Riding and more riding

I guess I'm on a bit of a riding tear - something like seven rides in eight days. I can't say any of the rides were stinkers, all good and all good fun. I've been riding the fatty a lot, but when it comes time to put the hammer down the RIP comes out. That thing is a rocket ship compared to the fatty, its especially noticeable after riding the fatty so much.

The kids got me a GorillaPod for Christmas, so today was the day to try that out. I did what was supposed to be a quick roll at Crandalls, but it turned out to be 10.5 miles, which is not a huge ride, but a really good time.

Its funny we were looking at making this cliff side path for a while and someone else took it upon themselves to create it. Its a great little addition that takes attention, if nothing else.

I wasn't planning on doing the trails on the other side of the stream, but as I rode on a nearby trail I noticed how full the stream was, I thought it would be a good picture. They didn't quite come out the way I wanted them to, but pretty good. Nothing better than splashing in water during warm weather or when you have water proof boots.

The camera makes everything looks so easy. These next two rollers are not easy at all, but these pictures sure make it look like its child's play.

Crazy NE weather and riding on messy trails.

As predicted the temperature went way up over the weekend. Consider that we had a low of below zero on Monday and on Sunday we went up over 60, that's a pretty big swing!

I considered riding the fat bike on Saturday morning, but even by then it seemed like things would be too wet and mushy (even though there was snow cover still left). I opted for a road ride spinning out about 38 miles. It felt great to get out on the road bike - that's a different kind of workout than the fat bike or regular mountain bike, you sit and spin as hard as you want to go for as long as you want to go. I thought I had a 45 mile loop in hand, but it topped out at 38 or so. I got home and saw the Strava feed with a few people who hit the trails and all had the same report - good to go. Darn, I would have liked to have gone on the fatty.

You can pretty much repeat that for Sunday, except I wasn't even contemplating a trail ride. We had a bit of rain overnight and the snow was completely gone. My yard was a mess of 1/2" of slime on top of frozen ground. I figured the trails would be complete slop. I got a few reports of people who went out and it seems some trails were ok. I think it was prudent to stay off the trails on Sunday. I convinced myself I had a good 45-50 mile loop and was disappointed again when I got home and Strava told me I had only ridden 38 miles again. There are certain roads I just don't like riding, the ones with short sight lines and narrow shoulders, that limits me to some degree, but the bigger limiter is probably my avoidance of major roads. I think I need to get to the point where I'm cranking out miles on Route 30 or 83 or something to get some distance. I have some ideas for the next ride. Sunday was overcast all day, but the temperatures got up to 60 degrees, I was riding in t-shirt and shorts and was 100% comfortable. Good ride and for whatever reason I was able to crank harder than on Saturday.

I hear people complain about that new ice melter the towns use (the green stuff) saying that it rusts cars. First I don't see that at all, our 2007 Fit has zero rust on it. Second from a biking perspective its a lot better than all the sand they used to drop on roads. Even after four storms in a row the roads were pretty clean. Although even that is relative, I got a nice spray tan from Sunday's ride.

Hopefully we get a solid freeze tonight and we can ride in the woods tomorrow. I have no idea how far down things have melted - I would have thought it was still pretty cold, but that snow melted fast. 

A ride that justified the fat bike

Last night's ride was superb. I got two laps of Crandalls in on perfect fat bike conditions, it was not a fast ride, but to keep going you really had to keep things level and under control to not spinning out. It was a test of skill for sure. The downhills were crazy, like skiing on big fat skis in powder, awesome float. It was a ride I couldn't have done without the fat bike.

Now we have four days of temps above freezing, so I think I'll be going from the fat bike to the skinny bike. I haven't ridden the road bike in probably a month, it should be interesting!

Fox News - yep, I'm going there...

I guess if you were going to characterize my political leanings, you would have to say I'm more socially liberal than conservative. Fiscally I appreciate conservative values, but so many other things get mixed in there by the lunatic fringe (yeah I said it) that its really hard to separate the good ideas from the chaff.

I never watch Fox News, the only time I see anything from that station is on Facebook when one of my liberal friends posts something up to prove a negative point, or one of my conservative friends post up something to prove a positive point. I do watch at least some of these short segments that get posted, I like to see how things are portrayed. When I watch it the BS meter in my head starts going crazy and before too long I'm discounting the whole story.

I got this from a mountain biking email list that I belong to (why this was posted to a mountain biking email list I'll never know):

I post this not to say anything about E15 gasoline, but more because I think it exemplifies what's wrong with Fox News. The base message is actually pretty good information to have - don't put E15 gas into a car that isn't built to handle it...but Fox can't stop there, they sprinkle in the words "government", "subsidies", etc and before you know it this is a conspiracy by the Ethanol lobby and irresponsibility by the current administration that WILL negatively impact you. I should also mention that in my travels for work and filling up rental cars in probably a dozen states in the last year I have never seen an E15 gas pump.

Whenever my BS meter pegs I head over to snopes.com and check it out there. I found an article and it starts with pretty much the same message - don't put E15 in a car that's not built for it, but it doesn't have all the misleading information to confuse things: http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/e15.asp

I see the liberal/conservative arguments on Facebook all the time - as does anyone who has a Facebook account. I see the conservative guys quoting Fox News - you have to admire how they can create a talking point and it spreads like a virus through social media. After watching a few Fox News segments I have to laugh when one of my conservative Facebook friends (who parrot the Fox message) dismisses a position posited by Steven Cobert or John Stewart because "they are comedians". I'd much rather listen to the logic of a comedian than that of a news station that has an agenda like Fox does.

I guess in re-reading the above I sound like a raving liberal, I'm not, or maybe I am, but that's not the point. The point is Fox News is a terrible place to get information, find a better source please. Use the facts to form an opinion, don't let their biases and opinions form yours.

Rays and First Snow Ride with the Fatty

I had a trip to Detroit early this week, I consulted a map and found that Rays Indoor Mountain Bike Park - Cleveland was a 2.5 hour drive from my hotel. I found by staying over an extra night I saved $100 on the flight, which was what the hotel costs - score. We finished the customer meeting around 12:30 and I drove over to Cleveland. I rented a Ford Focus - as a very quick note, that is a pretty nice car, I wouldn't mind owning one (unlike almost every other compact car I've ever rented).

Finding Rays was a bit of a challenge, its buried in the middle of a turn of the century (guessing) industrial park. There are signs for the businesses in the park at the entrance my phone took me to, but Rays is not listed. I poked my way through the park and found Rays (even the doorway is barely marked - though the hanging bike kind of gives you a hint).

Rays is incredible, I wish we had something like that nearby. I spent about 3 hours cranking around inside. Its a huge warehouse space that is full of biking goodness, jumps, berms, skinnies, tabletops, transitions, all kinds of great stuff.

I don't have many skills beyond mountain biking, so a lot of the BMX type stuff was out of the question. I had a blast on the sections I rode though. Their pumptrack is stupidly perfect, you get going so fast and you can carry that speed through the perfectly formed corners. Just an amazing time, I definitely have to get back.

I did have one spectacular crash on a wall ride. At speed those thing are so cool, you lean in and it just carries you around the corner. There was a jump set up and after getting comfortable carrying speed coming through the corner, I decided to try the jump that lands you in the wall ride. Unfortunately I misjudged exactly what was going to happen, I landed upright and stalled on the wall. I went down to the low side (of course, without getting a foot out. Ouch, hard crash, broke my helmet and got a few bruises. No permanent damage.

Last night I got the fat bike out for a solo cruise at Crandalls in the snow - we have about 2" of snow on the ground. It was a really fun ride.

The bike has traction all over the place, of course I didn't have my other bike with me to compare, but I only had to walk one or two small sections. That bike was a very good investment, I'm loving it.

New bike light and phone

I guess I've been slacking on the old blog here. A few random updates and thoughts:

New phone
I've had a Motorola Razr for the past two years, I liked it, though the battery life was never really good. I'm a pretty heavy user with work travel and stuff, so I chalked it up to my style of usage. I got this new HTC One and I see that the technology has improved a lot in two years. It does everything my Razr did but twice as fast (or faster), it switches between things instantly. That's something the Razr started to really have problems with in the last year or so. I told myself I was going to do a hard reboot on it to see if I just had too much stuff loaded on it or what. Regardless the HTC One is a great phone, I highly recommend it.

New bike light
Talking about things that have improved over time, we just got a new helmet light. Dawn doesn't like the weight of the Magicshine lights we have on her helmet, so I found this thing out on the web. After ordering it I found out its a Chinese clone of a light called a Gemini Duo. It claims 1800 lumens and 3 hours of burn time. Its incredibly small and light, I couldn't even notice it was on my helmet at all. It worked great, I did a 2 hour ride with it on high the whole time and the indicator light was still green at the end. I would say its about as bright as a second generation Magicshine. At only $51 its quite a deal. Consider that back in the day we would pay $300 for halogen based systems that would barely last 2 hours and the battery was in a water bottle!

New instrument

I've thought a lot about this new instrument build and I've decided the buitar thing (combo of 3 bass strings and 5 guitar strings on one neck) is just too weird. I don't have anything against weird, but I want to make something I can actually play. I've decided I'm going to make a five string fretted bass. I have gathered quite the pile of wood, I need to figure out how I'm going to put it all together. That's an activity best left for after the holidays for sure, but I did order a whammy bar bridge for it already. I've always wanted a whammy bar on a bass - I'm sure its something I'll rarely use, but it should be fun and I don't have to use it if I don't want to. 

Fatty rides

I've been pretty much 50/50 on the fatty versus RIP9 rides. I still love that RIP9, but I have to say I have a lot of fun on that fatty too! I keep thinking about how to make it lighter. I was considering a carbon frame, but that's probably going to be too much money. I may look into a carbon fork and lighter wheels or rims. We'll see. I see those Beargrease and Borealis frames and I think I would LOVE to own one of those, maybe in a few years I'll have the dough for one, I just can't afford it right now. I see some people getting those bikes down to sub-25lbs, that sounds like a fun bike. My fatty is around 34lbs right now, I don't have too many problems riding it, but if it was 5 or 6 pounds lighter, that would be really cool. 

Weekend rides

I got a text from SSK asking if Dawn and I were riding on Saturday, we settled on Crandalls. I put the word out on Facebook and emails, this has some variable returns, this time it worked out pretty well and we ended up with seven riders. I rarely do truly social rides, but this was one, we rode at a mellow pace, we stopped, we talked, we sessioned some stuff and generally had a good time.

I gotta say it was pretty cool riding through the woods on those twisty trails and seeing six other riders making their way. The train twisted and folded back on itself a few times - very cool to see.

I showed GI a new roller we cleaned off - I rolled up to it a few times on my Fatty, but I just couldn't roll off it, I haven't been back on my RIP to see if that makes it any easier looking. GI rolled up and over without really thinking about it. Such confidence, of course he made it look easy. 

 

I don't know if seeing him roll it like that made me feel better or worse, I'll only know for sure once I get out there on the RIP and see if I can do it. 

We played on the logs a bit, this was a challenge to get all four of us on the log at once: 

 

And then it was Sunday, the call was for Bear Den North - a place I rarely ride, but is really good riding, on mostly unridden singletrack. The weather guys were saying it was going to be cold, but I've ridden cold before - no big deal. What I didn't count on was how big an impact the wind would have on me. It was 18 degrees with 20-25MPH winds when we started, I don't think it got much above 20 for the entire ride. It was so cold. 

As is usual on rides like this we came up to an intersection and the ride leader said "long way or short way", in 25 years of riding I probably have opted for the short way three or four times, today was one of those days. I could see the relief in everyone's eyes as I made my opinion known. Sometimes that testosterone plays tricks on your mind, who's the toughest guy in the woods? I am! Not today, I am not the toughest guy in the woods, I want OUT now! We got out (obviously). That ride took a lot out of me though, I was really tired the rest of the day, which is highly unusual considering we only rode 9 miles or something. 

The cold also took out my Reverb post, or so I thought. I warmed it up and its holding air now, I guess I'll go to a rigid post for colder rides like that. I rode through last winter with it and didn't have any problems, but I probably didn't ride in weather as cold as that.   

Lucid dreaming

For whatever reason I've been interested in metaphysical subjects for long time - I remember taking a book out of the library in 5th grade about ESP. This interest is pretty variable, including the afterlife, the occult, alien life forms, UFOs and many other topics like that. I consider myself pretty pragmatic, so this interest is kind of counter to my standard mode of thinking. I guess I would classify it as curiosity and despite looking into these things for many years, I can't say I've ever witnessed or even read anything conclusive about ANYTHING metaphysical. With the lack of evidence, its hard to come to any conclusion other than that there isn't much here beyond the physical.

All that said, in college I read an article, then a book about lucid dreaming, which I guess you can consider a metaphysical thing. The basic idea of lucid dreaming is that you can become conscious that you are dreaming while you are dreaming. Essentially you become "awake" within your dream. Once you are awake and aware, you can control what is going on and do really whatever you want, the physical laws we live by in the real world don't apply. I probably become lucid in dreams a few times a month. Its a cool thing to do and you figure when you're sleeping, you're really not doing anything else anyway. One of my favorite things to do when I'm lucid is fly, once you master that its a pretty good incentive to try it again. Although a lot of times when you become lucid, you get so excited you wake yourself up, which can be frustrating.

The other interesting thing that can happen with lucid dreaming is fake awakening. As I said above often times in a lucid dream you wake yourself up, sometimes when this happens your "awakening" happens inside the dream. So you think you woke up, when in fact you are still in the dream. I'm telling you some weird stuff can happen when you think you're awake, but the dream is still going.

I won't go into the details of any my specific dreams I know other people's dreams are usually not very interesting to hear about.

More fatty love

Dawn and I went for a ride yesterday. I just got some new tires for the fatty, so I had little choice but to take that bike.

I did not know this before buying a fat bike, but there's this phenomenon called "self-steer" with fat bikes. On hard surfaces, where the tires get the most traction, the bike seems to have a mind of its own on where to go and it seems like you're fighting the handlebars to keep going straight. Since I don't really ride much on hard surfaces it really shouldn't be an issue for me, but it also shows up when you're riding rocks, of which there are many around here.

I've seen a few explanations for what causes it, I really don't know for sure what the real answer is, but the fatty with the original Vee Mission tires on it was almost dangerous when you came up on an off camber rock. The wheel would turn into the rock as you rolled up on it. I guess once you get used to it you can prepare yourself for what's going to happen.

I got myself a pair of On One Floater tires. These are the tires that were on the Pugsley I borrowed from MojoK. I noticed self-steer on that bike, but I only had a few rides on it and it was the first fat bike I had ridden, so I wasn't sure how they really compared to my current tires.

First ride on the new tires was fantastic, huge improvement over the Missions. Yes there is still a little self-steer, but nothing like the old tires. Traction on the dry leaves yesterday was pretty darn good. If you think wet leaves are slippery, you should try bone dry oak leaves, its almost like ice. So great ride and the weather was fantastic.

These next two shots are of a little roller we cleared out. It looks pretty lame in these pictures, but it took a bit of thinking to get my head around rolling off it. There was another roller we cleared out, I can see that its doable, but I just couldn't get the roll going. Maybe it will look better on my RIP9, but I doubt it. 

Off to Switzerland for a 3 day trip, right after I get a ride in this morning. 

More random thoughts

I usually have some theme or particular topic to write about, today's blog entry is a mishmash of stuff that's happening.

On the music front Anger Buddy finished recording the tracks for Moron, its a song that I wrote with Version Larry many years ago. I don't remember the exact genesis of this song, but I'm pretty sure it was a collaborative effort among the Version Larry. This is the first time we're using John's electronic drum set instead of recording his acoustic set live. Its a bit of a disjointed process starting with us recording live, then John taking that home and recording his drum parts over again (essentially starting over) then the rest of us playing our parts over his. I was concerned that we would lose that "live" sound, but so far I am very happy with it. Drums are absolutely the hardest instrument to record, there is a lot of overlap in the mics, there are phasing issues, just all kinds of headaches to deal with. We should have the mix done and have the song published on Soundcloud soon.

I had big plans to make a guitar/bass combo instrument and its getting around to build time, being that the weather and darkness have come upon us. I am having second thoughts about it, I just don't think I'd use the instrument that much and learning how to play it will take me a long time. I don't mean to be lazy, but trying to be realistic about whether its worth my time making an instrument that I probably won't play. Right now I'm considering making a five string fretted bass instead. The first bass I made was a five string fretted, but the electronics in it are really bad and honestly, it being the first one I built, the craftsmanship is not all that great. We'll see, there's no final decision yet.

I went riding this weekend with Al Tinti and his group. Al is an older guy who still rocks it on the mountain bike. Its so inspirational to ride with him and his older(!) brother. I hope I can remain as active as these guys are as I age. We did a great ride with the high point (literally) being a climb up Peaked Mountain in Monson, MA. The view from up top is incredible, I see on the topo its about 1200', which is about the highest point around here. That's Al's brother Joe in the middle.

I ordered new tires for my fatty, they should be here in a week or so. The tires that came with my bike will serve as back up tires, I had two concerns with them. First the knobs are not very big on this tire, I suspect they wouldn't be very good in snow. Second (and probably more importantly) they have pretty severe "self-steer" tendencies. There's this weird thing with fat bikes where when you are riding on pavement or even large rocks the contact patch is so large that the bike feels like its steering itself. This can be especially unsettling when you roll off an off camber rock, the handlebars pull against the way you want to steer. Its not a huge thing, but I think these On One Floaters will be better in both respects. I love the bike and have taken it out a few times, including a cranker yesterday with the Sunday group. 

That's all for now. Hopefully some new pictures soon. 

A little fatty foto

I did another excellent ride this morning on the RIP9, but I had some free time and a jones to get a ride in on the fatty, so after doing leaves I headed out to Crandalls. I decided this would be a photo shoot kinda ride.

Lots of rock crawling today:

And of course log rides:

And just some regular riding:

Playing with a little color:

First ride on the Fatty

I went on a nice ride on the Fatty today. It rained a bit this last night and this morning and it was very windy, that meant a ton of slippery wet leaves all over the place. Despite that it was a good time and a good test ride for the new bike. I have a little tweaking to do, but I'm about 90% there with the fit. I started with about 9.5PSI in the tires and kept letting air out until they felt good, I hit the rim once on a sharp rock, but I think I'm at a good spot. I'll check it with a gauge and keep that as a reference point.

I'm really happy with the bike, its a ton of fun and I'm sure I'll use it more than I would use my Kona Big Unit.

A couple of pictures:
On the log ride (again):

And on a little roller, normally I would say "steeper than it looks", but its really not that steep - its about right in the picture. 

Fatty in the house for real

I got my fat bike today, its more than a little embarrassing just how much I have been looking forward to this.

I got it unpacked and built pretty quickly and soon after that I got the parts swapped over - I bought some "diet pill" parts for it, they probably took 3 pounds off its weight. As it sits now my bathroom scale says its around 35 pounds, which is pretty good for a fatty bike.

It looks great and the quick ride around the yard was cool. I can't wait to get it in the woods, but that probably won't happen until Saturday based on the rain forecast for tomorrow (even though I have the day off!).

I'll get some shots in the wild and a ride impression up once I get a few miles on it. 

Sunday ride

I joined Hasenmesch's group ride on Sunday at Nassahegon in Burlington. I've ridden there a few times in the past, but always solo trying to pick my way through. Which means I spent a lot of time on fireroads and frustrated. I got a proper tour yesterday riding almost 18 miles.

I pulled into the parking lot and there were six very fit looking guys in spandex with an average body fat percentage in the single digits. I thought I was going to be sucking wind big time. It turned out they were mostly road riders who dabbled in mountain biking, so the pace was pretty reasonable throughout. Though they didn't seem to slow down at all, same speed beginning to end.

I was the most technically proficient rider on that ride (rare occurrence), I gotta say it was good for my psyche to be the only one who made a few sections. When I'm gasping for breath on some of these fast rides I just don't have anything in the tank to tackle the harder stuff. 

All in all a great ride and apres beer session was pretty good too, I got to taste Ghandi-Bot beer, which apparently is one of the top rated beers in the world - at the risk of sounding like a beer newbie, it was too hoppy for me. I like a little hop, but...

It was a really good ride with the majority of the riding on smooth, curvy trails with a few smallish hills. We hit a few technical bits that were a lot of fun too, I suspect there is more techy out there that we didn't hit.

On Lou Reed's passing

Lou Reed passed away this past week, its always a reflective moment when someone who has helped mold me passes. I am far from a Lou Reed fanatic, frankly there's some of his stuff I just can't listen to.

I listened to a lot of Velvet Underground in college, but two of Lou Reed's solo albums really hit me at certain times in my life.

Rock and Roll Animal. Yeah I know everyone knows the version of Sweet Jane from this album (and it is a great version), but that whole album was really formative for me. I owned this as an LP and I'm fairly certain I wore it out. I suppose in the grand scheme of every album ever produced its not exactly ground breaking, but it was the first time I really understood the power of music and words. How you could create a song that had a message and the music was part of the conveyance of that message. "Heroin" off that album is one of those songs that combines in an amazing way. "Its my wife and its my life", man, what a powerful statement.

New York. There are a lot of concept albums out there, but this one is both so personal and descriptive. You really get the feeling of a gritty New York City, where "normal" people struggle to make things work. I remember someone asking me one time what my favorite song off that album was, I thought what a ridiculous question that is. You can't take any song out of that album, it would be like looking at a Picasso and saying "which color on that painting is your favorite?". The Statue of Bigotry indeed.

Generally speaking I like the way Lou Reed was able make not just a sad song, there's thousands of those, but make a depressing song, that's a lot harder. 

Fatty on the way

I got the call on Friday that my new fatty is on the way. According to UPS it will be delivered on Thursday. Pretty excited to get not only a new bike, but a new type of bike. I guess that's how I look at this bike. While my hardtail is just like my RIP9, but less comfortable, this is an entirely new type of bike, no comparisons to other bikes. Its sort of like how my road bike doesn't compete with my mountain bike, two completely different animals.

Of course there will be pictures and a build post in the blog. Now I have to try and take Friday off, hmmm.

On aging, playing music and riding fast

I had the opportunity to ride with the Bikerag guys this week. I used to ride with them just about every week, but due to schedules I just have not been able to meet up with them. They are fast, very fast riders. I have never truly been in front on that group, it has always been a struggle to keep up. I don't mind a struggle, its good to push yourself. On this week's ride I did ok, I was very definitely last in line and the other two guys had to wait for me at intersections.

As I was pushing to keep up I had this simple thought go through my head "why?". Why am I pushing myself like this? I really enjoy riding, but do I need to push this hard, ever? I think I've lost some of that edge, that desire to ride at my upper limit. I am in pretty good shape right now, so its not a matter of being slow because I'm carrying extra weight or not riding. Maybe I'm gaining wisdom. HA!

I am going to push myself to go out on a few more Bikerag rides to investigate this further. I want to know if this was just a fleeting thought or if I'm really done with riding super fast. Time will tell I guess.

This kind of brings me to another moment of thought in band the last few practices. I really enjoy singing knowing full well I am not a good singer. I've noticed that the more I focus on my concerns around not being very good the worse my singing gets, its a vicious cycle. In those moments when I'm just playing and singing not thinking about anything, and in the moment, my singing is not that bad. We've been doing some recording and scrutinizing my playing and singing over and over probably is not doing me any favors.

I guess a long winded way of saying you are who you think you are, the trick is in understanding who you think you are. Its so easy to allow negative thoughts to define you.

Fatty on a skinny

I have had to resist the urge to ride the loaner fat bike, I just don't want to wreck anything on it or wear anything out. This is great as it means I really like the bike and when I get mine it should see some use, unlike my hardtail which I have no desire to ride at all.

I took it out and rode the new log ride. Lots of fun.

More on Lyme

The symptoms I felt on Friday seemed to have completely subsided by late Saturday/Sunday. I talked to one of my friends and my brother both of whom have had a couple of bouts with Lyme about their experiences. I think after talking to them I think the symptoms could be surfacing due to my physical exhaustion. Both times I had the symptoms in the last month or so were days after I had done some pretty extreme physical exercise. So I guess for now I'm going with the idea that my body can fight off the Lyme until I get really tired then the symptoms appear. I'm taking the Doxy through its course and hope this will be the end of it.

A little log ride action

We found a new log ride at the nearby riding spot. Its pretty wide and on the ground, so its one of the easier log rides I know of.

Still its fun to ride the log.