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.