The day after after

Here I am, approaching day four of my four day weekend, and I'd have to say it was very satisfying on all fronts.

I started the day off with a call to my buddy Al. He and I used to ride together all the time, but things have developed in his life and he has given very little time to mountain biking. Since I hadn't heard from any one else early this morning about going riding, I tried my chances and gave him a buzz. With a little harassment, I was able to convince him that today was an excellent day to break out his Moots and traipse through the rocky funness of Gambrill. Through his own admission, five months was way too long to be off the bike. Soon enough, we were going up I-270.

When we got to the Gambrill parking lot we met an elderly couple wrapping up their hike. They were wearing their blaze orange vests which had me worried a little bit. Discussion among friends yesterday brought up the possibility that there were hunters sniping around Watershed, but Gambrill should have been safe. So I asked the husband if he knew anything about the hunting situation, and his wife said that it was better safe than sorry with the hunters in them parts. The husband said he heard gunshots in the periphery, but we'd be ok if we stayed on the main trail. Dang! I forgot my bear bell, a little bell that dangles from the seat that - besides annoying your riding partners - also lets others know that you aren't some deer rushing through the woods. I decided to wear my bright orange City Bikes jersey, red pants, and red knee warmers. Al commented in jest that there's no way I can be mistaken for a deer, even though I had a white saddle.



(Me, courtesy of Al: alsantos@mtnfreakfotos.com)

After locking up the car I looked over at Al and razzed him about all the stuff he was carrying. I had a glueless patch kit, a Gu, and my keys in my back pocket. On my bike I had a small pump and a waterbottle: just enough to get me back to the car. Mr. Minimal. On the other hand, Al had one of the largest Camelbaks I've seen in recent memory, chockful with a (full) large bladder, powerbars, tools, and various other nick-nacks that we most likely didn't need unless a tornado struck while we were away from the car. In addition to that, he was carrying a huge waist pack which contained his high-end, fancy pants camera, with separate flash. From that description could you tell who was riding the rigid bike, and who was riding the full suspension? ;) He ended up taking some good pics with his honking big camera.

Since he hadn't ridden at Gambrill in many years (methinks), he didn't care what we did. So we crossed the road and attacked the yellow loop clockwise. Every time I've ridden there I've always had a good time and this was no different. From the rocks, the views, and the all around challenging terrain, I thank goodness that we have something so close.

The weather was slightly chilly when we started, but I purposely dressed down because I've discovered many a time that I warm up too quickly. I have a great Craft undershirt that has a huge fold-over zippered turtleneck that rocks when things get chilly enough to necessitate knee warmers.

On the extended part of the loop we ran into Dan and Karen. I think I see Dan about every other ride, and the funny thing is that he's always going the other way. He unsheathed his hand and showed me a nasty cut he got a few days earlier that necessitated eight stitches. I was surprised he was out on one of the bumpiest trails in our area riding, knowing every rock probably shot pain up his arm. The guy's tough, no doubt.

During our brief chat with them, he mentioned he heard a gunshot on the outer edge of the loop. Again, raising our fears. He also told us to look for the blood and fur further up the trail, remnants of some hunter's prize as he dragged it along back to his car. Yuck.

We proceeded on and the rest of the ride was fast, fun, and thankfully without incident. Needless to say we survived without any buckshot in our arse a la Greg Lemond, so it was a good day as we ended it with some righteous sushi and sesame chicken at Taipei Tokyo in Rockville.

Dirty dozen (minus one)

Here's the 11 of us that went on the C&O trip at the beginning of this month, pre-skank:



Paul, Jay, me, Joe, Stoner, Kevin, Erin, Bill, Mike, Steve, Mark

Stoner did a writeup, as did Joe (on 11/9-15).

Dampening

I must say, DT is an effin' nut. On Saturday's Richmond Epic ride, he brought out his fixie. I don't think he had much choice because his rear brake was screwed and out for a replacement from Avid. But on this ride his skizills on a fixed showed.

The first time I met this cat I think I was riding fixed, but it was because my freewheel blew up and started freewheeling both ways. I don't ride fixed much except in the winter, especially when it snows, but DT has taken up to doing it most of the time -- at least that seems to be the case whenever I see him. He was rippin' it up on the trails, riding stuff that hardly any one of us in our group would do, and most of the time he made it. Props for just trying it fixed. Doubles for cleaning most of it.

Anyways, Butch and I headed down to meet the Richmond MORE group down at Poor Farm. Others from the "northern" MORE included Maj, Scud and Beers. We got to the parking lot that was teeming with about 40 members of the Richmond MORE, and decided there would be about 6-8 groups to make it more manageable. I introduced myself to a couple of them, and recognized their aliases from MTBR and some of the other cycling boards.

It rained the night before and there was a light mist the morning of, so the many roots and off-camber stuff was a little tricky. There were puddles here and there, but not enough to cancel the ride. Besides, there was 40+ people just itching to get out.

We started off a little mellow, but as folks got warmed up, the pace started to pick up. Sam, a Richmond singlespeeder was rippin' a fast pace. I sat in third place for the bulk of the ride, but he was smooth and quick so I had a difficult time keeping him in sight. We were in the fastest group, but there was still a little too much stopping and talking for me that day. Of course it was necessary because there was a lot of us that didn't know the trails very well. However, I was looking forward to the ride and getting out there and hammering, but when I stop and sit around too much, I seem to get tired faster. Stop, go, stop, go: ride 3 minutes, wait 2 minutes, and on, and on, and on...

We got back to the parking lot early and Sam had to take off, so we were trying to decide what to do. Suddenly Amy, a quick Richmond gal, said she was going to go off and do another lap. I wanted in, so I jumped on the train and all of a sudden every one else left in our group jumped on. She was fast but the cool thing was that she didn't seem to like standing around and waiting. My kinda rider ;) Before we knew it the group was split into 3 and everyone that was able to keep up with her was grinning ear to ear for picking up the pace.

We wrapped it up and headed to DT's college-favorite bar of BW3. I've never been to one before but it was a huge, clean, Buffalo wing place that was lined to the gills with TVs showing all the college football games. Crazier still, there were tv monitors above every stall in the bathroom, so you don't miss that all important throw from Joe Collegesuperstar. Food was good.

An hour and a half later, the six of us headed down to meet the rest of the Richmond MORE crew for some riding at the second event: Buttermilk. Apparently it's the gem of the riding in Richmond, and I was impressed. High up on the side of the James (?) River are trails that undulate up and down and side to side over many rocky and rooty sections. The added thrill to this ride is for most of it you are on the edge of at least a 50 foot drop, so you can't be too sloppy or it's curtains for you. In fact, some of the guys told us a story about one guy who got tired going up one of the super-steep uphills, fell backwards, rolled off the side and plunged into a bunch of rocks. He didn't survive.

It didn't seem that long, but that ol' hateful thing came up again: waiting around and talking.

Don't get me wrong, there are rides that I don't mind waiting around and talking, but I usually have to have it in my head before the ride. Usually I just want to get out there and hammer, and this second ride put a damper on the whole Epic. It seemed like we were waiting even longer compared to the riding. Ride two minutes, wait four. The day started to drag, and nothing wears me down faster than this type of pace.

We wrapped up this ride, and at the end I found out Butch fell in some stankass bog pit. He only brought one jersey and shorts, so wasn't too enthusiastic about finishing up the day's third ride at what I think was Powhite? I was draggin' and afraid that the last ride would continue the trend of even more waiting than riding, coupled with the incoming rain, and I was just not looking forward to a freezing disappointing ride. We said our goodbyes and split for home.

It rained hard 20 miles north of Richmond on our way back, so we didn't feel so bad for our decision. I've come to hear that the weather held up down in Richmond for the last ride, but oh well, I'll just have to come back some other time.

Final thoughts about the trails? Poor Farm is fun, fast and twisty, however it has way too many intersections in some parts. It's really easy to get lost and double back. Buttermilk is steep, rocky, and scary in some parts when it's wet. I wouldn't recommend anyone that isn't comfortable with heights to ride that system, or at least for them to take it chill. However, I liked it a lot and if I ever venture down to Richmond and have some free time, this is where I'll spend it.

Ahhhhh...

The ride at Wakefield last night was a good one. Even though we've been corralled to half our trails, Larry led five of us through them woods at a good pace, with good flow. A couple of people bitched a little that it was too fast, but I think they were just trying to give him a hard time. I need more rides like that.

Afterwards Pete asked some of us if we wanted to help out with his pics. After confirming that it didn't require removal of any of our lycra, JoeP, Jason, and I followed him to the new trail to goof off. Here are some of the results.

My ol' teammate and tempter DT put a bug in my ear (see below) about riding the fixie. I went to the basement thinking about it, wondering how much stuff I have to put together to get it running. After getting there, I realized I took off the brake to put on the Crosscheck, and the lever went to the EWR. Worse yet, the bottom bracket and crank went on the EWR also. So if I want to get it running, I'll have to disable two other bikes. I'm too lazy right now and I have other things to do. Looks like you're on your own, mang!

The weather looks ominous outside, so I don't know how ugly things are going to get before tomorrow. Hopefully it still remains rideable in Richmond, but I'll bring my fender just in case.

It's official

My Chester Ute (pictured in the background) is the bestest bike I've ever owned? Why am I saying this out of the blue? Because I've spent three solid weeks on other bikes, and my back always ends up hurting.

The EWR is fun for hopping, but I find it's too stiff for long rides and it's stout steel frames jackhammer vibrations up my spine. The long and low position I used on the Crosscheck (for the C&O trip) has its purpose, but I don't really dig it being that stretched out.

I was just wondering which bike I should take on the Richmond Epic Ride this weekend. I really wanted to take the EWR because it's new (to me) and I want to get used to it, but since the Epic Ride is an all day thing, I'd be as sore as a Bonobos monkey after a few hours in the saddle.

I also considered taking my Yo Eddy, but I haven't been to many (if any) of these places and I'm just not down with riding fixie this weekend.

Nothing beats the way that the Matt Chester disappears underneath me. It's smooth like buttah, and it's handling is just the way I like it. I've never doubted it, but taking a few weeks off that bike has let me appreciate it even more.

Anyways, enough inanimate object gushing. I've caught up with work after staying late last night, so a little of the pressure is off me. Clients look at our stuff next week, and if we hit the nail on the head, then it'll be busy time as we assembly line the rest of the project.

Another good note about mi casa. Wifey and I have been getting more furniture. We're not at the point where guests don't have to bring their own seats if they don't want to sit on the floor, but now they won't have to sit on books because we got some modular style Ikea shelving. No more tiptoeing through all our crap on the ground. Feel free to shuffle your feet! We also got a huge Ikea dining room table (seats 10-12, egad!) because it looked decent enough and was on sale for 1/3rd off. Uhhh, no seating though.

Why all the Ikea stuff? One: it's five miles from our house, two: it's cheap(er), three: we're getting tired of having all our stuff scattered on the ground.

When we're all done we should have a furniture party!

Turtle

So yesterday I get a little tired of doing all the domestic things and have to sneak out for a ride. I ride down to the mile long ribbon of singletrack a couple of blocks from my house to play around. I put on my Sidis that have good cleats, paying no mind to the fact that I tightened my pedals retention to hold the cleats on my worn Carnacs better. Needless to say, once the Sidis locked into the pedals, it felt like you needed a key to release them.

No matter, it was getting late and I was too lazy to loosen them up. I get to the woods and play/ hop around on the logs. I get loopy trying to hop onto a 2' tall log, lose my balance, and WHAM fall straight on my back on top of some other logs. I lie there for a minute, laughing, still locked into my pedals, when the pain starts creeping in. Ouch. My lower back's sore again, after almost recovering from last weekend's C&O ride. No crashes then, but I'm not used to being in the aero position for so long.

Lesson learned? Lube yer cleats.

Back to reality

Here I sit getting ready for work after three days on the bike. The weather cooperated, the company was great, and the bike didn't make a chirp. About the only thing that blundered was the panniers. I got the REI Traverse panniers a couple of days before the trip and I didn't try them out first. If I had to describe them in a word, it would be "f##ked". It seems like they were designed only for smooth roads because every time I hit a little bump, the clips would come right off the rack and the whole bag would only sit halfway on, dangling in the wind. This really screwed the first day up.

Erin not only had REI panniers on the back, but had front loaders as well, and all the REI panniers have the same extremely stupid clip system. He had a major crash because on a downhill one of the front ones dislodged, went under his front tire, and caused him to flip over. It's surprising because he had the most stuff this weekend, and it took a lot to flip that much weight face forward.

Anyways, it was crisp all three days and I got a chance to try out two 100% Merino wool tops, which I used as base layers. I wore my new DeVold zip T-neck on the first two days and it was perfect. It is an excellent multi-day bike top because it stayed warm and comfortable and didn't skunk up the camp when we got there. I'd change into my Smartwool top (which debuted this weekend as well), and even though it was built differently, it worked great as well. If I had to choose between the two, I like the DeVold because it seems like it is better engineered for sports and active use with its unique weaving and construction. The Smartwool is thinner and would fit perfectly under a tight jersey because of its lack of bulk.

Time to get to work, but I'll provide stories and pics later.

Three days of riding

30 more hours and I'll be in Cumberland. This town is the location of the beginning of the C&O canal, and 10 buddies and I are going to pay a big van to drive us up from Georgetown to Cumberland so that we can ride our bikes down the 180+ miles back to DC.

I've done it once before, and even though the trails were a little boring, the company was good, so it was enjoyable.

Round two of this trip, and I still can't remember what I brought the first time. I'm going to try to pack as light as possible, but with the rain that just came down, I'm hoping that it stays dry for the weekend. However, it means bringing a few extra things just so that I'm ready for whatever Ma Nature wants to throw at us.

Because I will be using wool tops, this helps with the minimalism because the stuff don't stink too easily. With a couple days of use of any of the synthetics, you pretty much smell like hell after just one day's use. Wool naturally fights the stink, so I can wear the stuff for multiple days.

Anyways, I'm feeling a little raggedy around the edges, so I'm turning in early. Thirteen past midnight? I must be getting old.

Who now?

Zookeeper: 9540

So here we are waiting for the media to release the news for who the next bumbling fool will be that will run the country, and to be frank, I could care less. I hate politics. I know as a citizen of this country that I should care, but I hate how no one that is in office can ever do right. Do one thing, piss off one side. Don't do the thing that your constituents want, piss off your own side. Do nothing, piss every one off. Anyways enough mindless blabber about politics from me.

I led a ride at the Rose today and 6 people, including me, showed up. It was pitch black when it started and felt a little weird because there are no lights at the park. There were 3 regulars and two new guys that showed up. I never know how to start off a ride, so I always take off like a bat at the start. The first newbie (to our group) shadowed me the whole way. Because there were so many leaves on the ground it was really hard to see the trail. I shot straight while the trail veered right. The first newbie blasted away and I wanted to catch him. I rode as hard as I could and I couldn't even keep his light in sight. By the time I got to the big power line hill, he was way gone.

One-third of the way through the ride he stopped, I caught up, and asked to wait for the rest of the group. I started talking to him and he said he's won some expert races. No wonder! That made me feel a little better. At least I was getting dropped by a truly fast guy, and not some middle-pack sport racer.

There were warm pockets of air through the course, and it was dry and super fast. I loved the swooping, but the leaves shot me straight off the trail a few times.

About the EWR: I'm still trying to get used to it. I put the rigid fork back on the bike, and I think it feels better than the Fox. However, the bike in general is pretty rough. My back was sore after three miles. I know I can prevent the sore back by just working out by doing sit-ups, but I'm too lazy. I want to keep riding this thing as much as I can because I want to ride it at the Punk Bike Enduro next month.