Beginnings

Even better than the more you can believe it

Yesterday I joined the MORE ride out at Catherine's Furnace. It was simply awesome. About an hour and a half from my trappings in College Park, it was worth the drive. It's up in the hills of northwestern Virginny, so there's a decent amount of climbing out there. Definitely not the sprint up and down kinda stuff we have right around us in DC. You have to work to get to the top of the mountain, and you are rewarded in kind.

I also just finished reading my buddy Chance's blog, and his sentiments about different parts of the trail are the exact opposite of mine. Where he was hating life, I was enjoying it tremendously. The sections that I liked least he probably liked most.

He's a gravity kid: big bike, big sneakers, big travel. His Santa Cruz Heckler was meant to attack the mountain at full blast, so long as it's pointing downward. My bike's travel is all self-contained. I probably get as much travel as he does - five inches - by pivoting my elbows and knees. I do take a beating when it comes to downhills, but on the uphills (that I could ride), I was having the time of my life. It's easier to lock out my suspension and I get none of that bothersome bobbing.

Laugh all you want, but maybe it's because we don't have the moderately hard fireroad climbs that go winding up for six miles, so I actually enjoy them. You stand, you pump your legs like pistons and rock the bike back and forth until you can't take it anymore, then sit down and cool off a little. After settling for a few minutes, then you stand back up and repeat.

I surprised myself when I made it up the six mile climb which greets you at the very beginning of the ride. Doubly pleased that I made it up there first. Sure, Camp, NickD, and JoeP can beat me on their worst days, but I lucked out as they waited to lead people in the right direction. I just kept chugging along because I felt great. At the top, I dare say I felt refreshed.

After the long climb, you ride along a long flat section through an interconnecting maze of double and singletrack. On this section I hit a new type of surface that I've never seen before. There are sections that are basically "crusts" that easily bust through when you put any weight on it. The tricky thing is that you can't tell where it is, or worse, how deep it is. I don't recall busting through anything deeper than about six inches, but if you aren't lucky, you get stopped a lot because your tire keeps diving into the holes.

Anyways, that'll wrap up my recount for now. All I can say is that the Catherine Furnace is a worthy destination in the DC area trails quiver.

F_king

On Sunday I went to Gambrill with JoeP. After I got to the parking lot, unloaded my bike, and hopped on for the mandatory ride around the parking lot to see if everything was ok. I pedaled and spun in place, and the bike didn't go forward. Effing ring drive of my highest-end rear hub froze up in the frigid temperatures again. Car dash temperature guage indicated 22 degrees, and it's usually right. Exasperated, I realize I have no other option and flip the wheel to the fixed gear side.

I ride fixie off road in places that are smoother: Schaeffer, Avalon, and Wakefield. I've never ridden anywhere as bumpy as Gambrill before so I'm a little apprehensive. In the end, my worry was unfounded. Fixie freeriding is extremely fun but a lot slower. I suck at judging distances, but suppose if you are riding a full suspension bike you can look ahead 50 feet. With rigid singlespeeding, you look ahead half that distance, but with fixie riding, your attention has to be a quarter of that distance. If you choose to forgo using your hand brakes, your concentration is only ten feet out. You have to time your pedals to smack the least number of rocks possible, but ratcheting is never an option. You have to either hopskid or trackskid to get your timing right -- and I did half the time. I surprised myself by how many rock gardens I made it through. The hardest thing for me that day was making it through technical uphill sections. If you trackskid, you lose momentum, then your really have to pour on the juice to make it through. However, I ain't gotta lotta juice.

One thing I noticed about fixie riding if you try to avoid using your brakes: it's really rough on the trails because of the trackskidding. Remove the first part of that word, "track", and you end up with "skidding". Primarily on downhills as you scrub some speed, you skid, you roll, skid, roll, repeat. Of course you are supposed to use your legs to power down some, but you eventually get tired on the long descents.

It never rose above 23 degrees up there. Standing around made you chilly almost immediately. Luckily, riding with JoeP, that is never a problem. At the end of the yellow loop we decided that we wanted to ride some more, but neither of us could manage another loop up there. We decided to hit Schaeffer after munching at Boston Market.

When we got to Schaeffer, it warmed up a little. I think it was in the upper twenties/ low thirties, just warm enough for my freewheel to work properly. I flipped the wheel back over because this place has a lot of logs. In my opinion, a bigger obstacle on the fixie than rock gardens. With rock gardens at Gambrill, there's a lot of loose rock around so it's easier to break the rear tire loose and position your pedals properly. Here, it's not as easy with the hardpacked soil.

Anyways, we ended up whipping out two fast laps then splitting for home back to our families. With at least three hours of riding under our belts, it's safe to say it was a good day.

Slackin

I've got about four rides in since the last entry. One in Pittsburgh, one at Gambrill, one at Greenbrier, and one at Wakefield. All were great, but the crappy overcast weather not only takes away our riding opportunities, it also removes our motivation to do ... anything.

I've said this before and many people say the same thing, "I can handle the cold and I can handle the wet, but I can't handle them together." It's not quite as bad as during the spring when everything is thawing. At least in the winter after it rains, there is a possibility that it wil freeze up. When the ground hardens up because of the cold you can still go out there without a guilty conscience.

So I still owe you a Pittsburgh experience. That'll come later. Right now I'm going for a road spin in the drizzle butI have to hurry and get back before the furniture delivery guys get here. Later.

Q

I don't know if any of you other bloggers do this, but I have at least four unfinished entries in the queue. Maybe I'm thinking about it too much, or maybe I just get bored with what I write and end up putting it on hold.

Well, no matter what god you serve, I hope you have a good time in the next few weeks. I won't be spending much time on the bike, but shoot me an e-mail if you want to get together. If I'm not painting, fixing the house, moving furniture around, or otherwise sleeping, I'll try to make it out. Take care!

Punk Bike Enduro

I did the Enduro yesterday, and as expected because of the bad weather that passed through Pitt in the previous week, trail conditions were really bad. Imagine the nastiest, sloppiest, muddiest trails, slightly above freezing. That was our playground for the day.

I'll write up more later...

Mutinyman melts again...

Last Friday when I picked up my car after having the clutch, the timing belt and the head gasket replaced on my Subaru Outback, something didn't feel quite right. As I tried to drive out of the parking lot, it was a lot easier to push the clutch down, but the friction point was almost at the bottom. I promptly stalled. I don't know much about cars, so I figured that it was something with new clutches that I had to get used to.

On the way to the REI down the road from the dealership, it was cold and drizzling, so my windows fogged up. No problem, just turn on the air conditioning to dehumidify the windows and get rid of the fog. It didn't work. I put it on full blast, and still no results. Then I noticed it wasn't even getting cold.

I also noticed that there was a ticking noise coming from the engine, and I could smell something else burning. It was close to closing at the dealership, so there wasn't much I could do and figured I'd call them in the morning, after the VO2 thing.

I drop off my car Saturday afternoon and explain everything I found. They send me off for my free loaner car after telling me they'll call me on Monday.

So I talk to mechanic rep today and now they're telling me two things:

1. my air conditioning compressor has locked up and needs to be replaced. Parts and labor will set me back $675. I sigh in disbelief.
2. my master and slave cylinders will have to be replaced. This is a separate thing from the clutch replacement, so it will be $400-$500. I almost fall flat.
   

I can't believe the grief all this recent car repair work has given me. I let them know that they'll be hearing from my insurance again. I call up GEICO, we discuss stuff, then we get that same mech representative on the phone, and they discuss stuff as I listen (and get hopelessly lost in their car mumbo jumbo talk).

The mech rep hangs up and the GEICO person tells me the bottom line. The worst case scenario is that I'll have to pay $500 out of pocket because they're two separate items/repairs. However, there is a chance I'll only have to pay for the AC because the other clutch thing might be covered under the clutch work they did on Friday. Either way, this is a major blow.

I'm fairly certain that the next car I buy will either be a Toyota or a Honda. I don't recall any of my relatives or friends that own them ever having so many problems. I like what the Outback gives me, except for the recurring repair costs. Cars truly suck.

Big expectations

Last year I made a name for myself as I stripped down for a downhill leg of the Punk Bike Enduro. There was six inches of snow on the ground, and it was a biting twenty degrees. Inexplicably, I took off my tights, wool jersey, and liners, and wrecklessly whooped it up down the hill. Must've been the two beers.

Well, this year's Enduro is in eleven hours, and I feel like I need to do something to top it. However, hear it from me first, I'm not. My buddy SteveH and I are driving up tomorrow and it will be all about having fun but I ain't taking off my clothes this time. I'll save the silliness for the Single Speed World Championships next August.

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VO2 and my suckitude

It's official. I suck. Wind. A lot. And can't transform it into power very efficiently.

This morning I did my first ever VO2 max test at Fitness Concepts. JoeP was up at the plate before me, Foley was immediately after, and big Lee was last in the lineup. They got to sit around and heckle me as I whithered into a sweaty blob.

Having never done this before, I didn't really know what to expect. Yeah, I've heard how it's done, but I didn't think it would be so hard. You get on a trainer that is attached to a computer that measures your speed and other things. At the same time, you are wearing a mask that covers your nose and mouth. Attached to the mask is a mouthpiece that has hoses that go into a carbon dioxide analyzer. This thing is also attached to the same computer.

I know it's wrong to demonize a computer, but this laptop was out to do me wrong. As I pushed on the pedals harder, it ramped up the resistance. I fought back and bumped up my effort, and in defiance the computer just told me to shaddup. We fought for a little over thirteen minutes before I had enough.

I got my results and I found out I was outstandingly...normal. I'm in the "good" range according to one chart I saw, so now every time I get whupped up on the trail, I can say, "Yo, I'm just good. You must be grrrrreat!"

Hurl was right

You're born, then you die. Somewhere in between you do stuff. If you live in America, you need some way to get to this stuff. It's a big country after all, and to see it in one lifetime, you need something faster than hoofing.

I bet you 95% of us outside of New York City choose cars. It's easy to hate them because all the problems they bring to the world: wars, famine, poverty. Yup, all three of things go on in my head when I think about cars.

Five years ago I got my first full-time job that payed enough for me to move out of my parent's house. A year later, I bought my first completely new car. Up until that point I had at least six cars that I could call my own. However, they always commited suicide, probably because they didn't want to live with me. I treated them dirt poor, never taking care of them or cleaning them, and I can count the number of times I changed the oil on all six cars with one hand. It never took them long to refuse to move from the driveway of my parents' house, and every last one of them had to be towed away.

Stupid as I was, I always blamed their demise on the fact that they weren't new. That may have been the case for one or two of them, but I definitely could have prolonged the lives of the rest of them by simply changing their lubricants and fluids. So with this poor train of thought, I decided if a car was going to last more than a year and half under me, it had to start off with a clean slate. That meant buying a new car.

After a year of working, I decided to buy a Subaru Outback. I dug the way it looked, its large capacity, but most of all, its ability to get through snow. I've been stuck in the snow a few times and I've seen plenty of accidents, and even though I was lucky enough to ne'er be in one, I wanted to limit the possibility as much as possible.

So its got this awesome all wheel drive all-the-time action going on, which is a lot more complicated than the average car. I don't really understand the mechanics of a car, but I do know one thing: complexity begets complexity. With all the whiz-bang things going on down there, there are more parts to go wrong. And recently, wrong it went.

I had a some engine "flaring" when I was on the highway. Flaring is when the engine revs up when you push on the gas, but the car doesn't correspondingly respond. So when I took it to the dealer a few days ago to get the oil changed, I asked them to take a look at the clutch, and by the by, check out why there's a sweet burning smell.

I get a call a few hours later saying that I needed to get my head gasket replaced in my engine. Luckily, it was covered under warranty. The mech then said that I needed to get my clutch replaced. I asked how much, and he responded - in my "by the by" tone - $1800.

WHAT THE F#CK!!!! There goes my Matt Chester Mutiny frame. It's my dream frame that just happens to cost $1800 as well. How ironic -- no -- how shitty. I told the mech to hold off because there was no way I could afford it.

I got on the phone with my bro (who knows a thing or two about cars) and asked how much it typically cost to replace a clutch. At the same time I was furiously typing away an e-mail pleading for info from all my buddies to see if they knew any good mechanics that work on Subaru or Japanese cars.

After telling me that a clutch replacement typically costs $400-500, my brother had the same reaction as me when I told him the estimate for my clutch: "$1800!? WTF?!"

"Same thing I said, bro."

I got a bunch of good responses back from the e-mail, but my buddy Erin's advice turned out to be a godsend. "Just ask your insurance if you're covered."

I call them up, we conference call the mechanic, and after fifteen minutes of talking things out, the GEICO guy says that they'll pay for it. I just have to pay the deductible of $250. Well, daaaaaaaaaaaamn.

My heart jumps back in my chest, and that vision of the melting Mutinyman starts reforming in my head.

Not my weakness

Kryptonite gets two snaps from me. I think that's a good thing. I just got back two U-locks that they replaced for my 7 and 8 year-old ones, for free! It takes a mighty good company to acknowledge that their engineering is outdated, then pay for shipping to and fro your place, while giving you a brand new replacement lock, all on their tab. Without a doubt, this cost them a bundle, but they have a lifelong customer in me.

A neat thing that I found out last night is that the newest version of Mozilla Thunderbird (which I use to read my e-mail) now has the ability to read RSS. That means I don't have to click through the browser to see if any of my pals have written anything new in their blog. I can just open Thunderbird, and their entries are in my inbox. This is good news for a slacker like me.

Putt putt fizzle fizzle slow slow

As far as riding goes this week, it sucked. Ma Nature didn't want us kids out on the trails, so she decided to let it rain and be cold for most of the week. Even those that were able to make it to the trails yesterday reported that it was the worst that some of them have seen in recent memory.

We'll get plenty more of these weeks this winter that seem to just drag on because there's no riding allowed. So I guess I'm forced to spend time on the Cross Check because little gears onthe road sucks. I've already stripped the Canal rider of its rack, brakes, and Dirt Drops. Back on were el mustachio bars, which I regretfully cut short. Brakes stay off for now until I can find a replacement brake lever. I guess I always have the option of jamming my foot between the the front tire and crown if I have to make an emergency stop...

Wifey, her family, cousins, and I are headed for Solomon's Island tonight and won't be back until Sunday. I'm definitely bringing my bike so I can stretch my legs a little. I'll probably bring the fixie to make things more interesting.

Next weekend I am taking a lactate threshold test to see if I'm fooling myself that I can get any stronger. Later that day, I'm splitting to Pittsburgh for the Dirt Rag's Punk Bike Enduro, which should be tons-o-fun. Anyone else making it up there? Hit me up in the comments section below.

Whoosh

Yesterday I went out for the Wakefield ride and JoeP was the only one there. I guess the cold has scared most of the people off to the comfort of their home in front of the fireplace. No big deal, Wakefield's too small anyways. Less people equals less traffic jams.

Billy pulled in five minutes after I got there so now we had a threesome. Saddled up soon after, and we were off. The trails were still a little damp and muddy in many spots, and it kinda sucked. Joe was going at his usual spritely pace which I dug, but Billy was having issues with his bike so we kept dropping him. Either he didn't like the pace we were doing or just didn't feel good, so he split off when we went to the bowl.

I led on that side, and after a few staccato starts, I got into a rhythm. I tried to push harder as we wound our way up and down the hillside because I had a feeling I was going too slow for Joe. Not surprisingly, he was right behind me the whole time. I kept taking the correct turns at a fast pace, so we didn't duplicate any trails. Also, the leaves are starting to give way to the trail as the traffic pushes them aside so it's become more difficult to get lost.

For a few minutes in the ducking and diving between the trees I achieved that highest state of mountain biking: flow. You've got all the pedal strokes timed right, you float over the trail, and everything whooshes in front of you and disappears in your periphery: flow. If you aren't getting flow on your rides, you need to push harder, dive deeper, and jump higher. It's why I've been addicted to mountain biking for the last thirteen years. I'm a flow junkie and I'm not giving it up any time soon.