Zen riding

Waking up this morning, usual ritual of coffee and reading email. Then reminded of last night's ride with Jeff as I wiped my eyes to find deposits of mud in the corners. Last night's trek through the local state park was messy. I haven't ventured downstairs yet but know that my bike is a damn wreck. No hose outside to wash it down right now cause we're heading into winter. I just leave her near the heater in my basement to dry the thick coating till it's rock hard then just brush off the drivetrain the next day with a stiff brush and apply more lube. Although I noticed my derailleur pulleys aren't liking the abuse. They will revolt soon I can feel it.
Toward the end of last night's ride Jeff and I went Zen. Shut out the lights and waited for our eyes to adjust to the darkness. It was a relatively bright night for how foggy it was out. The moon cast long shadows of the trees on the double track in front of us. We cautiously proceeded down the trail, spinning slow in the darkness, listening to the mud squish under our tires, our drivetrains crunching, slowing our breathing, eyes wide open to catch the available moon light. Our pace growing quicker now on the familiar trail, familiar to me not so much to Jeff. You don't consider how quickly a slow pace really is till you blindly spin in darkness bracing for what you could hit at any moment. Fitting way to end a quick ride in the park. Turned back on the lights at the downhill, afraid of nailing one of the protruding rocks and wrecking a calm ending to the night ride.
I wouldn't have done it alone. Night riding alone is generally not a fun thing to do.

Idabel

Opportunity for a trip to the bottom next week.

turkey weekend

Here I sit, early morning Saturday. A bit groggy waiting for the caffeine to kick me into action. I am still licking my wounds from yesterday's adventures with Brad and Jeff. Great ride but
why is it that a great ride must involve a certain amount of pain to qualify? Just the way it is.
Most memorable for this ride should be the amount of turkey consumed. Turkey sandwiches for breakfast prior to riding, during the ride Jeff brought a pound of dark meat in his camel back and post ride we finished off the leftovers along with all the beer in my house.

Thanksgiving at my parents house was a good time. The pouring rain gave us the perfect excuse to skip the after dinner walk and get right down to business with a spirited game of cards.

Here's my sister in law Jean with an apparent good hand. Lesson learned, don't bluff with a woman who's 7 months pregnant even if you are her father.

Lesli and I were taken out early in the tournament. I'm a better bike rider than gambler, but that's debatable. Went all-in with a pair of aces and nine high. My ten year old nephew took me out with two pair. Don't think Santa is going to be stopping at your house this year Christopher...that's right...I am threatening a ten year old.

We have this disaster to be thank full. No one was killed or hurt seriously because everyone was in bed and not walking around the neighborhood when the paint factory blew up. This is the neighborhood where my friend Ken grew up and is about four miles from our house. I believe the house in the center is his uncle's place. Pretty wicked.

Scary Fun

Celebration time cause we survived!

You can never tell how a day will unfold. Especially when the plan is to meet a few daredevil friends for a day of downhill mayhem and reckless abandon. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best you could say. Bust'in out the crash pads and full face helmet and forget the limitations of an xc mountain bike as we proceeded to ride everything in the park.
Thanks to Bill, Josh, Barry and Jon for a hair raising day in the saddle. Why is overcoming fear so much fun? Like a bunch of kids playing with fire, today no one was burned.
We started out on the Race Trail step-up and things got pretty wild from there. Thanks Greeley for shooting videos. Bill and Josh demonstrated my favorite stunt of the day... The gap jump On Maiden Voyage trail. The planets must have been in full alignment because we could do no wrong. That or these stunts are designed and built by a bunch of guys that know what they were doing.
Here's a short video I ripped off the net, not us riding but you'll get a better idea of what scary fun is. At the very end of the video you'll see a guy fall off one of the step-ups...I didn't falter in the same way but let's just say I used up one of my nine lives.

bla!

One can try to think of everything in regards to preparing for rainy conditions but I seem to forget a key aspect of preparedness. I DID have on the gore socks, the ones I bought over a decade ago and have not let me down. The rain pants, although Jon showed up in shorts cause it was a balmy 67 degrees at 7am this morning. Fenders, a must to rid off the monkey butt. High tech glasses so I could see as globs of filth splat toward my face. So what did I forget?
To wash out my helmet...The one with six months worth of dried nastiness. Nothing like stale-salty putrid liquid flowing down into my eyes, nose and mouth to say top of the morning to yaw!

A little sign language

Woke up a bit late this morning for the scheduled ride with a few die hard riders. A die-hard rider is defined as any person who does not take into account adverse weather conditions when making the decision to ride. I was in the company of precisely three of this kind at 7:00am. High five boys. Thanks for a good ride Christopher, Jon and Sean...lets do it again Friday, even if it's sunny and 60 degrees.

Making planz for the weekend...pretty soggy for the final weekend at Highland Bike Park. I'm thinking they'll be closed due to poor conditions but am holding out hope that the lift will be running.

Saturday, the Plymouth race looks good. I have been dragging my feet with ordering cross wheels and tires so will be racing with my mtb wheels again. Don't think that a 700c wheel would help me out all that much anywhoo. May do the C and B race just to get a good effort in.

Couple more hand gestures for the blog world tonight...
A big Thumbs Up to Verizon for their kick butt fios internet service.
In an effort to save us some cashola Lesli did a little surfing on the issue of consolidating phone/internet/cable. Bye bye to comcast cable and hello to verizon. Free install of the fiberoptic cable, controller box thing, free wifi router (too bad we had one), fiberoptic phone battery back up(for when we lose power the phone will continue to work for 6 hours), and they re-wired our house with new coax and cat5...guy was here for 12 hours yesterday getting everything nailed down. I realize they'll get us in the long run, but till we receive the bill I gotta take them for their word for free installation. Best part is the speed of the connection...Blazing fast. We had DSL for years and this is easily 5 times quicker.
To conclude this post... This one's for you... Aetna Health Care. I won't get too far into it... but lets just say as a long time customer I am less than satisfied with your customer service and billing practices. Open enrollment right around the corner...couldn't be soon enough.

Pedal in time

Friday's old school cruise around Wachusett reservoir prompted me to think about where technology has brought the cycling world in the past 100 years. Arguably we are the luckiest cyclists in history because we have enjoyed the most rapid evolution of gear known to the sport in just a few short years. Advancements in materials, frame design, suspension design, disc brake technology, wheel technology, super sticky rubber, carbon fiber, titanium, high tech alloys... Every year the gear gets a little better, designs get more efficient, components a little lighter, hopefully a little stronger and always more expensive. Can't wait to see where the sport of cycling will be in 10 or 20 years. Just gets better every year.

1938 Raleigh Record Ace
All original, even the tires! Very similar to this one that's on exhibit in a transportation museum in Maine. Good to see the owner wasn't afraid to ride it.

Mike P's daily commuter. A 1940 Elgin.
50 pounds and a tall single speed makes for strong legs.

Christopher on his 1972 moulton
full suspension, four speed, and collapsible!
not the first fully in history though.

a couple vintage road bikes, a Star and Murray
but I liked Warrens mostly original Fuji Ti

remember those pedro's bottle holders? Neither do I.



A fitting beverage after a vintage ride.

Well done...

...Mr Craig

Thanks to Jason for sharing

I am blown a way with the race...Do I ever want to attempt La Ruta?

(I hope not!)

Way to go!

I'm wiped just reading about La Ruta de los Conquistadors.

Hope all is well for everyone and luckily doesn't look like anyone fell victim to an alligator or mud slide.

Hey Harlan, when your back...do you want to go for a ride? It'll be a good one...only thing is it starts out with another 25 kilometers of rail bed...!
Bravo!

Highland Rocks!

It's been far too long

since I've felt
my good'ol friend
gravity.


Barry, George and I got our adrenaline fix this weekend.


George worked out a few demons that had been haunting him.
Here's G-man riding in for a closer look at a gap transition.
Then cleaning it.

Highland Mountain Park was damn good time. Trails for many ability levels but don't go expecting beginner trails. Rugged as hell. The runs are fast and flowing with lots of banked curves that lead into hits and hucks that will send you for ridiculous air time.

Big respect for the half dozen or so guys we saw (while riding the chair to the top) casually riding the jump trail...the one trail WE didn't attempt. Full of dirt table jumps, step ups and sizable gaps and (photo above^) a wooden roller coaster at the bottom.

Barry's got a few more shots and a movie or two (that I hope he shares) depicting what gravity can do when casing a jump...

All for 35 bucks and an hour ride.
Every day should be this fun.

Canton Cup Race report

My first Cross race was Sunday. On the hour drive down to Canton I was anxious to get it on feeling I hadn't gotten my fix of "competition pain" in a month or two.

Massive wind gusts kept things on the dry side considering that four inches of water fell just 18 hours before the event. Figured the course was going to be a mess so I installed some mud paddles as a secret weapon to combat the chunky wet ooze that I imagined would be everywhere.
Well, got to the race with my 2.2 mud terrain's and to my surprise...No mud. I gotta stop thinking like a mountainbiker. Course was a mix of asphalt and mostly grass on small rolling hills. All the rain that fell the previous day was absorbed deep into the sponge-like turf with not so much as a muddy puddle in sight. Fairly flat, fast, non technical...I was a dead man. Until meeting up with Kerry and she offered me her skinny 1.3 inch wide 26" cross tires for my race after she finished hers. Friends are the best.
I stood at the run-up with Roz cheering on Kerry and the rest of the men and women in the early race. Glad I came down to hang and make the day of it. Half the fun of cross is shouting at people you know to pick up the pace when they're really getting their ass kicked (nice huh?). It really helps to have friends in the crowd at these section to yell at'cha and get you moving a little faster.
It was soon show time for the B-men. Thom P was there racing his pink single speed cross bike. He had concerns about his gear selection being a little slow for the fast course...I think he set-up for more technical and muddy conditions too. Thom, Glenn Cook, and I missed out on the line-up cause we were gabbing during staging and got stuffed three or four rows in the back of the pack. Probably where I belonged being the new-bie to 'cross on a mountain bike.
The start was a drag race. Hell, the whole thing was a drag race. Felt alot like the time trial I did a few months ago but more fun. Early in the first lap while climbing a small grassy hump mother nature smiled on a pack of us and blew a giant gusting tail wind that pushed us up hill, good way to start things. The rest of the time 40mph gusts met square-on knocking everyone around. Must have been most difficult for the people with deep aero wheels and bladed spokes especially on the track portion of the race around the football field in the wide open.
I got into a groove and was enjoying the race from the first lap. I was fairly happy with my pace thinking I couldn't push much harder. Then Thom P slipped by me on his pink machine spinning like crazy. Looking strong as he past me and three guys ahead of me. My mission was now to keep him in sight and try to reel him in. This game gave me reason to reach deep and blow-up if I was going to blow up. <-- Something I try very hard not to do in longer mtb races but since this race was timed at 40 minutes who gives a shit if you blow up... I am slowly seeing the beauty in 'cross. Sorry to say Thom flatted at the end of the third lap, after he was gone I tried to keep the same inensity but had no one to chase down. Kept on pace and it was soon over. Good to have this one under my belt, learned a lot. Ended up coming in 25th.
Bummed to miss the Elite Women...I tried to listen to the announcer on the loud speaker to catch what was happening while I was back at my car getting changed and recovering from my race.
Did however see the elite men rip it up. The leaders made little work of the run-up...was more of a ride-up for a few of them.
Most impressive were the top three over the high barriers. Taking a huge risk jumping the 20 inch planks at race pace, and Anthony (3rd over) blazed through so fast that it almost looked like his legs past through the solid wood hurdles.
Man, I need a better camera with sound.

hoopla

Whole lot'a fun riding lately. End of race season and just the beginning of fun season. Couple few night rides with the big bike crew have taught me that I have totally forgotten how to ride my 5 inch travel bike. Feels very disconnected and sloppy, not to mention I can't climb to save my life on the dual squishy right now. Have to work on getting reacquainted with the plush ride because it would be suicide to try and keep up with Roger and Barry on my hardtail. I also forgot how to set up the dually...overinflated the hell out of the rear tire and rear shock and spent much of the night bouncing about the trail with little traction.
Sunday I went back to the hardtail for simplicity and to get a decent 90 minute spin around the Fells with Jeff. Did however try something new and ran a 2.4 specialized 2bliss (miracle tire) on the front. Huge air volume and soft rubber compound held lines superbly on the rock strewn trails in Med'fa. Jeff and I did some 'old school style' riding on Sunday - a mix of trials and xc. The kind of shit the old crew would ride in Lynn woods in our early twenties. Balancing while riding fallen tree trunks and jumping logs. Took me twelve attempts to ride a thirty foot log before cleaning it. Jeff got it on his fifth try, bastard.
Thanks again George for kicking me a selection of rubba. u da man.
Now for a small rant session... Was surfing the usual sites (not THOSE sites) looking for components for next years race bike and was astonished by some of the retail prices. Who has $630 for a freekin crankset that's going to last one season? They're purdy and all, might have to rob a bank for next year's build.

Equally stinky situations

We could have sucked it up and suffered for another week but last night proved to be the night that winter officially started. Lesli and I in our usual spot, on the couch watching tv under a couple blankets. Cold night, raining buckets outside. Lesli got up and I knew what she was up to as she walked to the hall. I didn't put up much of a fight. "Can't we just wait a couple more days?" I quietly said and waited for a response, heard the click of the oil burner coming to life. Shit, the l-o-n-g and painful oil season is upon us.
Not going to be quite as bad as last year cause I 'locked in' an oil price. Turns out that sucks.

On a better note, been getting some morning rides in with Igleheart. Got a nice 10 mile singletrackk loop at Bradley Palmer that I hit a few times a week. First ride thru brickends Farm, where they process, well...shit. Big piles of poop. Some days it's pretty overwhelming, other morning I enjoy the mild smell of cow manure. Christopher says it reminds him of England.
I've been riding a rigid fork for a couple weeks now with a big 'ol fat tubeless front tire and have grown to like the precision. Maybe not when the ground freezes and the ride becomes more harsh but for right now feels the ballz. Chris built it to be 80mm adjusted, I ran a 100mm fork all year. Turns out the fox 100mm was way wrong for the frame and the 80mm puts me in a much better position to climb and lowers the BB height to 12.5...I was up above 13 inches with the four inch fork.

One last decision; to race or not to race this weekend? Maybe.

Kahuna !

Bring out your big bike, fat tires and full faced helmets!

Mother nature created these trails with mountainbiking in mind. I thank her for the rocky terrain that we punish our selves on regularly. 71 north shore riders came out to celebrate the comming of fall on Seaside's annual Kahuna ride. It was great to ride with guys that I haven't seen since last year's kahuna.

Our four person group held a good pace the entire 6 hours to cover the 25 miles of singletrack.
For you racers out there that's 4.1 mph! And that was quick.

Daren had an impressively strong day in the saddle on his 35 pound steel Wraith with 2.5 inch knobbies.

Running out of pedal power in B+T's with only food and beer on our minds at this point. Headed straight to Lobst'a Land where organizers had planned a buffet of burgers, haddock and tatonka fingers!
Looking forward to a double Kahuna on Nov. 24th!

More Cowbell please

Sunburn Sunday

Thanks to my mom for loaning her new Mega-Mega pixel camera this weekend. Lesli made a few changes to enable it to shoot pictures a little quicker to keep up with the action.. I don't usually blog so many pictures or play the sports announcer guy, then again- I've never shot 2 Gig of pictures in one day. Just wanted to share some of these photos.

Georgia Gould (Luna Women's MTB Team) grabbed the win from Lyne Bessette (Cyclocrossworld.com) Wendy Simms (Kona)moved up to take third

Mo Bruno-Roy ripping her final lap to take 11th place

Paul Curley, racing since the 70's! Still ripping it up.
Grabbed a podium spot Saturday for vet men +45.
The helmet-mount rear view mirror rocks.

Jonathan Card (Cane Creek/Cabato Velo) got the style award for the string of pearls and matching sunglasses.

Matt O'Keefe (CCB) moved up from 43rd Saturday to 33rd Sunday

Todd Wells (GT) placed 10th Saturday and moved up to 7th Sunday.
Jesse Anthony Won the u23 cat Saturday but slipped down in rank Sunday probably due to a technical issue with his bike, but just a guess.

Ripping thru the loose corners with little help from the canti's.
I was hoping Adam Craig and Carl Decker were going to upset the Kona duo.Barry Wicks was essential in teammates win Saturday and was knocked off the box by Mark McCormack (Team Clif Bar) in a sprint finish on Sunday.

No lack of cheers for home town racer Tim Johnson as he rode his heart out but Trebon tore it up this weekend.
Check out Kerry's blog to see how I could have gotten run over snapping this shot.

One giant step to victory
Check out Sunday's results.

Gran Prix of Cyclocross weekend part 1

Just a spectator this weekend. Hauled my ass out of bed and over to Stage Fort Park on Saturday just in time for the start of the B Men's race. Sorry I missed the early women's race, I much prefer watching girls race.

Full on drag race to start the men's B

The early leaders of the killer B's

Thom P shouldering his pink ss 'cross bike

A Train of Vets on their first lap. Richard Feldman (DurancCycleworks)followed by Dale Knapp (Kona), Chris Peck (Fiordifrutta) and Roger Aspholm (Westwood Velo). Aspholm went on to win by 10 seconds.

I.F.'s Bruno leading a couple riders including Paul Curley

best seat in the house

(from the rock) overlooking the mechanic pit and the sand trap (in the distance)

Birds eye view of the switchback section
Lyne Bessette dominated Saturday's elite women
Georgia Gould and Katerina Nash (both of team Luna Chix) were hot on Lyne's heels the entire race.

Wendy Simms (Kona) placed 4th in elite and was named most aggressive rider


Christopher Horner had a strong race in elite men's category

Here is the start of the Elite men's race Saturday with Andy Jacques-Maynes (California Giant Strawberries/Specialized) leading #8 Matt White (FiordiFrutta Elite Cycling Team) then Ryan Trebon (Kona), Tim Johnson (Cannondale, Cyclocross World) and 88 other bad asses.

Adam Craig (Giant Bicycles) works the tempo with Mathieu Toulouse (Maxxis),Mark McCormack (Clif Bar), Andy Jacques-Maynes (California Giant Strawberries/Specialized) in tow.

Jesse Anthony (cliff bar) grabbed the win for the u23 catagory
Tim Johnson (Cannondale- Cyclocrossworld) pushes the pace on the stretch, Trebon (Kona) uses the draft to recharge while Barry Wicks fights to catch up.
If I could ask Ryan Trebon one question... "You're an incredible cyclist, but have you ever heard of basketball?"

Here are the results from Saturday's races.