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.