight at Wakefield, the first real ride since the beginning of January due to never ending rain's on Tues thru Thursday mucking up the trails. We got a bit last night but with how warm it should be today I think we'll be fine this evening.

Cleaned the bike last night, washed a ton of bike laundry, and cleaned up my junk room a good bit.

Also completed the final MORE Ride Reckoning for 2011. Mostly.
549 Rides on the Calendar
136 Waivers, 64 Known Weather Cancellations = 200 Known Ride's for the big raffle at the Winter Party.
4 Parks account for 3/4's of the rides: Patapsco, Wakefield, Schaeffer, and Rosaryville.
8 Parks had no official rides.
10 Parks had 2 or less rides.

New Waivers printed finally also.

WMA Assault

Sounds like some sort of MMA or Wrestling event.

And it sorta was if you count wrestling my bike back up 700 feet of ascent in about half a mile. IE a 25%'ish grade. After already ascending about 150 feet of maybe worse hill. Needless to say I was pushing and pushing and pushing as evidenced by my GPS's un-logged distance and my miraculous jump of 400+ feet of elevation at one point. I did ride out the last bit of it, but it sucked.

Going down was a blast except for a bad blow down. On a big DH bike with a known clear line you could redefine FLYING. Honestly it would be a good non-technical shuttle spot. Park a car or two at the lot on the far side near 66 then drive to where we started then you get a 2.5'ish mile run descending 1300 feet. You would want a lead out with a radio or something to make sure the trail is clear of hikers and hunters and to probably take a hand saw to clear 2 of the blow downs. We were cruising down and rolled it in 17 minutes to the far side with a big detour that can be skipped. For the nutters they could really challenge/gauge their fitness trying to ride back up.

You do ride along about 50 feet or so of the AT. And one of the camping huts in nearby we rolled over to check it out and rest for the final leg.

Today I've got a MORE BOD meeting, I may try and get a bit of a ride in at Wakefield before hand.

Shed'ing Part Three

Sunday I got to do a 3rd section of the shed based around the Hamburg Rd lot including bits of Blue, VW, Rusted Bug, Knuckle Buster, Dave's Trail, Huggy Bear, Little Cannan and Bugflats. Almost 11 miles I think. Not in that order though. I was turned way around by the end. We came out where I though we wouldn't. Oops. Oh well. It worked out well, still a bit tired today. My arms were more tired than I realized.

Heading out to Thompson WMA out 66 today after work for a bit of explority riding.

Lots of drama at work recently just somewhat wrapped up yesterday with a person departing. Now we only have a shit ton more to deal with before the re-org on April 1.

I'll be glad when this is all done, especially if I get my promised Saturday's off back. I've been looking at that longingly since I was made shift lead 2 years ago, and instead gave up my 2nd day off, even if it was Monday.

I'll link up Denis's photo of me from the shed later. Pretty cool.

Newness of Note, rain never ending.

Got to ride the new NEW stuff out at FH on Wednesday after working doing the first 2 loop sections (ending at pick nick tables). That's now almost 6 miles. Compared to just shy of 3.75 miles 2 years ago before the first project started and now that the RTP grant work is nearing completion. I think it will be near 6.5 by the time they finish.

The new stuff leading up to and after Jackrabbit Run is going to be sick as it compresses down and gets FAST. The berms are REALLY nicely done.

There does need to be some re-work done especially on PTD's stuff on the Shockabily lead up and a bit of the bypass.

Rained enough yesterday I wasn't down for another CCT ride and didn't want to try chasing Larry around on his vintage '83 Canondale. My legs were tired and I got a LOT of work done on finishing up the 2011 Ride Lists. Hoping to finish the 1st half one today and start normalizing tonight/tomorrow.

Did get to try another CoCoNut Porter, still digging it. Also tried the DFH Pearl Jam beer, a nice mild Belgian ale, the currants were really not noticeable to my palate. Well done beer. Very approachable for Belgian style.

Snow inbound on Sunday the question is to stay local, semi-local or go farther afield and try some skiing. Not sure yet.

Oy who loves their bike?

Well I got a chance to love mine yesterday. I blew off the Rosey ride as honestly 100 extra miles of driving round trip was going to lead to someone ending up on the 11 o'clock news. And not in a good way.

So I did a near work ride and got in 11 or so miles. Even did some 1 mile sprints. God I suck. I have no REAL power and my sustained ability sucks. 3:25 and 3:34 were my times. Admittedly a mtn bike ain't no road bike, but still thats slow to me. I never did timed miles back when i used to ride Baylands a lot but I did do shorter sprints and I know I used to crack speeds for short term of 25+. I see near 23 as best. Ugh. More "ROAD" work ahead.

It was a good ride, I felt about 75% calmer and less like doing unspeakable acts upon certain people.

In geek news I got to play the new Mass Effect 3 demo last night after the ride and was very impressed. Good buy cruel March rides, I shall see you again in April...or May.

Gotta finalize my Fla trip today for March. Hoping to Santos with my Bro and see what other trouble we can get into. Gator Nationals that Sunday then who knows?

Great bit from Bike 198.

Thursday Sucks. Honestly.

Mother nature has made the Thursday Night Ride her B@#$@. Another night not on trails this week and last week was also. Next week isn't looking spiffy with rain/snow coming in again next Tuesday. This earns a giant WTF.

So we did the CCT south last night, but it was a comedy of issues. Dead Lights, Flat Tires, Group Drops, just to name a few. OH and REALLY wet low water crossings. ON the way out once you get past 7100 you have like 5 or 6 low water crossings. 5 were not that bad, if you rode slow you didn't get wet. Last one was a BIT DEEPER. As in about 6 inches deeper. Almost to my bottom bracket deep. AS in soaked my lakes almost. UGh. On the way back I wimped and used the steps carrying my bike, but my socks were already soaked. Wool is awesome as it did manage to stay mostly warm till the end. Damn things are still wet on the drying rack this morning. After that I gate up on staying mostly dry and did the 5 other crossings getting from wet to damn wet. 21 Miles I believe someone said, my gps had 20 so that makes sense.

Michaux on Sunday if I can get up on time. Jen's having a birthday party Saturday evening. We'll see how it goes. Might have a bit of snow on the ground. Won't be hugely disappointed if it gets rescheduled somewhat honestly. Next week I may run a lead ride at LH. Or maybe I'll try and hit Fairland.

Sun to Snow to Sun to Snow

That's the pattern this time of year, Tuesday last week (1/31) we had a high of 68 degrees. I rode in shorts and a shirt up until after dark, when I added a tech layer under the shirt. (Accotink and Wakefield).

Thursday it felt cold and I rode in mod weight winter gear on the CCT.

Sunday I rode the shed again. In the snow. In heavier winter gear but was a bit warm. It was pretty wet and most trails were not snow covered directly. We did Salamander to the Overlook then ridge and then ended up going all the way down Vandal to near the res. The climb up sucked. Sucked. Sucked. Or rather I sucked. Back up we went eventually I caught the main slower group and a few of us did Kinks back to the Sandflats lot. It was pretty good and I cleared most of it, skipping 2 sections.

Afterwards we enjoyed excellent homemade salsa and chips and PLB's. HeBrew's RIPA is pretty damn good. MAD Elf is still nyquil. Skipped super bowl as I was tired and I was actually in bed and sleeping by 10 I think.

Last night was J's birthday so I got no riding in, instead I'm hoping to get in another Snow Ride here in the lowlands of VA today. 1-2 inches. Yesterday it was 55 and felt closer to 65 in the sun, had my windows down in the car even!

Maybe some sledding if I can find a hill with enough snow!

Of course it's going to melt overnight/during Thursday so that means no snow/trail riding yet again for Wakefield Thursday Night. GRR.

Support this.

I love Ride the Divide, I watch it probably once every 3 or 4 months. Throw it on as background when having social gathering. This new film sounds like another great production. So help em out if you can and lets break the 10K mark!

Reveal the Path!

Working on nailing down ride waivers for the last half of 2011 first, which I seem to have more of for the club. The amount of cancelations due to weather this fall is really kinda sad. Lots and lots of the C word.

Speaking of that tonights Wakefield ride is not looking good, we've had on and off rains and semi-continual misting. Ugh. Not looking foward to another Plan C ride.

The Shed.....

Well it finally happened.

Chris burned out almost everyone's retina's at the ride yesterday with his Stig inspired bike outfit. I won't subject your eyes to the trama directly but it's out there on flickr. I believe Denis C ruined at least one camera taking photo's.

I also got my first Fredrick Watershed ride in. Me likey. I opted out of the optional early climb to the shuttle point and instead caught a ride up with Chris and Marco before his outfit of doom was applied.

We then rode Skink, Salemander, Iceberg, F2, Viper, and Pit. I bailed on the last part (Vandal). I was feeling it with the lack of riding lately. And nothing like that since the fall at Rattling Creek.

Had some good sections where I was very happy with my rock handling, then a few I should have tried or done better on and a few where due to the group it just wasn't worth trying. And plenty of things I couldn't figure out how to do for my life.

Going back next week is the plan, but who knows if that will or won't happen. Tried ot really pay attention to the trails so I can go back and ride some of it again even by myself, though I dunno if I would do iceberg or F2 by myself. The built stuff at Capital Hill is amazing.

Great to see a bunch of familiar faces up there including Chris, Todd, Darius, Adam, Marco and anyone else I forgot and any of the new guys I met, I'm terrible with names. D'oh.

Michaux jaunt possible 2 weeks from now that I REALLY want to do.

Beers, Bikes and Broncos

Congrats to that Nutter up in Denver and his buddies for sending the Steelers home for the rest of the season. But don't get your hopes up Bronco's fan. It was close and a better running team will beat them. Will it be New England? Maybe.

Had some excellent beer this weekend of note, but no pictures.
Widmer's Galaxy Hopped Barleywine - On Draft - Wow it was good and smooth, excellent balance for a 10%. Good malt flavor not overly alcohol forward.
Legend Barleywine - on Draft - Only had a taste but it was super impressive, but at 15% ABV it's an asskicker. That puts it in wine range, meaning a pint is like drinking about 3 glasses of wine aka - legally sloshed. Even a snifter is pushing it.
Founder's Porter - On Draft - The coffee notes seem bigger on draft, more roasty, but still my favorite porter.
Founder Imperial Stout - Bottled - This was just crazy awesome, I'm glad I picked up 2 4 packs so as to stretch out my supply into summer along with Breakfast Stout, however I think that the Imperial is better. Breakfast is almost too complex to drink at all but breakfast honestly.

On the homebrew front tonight I'll try and roast the peanuts for my PB Choco Stout. I've got plenty of supplies so I should be able to make a mistake or two. Green peanuts are NASTY! Honestly waiting for Snow for doing the next beer. 2nd gen Snow Day IPA. Gonna half and half it I think half normal, half raspberry.

Biking wise I didn't do as well as I wanted this week but I did get in 2 rides, a bit longer one at Wakefield running near 2 hours total with pre-ride on Thursday. The trails were pretty good. Then Sunday it was a Laurel Hill day, got in a full loop with return via Giles Meadow in just over an hour for near 12 miles.

Riding this week is looking Paved. Possible rain today, possible rain on Wednesday. Ugh. Double UGH even. Busy week at work and around the area this week. Though I am successfully managing my current nerd addiction pretty well (SW The Old Republic).

Trail work 1 of 2, Riding 0 of 2. Oh yah.

So I'm wrapping up numbers for MORE today for Rides we had listed for 2011. Here are a few highlights:

525 Calendar Listed Rides
Unknown Actual Rides (est 330).
62 - June # of Rides, Most of Year.
21 - Feb, Month with Fewest Rides.
44 - Avg # of Rides a Month Rounded Up.
Parks with Most Rides - Pataspco and Wakefield.
Parks with No Love - Too many.

So if I do end up remaining Ride Co-ordinator, my big push this year will be for every park to have a lead ride at least 2x per year. Probably over reaching but who knows?

77 Rides in Garmin this year for 880 miles logged. But I was missing my GPS for almost 2 months so I'd figure add another 200 miles as I was riding a good bit during that part of the summer as stress relief. So with 10% loss avg I'm going to tag that I had say 90 rides for 1200 miles. Not bad, but I do want to do more, but right now that means I need to go to the road at least somewhat. Ugh.

Did a minor build project by myself on Cabin John yesterday near River Road, doing a cleanup/fix of a incomplete reroute near a bad washout from the fall. Had to move some big rock, fill some major holes and move a lot of loam and dirt. Ended up pretty decent. Pictures to come.

Back to work.

CJ at Night

Finally got up and did the CJ Night ride with Michael W (no James) last night. It was a damn good ride really. Started from the group picnic lot on Tuckerman Lane and rode to the Goya Drive end first. One area in there really need a reroute as the stream edge is really close.

Then we went south. 1st 2 sections weren't in bad shape, pretty damn dry in fact. But then we got towards near the end of The 7 Bradley rd to River Road section and there are 2 big washouts. 1 already has a decent bypass. The other is in need of some real work. Might be time to consider a full re-route of that section.

12.9 miles according to Mike's cycle computer, my GPS came up 11.8.

A spoke gave out early on or maybe Saturday at FH so thats another thing to be handled when I drop the bike off tonight. Gotta clean it up a bit for sure before then or they will flip on me.

I have to note again how impressed I am with the new Gemini XERA lighthead I got a few weeks ago. It's great, solid light and good life on the battery. I was re-reading on the GeomanGear page about the 1600 I have, apparently the red status occurs at the 50% battery mark, not 25% like I thought so maybe it would run almost 2 hours on high and 2.5 on 3. I'll have to push it soon on another ride. I will say on high it is incredibly bright and the next step down is still Very Bridge.

Wakefield Festivus on Thursday night, not looking like a trail ride at this time, more of a CCT or such.

Ouch. Never trust a Trail Liason.

Damn busy week last week while off, the weekend before was busy with stuff. Monday became a day of house cleaning, and passing out forgetting about a MORE BOD meeting. oops. Tuesday was a relaxation day. Wednesday I went to Fountain Head and rode. Thursday was a 2x ride with a stop at TBL. Friday I don't recall but I think it involved b33r. Saturday was trail work and ride at Fountain Head. Good to see a bunch of folks I haven't seen in a while including Paul H from Rosaryville. We moved a LOT of lumber again. Probably a couple tons. Then we moved a couple of tons of rocks a short distance building a wall.

Then we got to ride the new stuff, the new entrance loop is AWESOME! Then we only did the blue loop and rode the new SOB alternate. Very cool, better than it was on Thursday. Then we tried the new exit loop. It will be really cool once it's done and compacted down.

Sunday I was too sore to do the Shed Ride, which had 70+ riders in 7 groups. Thats awesome. So instead I lounged, helped at the old house, and TCB'd.

Now I'm back at work. Back on the self fitness chain gang, though I'm still sore from Saturday. Trying to decide if I want to ride tonight or not, the rest of the week is looking pretty shitty.

Tuesday the Paragon goes in for new chain, new (already owned) cogset, and a rebuild of the fork (seals and fluid). Didn't know it was supposed to be done once a season, it's been a year and a half.

DC Bar-si Ride

Riding with DC Tony is always an adventure. On MTB Rides you know what the score will be. A broken chain and maybe a flat. Ok. On an urban ride it's different but the same.

Traffic Lights? Ignore Em!

Stop Signs? Suggestions!

Lane Marks? What a Joke!

Directions? For Spaniards, Not Italians.

If nothing else it was entertaining risking life in limb in the heart of DC thumbing our noses at the collective multitudes of DC.

I met the group at Haines Point and did a lap before by myself to warm up. DC Tony was at the Club House and warned me they might close gates before we got back. So I moved my car to the Tennis Courts. The group arrived a bit late, a bit after 7 and we waited a bit for Larry and Liz to catch up. Then we were off, finishing across the 14th st bridge I think and up to the Capitol to meet with Joelski who had Metro'd down with his shiny nused Dawes road bike, he bought for $35 bucks earlier in the day. What a great find.

We then took pictures at the Tree and of the nuts protesting at the Capitol. Then we were off to our first bar (2nd technically, the club house bar was closed). Ended up at the Capitol Lounge. They looked at the 13 of us like we were nuts. We had beers and rolled out a bit after 8. Off to the Argonaut on H street. Damn good we had a bunch of pitches of Bells Double Cream Stout there and DC Brau and some Long Hammer IPA. I had an awesome Cubano. We took off from there to misc rowdy cheers as we headed up I and headed towards The Big Hunt in Dupont Circle. Some scary ass riding later and we arrived, shaken but not stirred.

The Big Hunt was also busy but we got a table in back and beer pretty quick. Unfortunately I fell prey to one of the big issues at the Hunt, my beer was soured. I didn't even finish it or feel like arguing. We rolled out of there a bit after 10:40. Back down past the Cap.

I split from the group and went down to Haines Point at Ohio. Ended up doing another lap, but I was pooped and couldn't push it as hard as I wanted. Barely averaged 15. Maxed at 22. LAME!

Still not bad night probably 19-20 miles of riding for me. 4 Beers, 1 Cubano. Good times with good people. Can't wait to do it again. With someone else leading. :P

Last weeks Wakefield ride was nice to be out on the dirt. Trails weren't optimal but it had been to long. Most stuff was dry enough a few area's were still wet.

I'm off this next week and hoping to get in some rides in new places to try and finish Trail Rat 2010. We'll see.

Rock and Roll is Goot for the Soul

Busy week with a complete lack of biking so far. Still a bit bummed I missed out on the big Elizabeth's Furnace ride Sunday but stuff had to get done. Sigh.

Monday had a board meeting that I forgot about due to being stuck at work till 7. Oops.

Tuesday was beer racking and prep for today's feast at work.

And last night was Kid Rock. Hell yah! Damn good show at The Filmore in Silver Spring. No strippers though. He did have 2 nice looking backup singers. Maybe not on this sort of tour. New about half the songs. Kinda surprising in that I own 0 Kid Rock albums and I think I have 2 mp3's. Crowd was good and into it. No mosh pits was somewhat surprising.

Feeling it a bit this morning also, had 5 beers and a shot last night between 6 and 11. Peg Leg Stout, Old Jock Wee Heavy, Troegs Javahead Stout, Smuttynose Brown Ale, then a Sam Adams actually at the filmore and the shot of Tequila.

Off to finish prepping for the feast at work.

Weekend Fail

This weekend ended up as a cycling epic fail. Saturday wasn't bad but I had to go to a performance of my wife's up in College park. And she was feeling sick so I spent the rest of the weekend helping her a bit around the house. We threw out a ton of expired food (2+ or more years in some cases). We cleaned out a bunch of stuff and got the house caught up so she can have the maid service in this week for a full cleaning before she is out of town for the launch next week of the Mars Science Lab.

We did watch a really cool special on Spirit and Opportunity rovers from NOVA, Mars, Dead or Alive. VEry cool.

Missed out on EF. Kinda bummed but the extra rest was nice.

Had another awesome brunch also at 8407 Kitchen in Silver Spring. Tasty. Even had a Flying Dog Imperial Pumpkin. Pretty tasty. Not overly pumpkin flavored, but lots of spice.

Uh yah it's not the beer....really.

4th Ride of the week was a bar ride down in Shirlington since we got too much rain to ride trails at Wakefield.

Getting down there sucked, I should have just parked up at Madfox and road down. But that would have turned at 12 mile ride into a 20+ and honestly my legs don't have much left in them.

We hit 3 bars on the ride. Hitting Freddies first, then we hit Galaxy, then finished at Lost Dog. Met up with a ton of folks at Lost Dog and enjoyed a couple good beers and an excellent Pizza.

Also on the way over I accidentally Snot Rocketed someone....oops, I thought I'd moved far enough to the side and angled away enough.

Kept up pretty well except for one point between Freddies and Galaxy Hut where my legs got tired. The final down hill before turning back onto the trail was a blast.

EF on Sunday. Am I excited? A bit. Nervous? My legs just sent me a text complaining about over use. Oh well. For now I'm relaxing till Sunday. Maybe a very short spin to loosen up Saturday. And the weather for next week is looking up!

No...... No ..... No.....

No .... today. No .... today.

Big riding week so far, after today I will have 4 rides in 5 days. By Sunday I will have racked almost 10 hours on the bike this week.

Unfortunately the standard maxim is holding true. We are in for 3 days of XXXX next week on Monday thru Wednesday at least. UGH.

Got a quick spin in Centerville after work so as to enjoy the last of the light and great temps again yesterday. Found the remains of the Manassas Gap Railroad that I've heard of before here are some photo's of the marker and a pair of what I assume are bridge foundations.





Wasn't really planning on riding nearly 10 miles yesterday but it was too nice to stop after only 3 or 4 to turn around so I just kept spinning. Started cooling down noticeably again at the end. Yep it went from 71 to 53 by the end of the ride last night.

Tuesday's ride was logged as dropping from 55 to 41. Yeoch! No wonder I felt frickin freezing when I was done, as soggy/sweaty as I was.

Got a real nice semi-sunset shot. Gotta see if the high res is useful as a new header here.

Now if only I can get in a good ride tonight at WF. Not looking for huge length but a good spin, as I've got a BIG ride on Sunday out at Elizabeth Furnace.

Tired in the Light

Jeez. I'm pooped as I sit here slacking at work this morning. My legs are sending complaints via IM almost. If they could work my phone I think they would for real. The long drive back from Rosy is a real killer. I had to snooze a bunch this morning.

Got out to Rosy in pretty good time considering I took a long'ish detour to avoid a car fire on 66 east bound. Then a slowdown on the way to the Wilson bridge. Got there around 5pm. Got my stuff together and got out for my first lap a bit before 5:30. The sun was sinking rapidly along with the temperature from near 70 to what the weather channel says was 45 by 9PM.

Memo to Self - Add vest back to kit ASAP!

My legs were a bit lazy at first but by halfway thru I felt pretty good. Did the interior loop after a quick detour down a horse trail. Good stuff. Felt a bit tired near the 1st loop end but still good. The lot was pretty full when I got back. The 20 minute wait probably didn't help a lot. 14 riders total went out to ride. I was in the middle to start but the first good climb ended that really quickly, I couldn't put the power down anymore and was forced to my little ring. ugh. I swept for a bit and recovered some, but never could get back on pace. The regulars are just DAMN FAST! By the time we hit the split we were 2 definite groups, the casualties skipped the interior and as the tail of the group I hit the lot a few minutes after they did. The fast guys came in 3 or 4 minutes behind me! Flying!

Couple good (Bad) wrecks with no injuries. Eric decided he need some Taco action and taco'd his wheel at the blown out bridge crossing. He got it mostly bent back and finished the ride. 1 guy had a double endo-flip after catching a root. Another guy safely completed the superman maneuver at some point.

The new lights are awesome. I can run both on low and feel pretty good about lighting. I got a solid 3 hours I think total out of both lights (counting post ride parking lot sitting). For shorter rides I should be able to run a mix of high/med high on the Magic Shine with no issues and high on the XERA and have insane light. The magicshine's width/brightness is truly nuts. I do think I will change the XERA to a reflector beam when it's available to have a bit more spot. I ran sections using one or the other just for comparison. I can even safely run the XERA on low and be alright in non-techy area's.

Shameless Pimpage

Part 1 - The Pimpage - Easy money for MORE



Part Duex -
New light mounted and lightly tested - Check
New tire mounted with stan's - Check
Ready for a whole lot of Rosy - Check (\M/)

Also in another strange coincidence my new flashlight ALSO came in yesterday a Fenix light I got off SaC. Pulled out my untouched batteries from last winter for the knock off version that sucked, put in and left on for 2+ hours with no problems. I'm rotating all the batteries thru the charger. I do note one side of the charger is broke-ass. With it's reflector at short distanced the damn thing is BRIGHT!

The new tire was almost painless to mount, I think I spent about 10 getting it on one side, getting the bead aligned then getting the other side 2/3'rds on. Added a ton of Stans and then a few minutes to wrestle on that final third of the bead. Then I hooked up my wimpy floor pump and was able to easily inflate it to 60 lbs setting the beads. Then a few hours of shake and set. I'd say by this morning it hadn't lost any air! That's awesome. Even when new on there the ardent had some minor bead leaks/etc. The power of running a REAL toobless tire. Can't wait to try it out at the Rose tonight.

Also trying to layout a Falls Church based Bar Ride so far I have:
DFH
4 P's
Mad Fox
Dogwood Tavern
Public House #7
Clare and Don's Beach Shack
JV's

Now I just have to figure out a starting point. Maybe Vienna.