recovery

Well, its the time of year to ease up a bit and refresh for next season. As a result I'll be cutting back on my riding and writing. From now until things ramp up for next season I'll be down to one post a week. I'm sure that my legions of fans (or based on the hit counts about 5) will be ok in my absence. I do promise to put a bit more effort into my once-a-week posts now as well so what I'll lack in quantity, I'll more than make up for in quality (hopefully).

Had a very nice 1.5 hr ride yesterday with the pooch on the trails in Damariscotta. Some of the new trail that I've been working on a bit this summer is finally coming along and becoming very rideable and fun. Now that I've had a chance to ride it some myself I see a couple of changes that need to be made to make it flow better but overall its looking pretty good. I also scoped out an area for a new section of trail that should be pretty sweet. Its in a stand of mature pine trees with a little bit of undergrowth and lots of exposed ledge "spines" to route over for fun. I'm going to try to clear it out this fall so it'll be good to go for next year. Just hope that I don't get shot by a hunter in the process.

riding with pops

On Saturday my father's stock car race was rained out so I took the opportunity to sneak a mountain bike ride in. Marcy and I loaded up the fam and headed to my parents house so that I could ride on the park trails that are behind my parents place and so that Chance could run and pee with Pete, my parents dog. As I was getting ready to go I was suprised when my dad said that he wanted to go to. Little background here, my father just got a real mountain bike last summer. This is the first bike that he's owned since he was knee high to a grass hopper. Since getting the bike he has been getting out for a grand total of about 4-5 times a summer. For these reasons I was very suprised when he expressed interest in going. We live in the northeast and we have been getting buckets of rain recently so the trails (actually old dirt roads) were bound to be very wet and it was actually raining when we were getting ready. None the less he seemed excited to go so I was happy to oblidge. I obviously can't ride as fast as usual when he comes but thats ok cause I find bike rides a good way to catch up and enjoy each others company without one of us feeling the need to carry the conversation. Anyway, we got out for a very wet but not so muddy 1:15, chatted a bit and got some exercise. It was a good time and hopefully we'll get a chance to go out again before the snow falls.

grocery getter

Took this bad boy to the grocery store this weekend. It was actually quite fun pulling it behind the single speed. Brynna is still too young to ride in it for now so I figured I might as well get used to hauling it around. Its actually much narrower than I expected. Every time I got close to the edge of the pavement and expected the right wheel to drop off of the edge it was actually several inches from edge when I looked back. Maybe when summer rolls around I'll be able to take it on some of the wider trails around here. I might need some disc brakes for some of the downhills though.

grocery list:
1/2 gallon cookie dough ice cream
gallon milk
fifth vodka
cranberry juice
lime juice
tortilla chips

turned out to be a good night.

cyclocross

Well, cyclocross season startes in maine this weekend with the first race in the Verge series. I'm hoping to get over there to see some of the action but I'm not sure of the game plan yet. My daddy-o has his final stock car race of the season tomorrow as well and I'll be going to that if the weather cooperates but from the looks of it it'll be dumping buckets on us so I'll probably end up at the cx race instead. I hear that cx and rain = good times. We'll see.

The finished product

enter the information age

holly crap! I'm posting right now wirelessly from a wi-fi that I logged onto about a mile down the road from my house. Before yesterday we didn't even have e-mail access in our house and now all of a sudden we're connecting wirelessly. It must be pretty easy to do if this techno weenie can do it. Damn, I think that I'm going to get a nose bleed from my sudden rise in self importance. Dude I'm cool.

Cross training.

No time for training so I lift heavy stuff instead.


450 lbs of love

In place. Ugh, my back hurts.

This sucker just about broke my back and nearly pulled the skin off of my office boy hands. Its completely installed now so I'll have to post that pic. It should be a big help this winter with they way that oil prices are. Of course when you figure in how much this biznatch cost me it'll probably take about 10 years to pay for it. It'll be mighty purty though.

I've also been trying to run with the dog every morning if I can drag my ass out of bed at 5 am. Sometimes thats tough though when Brynna keeps me up to 12-1 am some nights.

The final exercise that really gets the burn going is to do walking lunges while trying to soothe the baby. They work to calm Brynna down and lunges always kick my ass. A couple of trips the length of the house is about all it takes and I'm crying more than she is.

hit the trails

Still no riding recently. The little bambino just won't allow it but I have found a way to get in some trail time none the less. We purchased a snuggli pack so that we can carry Brynna will going about our business and keeping our hands free. So, what I've started doing is after work I'll load up the car with Brynna, and chancy pants, drive over to the start of the trail down the road from the house, let the pooch run free and brynna and I will do some trail work. Its a very new section of trail that needs lots of raking/general clearing plus I'm putting in a few more routes to lengthen it a bit as well. Its not exactly riding but at least I know that its improving the trails for when I do get out plus I'm getting a bit of exercise and spending some time with Brynna. Plus it allows Marcy some free time to do as she pleases. All is good.

unusual site

Got back from my almost daily pilgrimage to the store this a.m. and what did I see on the back porch of the office??? A track bike leaning against the railing! I couldn't f'in believe it. I'm out of here in one week and one of the new hires is actually a rider. Damn my luck. Oh well, maybe he'll let me tool around on it a little bit before I leave.

Season wrap up.

On Sunday the Maine Mountain Bike Association held their awards ceremony. In what has now become tradition the awards banquet was preceded by a large group ride. This year it was held at Bradbury State Park. As I've mentioned before, Bradbury has been busy adding new single track to their already nice selection on the non-mountain side of the park. 30-40 souls showed at 10:30 to feast on some of these new trails. All in all we got in about 2:00 of riding. The group split into two rides, the "A" fast ride and the "B" less fast ride (but probably still fast considering that they were on the heels of the A ride in the beginning. One interesting thing that I noticed on the A ride was that a full 1/3 of the group was on single speed rigs and those riders tended to stay at the front of the group. Very interesting. I rode my single and did manage to stay at the front but I must admit that I got worked over pretty hard in doing so. I had all that I could do to keep the pace and did manage to eat one major dirt sammich on some of the twisty single track. I had been completely redlining to keep up with the leading rider (on a single speed of course) and in my bleary eyed state grabbed a bit too much front brake coming into a hard right hand turn. I did manage to do a nifty shoulder roll when I hit the ground and thus avoiding any horrendous injuries so all is good.

Immediately after the group ride (and a bit of cleaning up) it was off to Thatcher's for awards and beer. There was a good turnout for the awards portion as well with all of the available seating spoken for. After about 50 door prizes were handed out (I nabbed two) awards and thanks were given. The category awards this year consisted of a small marble award about the size of a playing card and a custom embroidered winter hat with Maine Mountain Bike Association along the edge. Pretty cool but a bit on the large side. The hat fits my bulbous melon quite well but I feel bad for anybody with a normal size head. Oh well, thems the breaks.

Thar she blows!

Good god, I just had my first simultaneous double take/shudder of the day. Went down to F&B this morning to get some breakfast and just about lost my appetite when I saw the fine specimen at the front register. I don't believe that I've seen that much facial hair on a woman EVER! I'm not talking about a little bit-o hair lip either, I'm talking about "bust out the weed wacker cause you're one step from Chewbacca" lip. Egad, I almost had to put my croissant back. Ick.