Monthly Archive for April, 2006

Rainy Weekend

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on April 24, 2006
in Bikes, Brewing, Dirt and Life
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Well plans to race Poor Farm or even Michaux, which I wasn’t planning on doing, were squashed.  After spending most of Saturday standing around in the rain at Schaeffer Farms helping out with the City Bikes Demo Day, there was no real desire to waste a half a tank of gas driving to race in the mud.  Figure with the sickness finally clearing, well mostly, I still have this random cough that keeps popping up (anyone on the Wednesday night ride can attest to that), I was better served staying home and catching up with the wife.

Saturday evening, we found ourselves headed to the vet.  Turns out Busterman must have a hot spot or an allergy.  He started licking a spot on his leg and kept on going, even after he had licked a patch of fur off.  The vet hooked us with some spray, some pills, and crazy looking cone.  It’s pretty sad looking, but the Bman is taking it all in stride.  Took him a bit of time to figure out he has to go a little slower, look higher up to get on the couch/bed, and make wide turns.  Kristin took some pics here.  Ah, our little conehead.

Earlier on Saturday I made the trip up to Gaithersburg, MD for our Demo Day.  It wasn’t real wet when I got there, so after helping to setup the ez-up and pulling out the demo bikes, I pulled the pedals from the Monkey and picked out a bike to get some quick time in on the trails before the rush.  I grabbed the Moots YBB - a Ti softail with 27 gears and front Fox fork.  This bike is pretty much the opposite of anything I’ve ridden in many years.  I was joined by Ricky d., who grabbed the Moots Cinco - their full suspension Ti bike.  We took off and I just followed Ricky, as he knows where he’s going better than I do.  I pretty much only ride Schaeffer Farms when MORE does a night ride.  Anyway, the Moots YBB is a SWEET ride!  It took me a few miles to get used to the SRAM thumb shifters.  They felt as though they were in an odd position.  The only time I shifted the front chainrings was when my knee hit the thumb shifter.  Probably could have done with a 9 speed, maybe a 38 tooth ring up front.  I tried to ride as you would if you were used to having gears.  I did my best not to stand up, just switch to an easier gear, but the urge to stand and just mash was strong!  Ricky seemed to be having the same issue.  The full suspension just sucked up all his energy.  The softail really rocked though.  Just enough to take the jolt off the rear.  I assume it’s a lot like shock seatpost, although less bouncing.  I didn’t notice any bouncing, which makes sense though as there aren’t any pivots, just the Ti stays flexing.  The front Fox fork worked like a charm.  It felt odd to rail through a corner and stick the line instead of bouncing outside my initial line.  Whenever a bump jumped out, the shock soaked it up and allowed the front wheel to stay it’s course.

Having said all that good stuff about the Moots, I think it would be much better as a 9 speed and possibly making the front fork a little firmer.  Now if I only had an extra $5000 sitting around…although it does have me thinking of setting up the old Access frame as a geared bike.  Could keep it as a loaner bike and use it occaisionally to make sure I don’t “forget” how to use gears…yea it was really hard going back and using gears.  Hm, nevermind the Access is slated for a friend…if he ever gets the notion to want to ride again…not to mention I no longer own ANY geared stuff.  No going back now, ha.
Sunday found me finally pulling all the wet bike crap out of the car and into the laundry.  Then it was time for Kristin’s early birthday present, a batch of ingredients for making a nice award winning Pinot Noir.  Should be ready to try in a month or so.  Then we’ll see, maybe a spicy Shiraz next.  Next up for the day, a quick trip to the Home Depot to get some flat stone.  Couple a wood block nightstand, a metal street sign, and a flat piece of 16″x16″ brick and what do you get?  A primo stand for your wife’s new kiln, the Studio 8.  So we set everything up and hopefully she gets a test fire in soon.  Next step will be to actually setup in online store for her wares.  Later in the evening the sun actually came out strong.  I contemplated hitting the Pimmit Run trail, but decided it was better to give it another day to dry.

Ok, enough rambling about the weekend.  Back to paying the bills…stupid bills.  Music Monday will be coming out later today.  Should be a good JAM packed one!
DT

Wednesday Night Colt’s Neck Ride

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on April 20, 2006
in Bikes and Dirt
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Guess it’s official now. I’ve been leading a ride out in Reston for MORE/City Bikes for the last few weeks. Why is it for MORE and City Bikes? Well because MORE has ride leader insurance and City Bikes is a MORE sponsor, of which I’m on their team. This year City Bikes is trying a new approach to the team and part of that is having team members lead City Bikes rides. Road rides will need to leave from the shop, but dirt rides start at the trailhead…just trying to do my part you know. I’m hoping to get an MOU signed with the park so we can have official night riding, you know, with lights and everything. Right now it’s light enough that we can do one loop and still be back at the cars before sundown, but that translates only into about an hour or so of riding. As of right now there is only legal night riding on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, and all of it is contained in one park, Wakefield. I’d like to see the night riding in Fairfax County expanded since we have done so well at Wakefield and there is so many other places to ride in the area. This would give the Wakefield trails a breather and hopefully turn riders on to other area trails.

I gotta say, there’s nothing like real night riding. Ripping it hard, having your light racing to keep up with your bike, brain shutting down and letting the the body’s pure reactions take control…it’s a little slice of heaven. When it’s all said and done it makes you a much better rider for having to stay on top of things, riding fast yet keeping the bike in control, even when you’re not sure what’s around the corner. It’s exhilarating and nerve racking, all at the same time. It’s made all the better when you know the trail well and you have the opportunity to ride under a full moon. Cut the lights, push the limits, let your brain make all the connections and do all the work…just pedal.
Well this Wednesday night we added a few new people to the ride group and lost a few that usually make it out. All the numbers evened out and we still fit into the mechanical free number range. I’ve found that usually with less than 10 people on a ride there is a much greater chance that you will have a mechanical free ride…well it’s worked so far. The max we have had on this ride is 10 and we usually sit around 7. Last night 7 was the magic number.

Now Colt’s Neck is a trail I’ve ridden many a times, but so have a lot of people on the ride. All the same, it feels good to have people comment on the specific lines you take, one of the many benefits of riding my particular bike. We also had a couple of people who hadn’t ridden the extra piece to the loop that allows you to ride more dirt and less pavement. I think we are down to about 4 blocks of pavement, but if we took the carriage trail that could become pretty close to nil. I think I’ll go that route next week.

It was a good ride, but I didn’t take any pics. I didn’t even bring the camera along this time…I know the blog is majorly lacking pics lately. I’ll see what I can dig up.

DT

O-Hill Ass Whipping

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on April 18, 2006
in Bikes, Dirt and Races
. 5 Comments

This past Saturday was the beginning of the race season for me. I loaded up the car for the 2 hour 45 minute drive down to Charlottesville, VA (according to Google Maps). Of course I got out the door about 40 minutes later than I had originally planned, but I seemed to have everything in order and ready to go. I ended up pulling out a 2 hour drive time and made it there 5 minutes earlier than the noon registration cut off time. First off, it was a hot day. Not just hot, but really hot. It turned out to be the areas firsts 80° + day…it was 82° when I pulled in to the parking lot and 85° and cloudless at the start of the race. The race was delayed by a couple of hours and there wasn’t a whole lot of shade, so I just hung out around the car, drinking gatoraid, and talking with the other racers. Met some cool guys from the Lynchburg, VA area, who were jumping into the singlespeed class.

So about 2 hours after our race should have started, they let us go. Singlespeed class was the last wave to be released and we had to do 2 laps and follow the Expert signs. They seemed to really stress how well marked the course was in the prerace meeting and it was apparent they did a lot of work to mark the several different courses. Back to the race, my class only had 7 entrants and it was wide spread between newish singlespeeders and veteran old timers. The guys from Lynchburg seemed to be on the newish scale, but rocked it all the same. As it turns out I wasn’t the only fixie. Tim Richardson from Harrisonburg made it down with a couple of other Shenandoah area bike nuts. Interesting side note, Sue Haywood raced against the expert men.

The countdown is on and we take off. Out of the gate we have to climb the paved road up the trailhead. It’s the first 300 yards of the race and I’m just fighting to keep these guys in sight. Trailhead off to the right and it’s on. A nice little flat, but rocky area to regain my lungs before we head downhill. Little did I know that the little flat section was probably the last real flats I would see for the rest of the day. You see, the O-Hill course is pretty much either up or down. The downs are usually littered with roots and baby head rocks. The ups are usually steep, like when these trails were built people never heard of a switchback, ha. The course isn’t too twisty, just enough. The roots and rocks didn’t bother me at all. The roots were a little less than the rooty course at Lodi and the rocks are no where near as bad as say Gambrill, so all in all the course isn’t super technical, but it’s enough to keep you on your toes and it will throw you at a moments notice if you space out.

Up to this point I haven’t seen a cloud. I’m a good half way through the first lap and the heat is just beating me down. I only have one water bottle with a mixture of liquids in it and I’m plowing through it. I’m just not use to this kind of heat and sun this early in the year. Eventually the steep hills took their toll on me. I ended up hike-a-biking it on the really steep stuff. This of course made me take the downhills with reckless abandon. At one point I managed to take a turn somewhere that ended up cutting a piece of the course. That was pretty much it for me. The race director had specifically mentioned how well the course was marked, so I can only blame myself. I was probably looking down at the trail and just followed the most worn main trail and must have missed a side piece.

At the end of the lap I told the race director I should be DQ’d for cutting the course. I got in about 1.5 of the 2 laps needed. After the DQ I headed back to the car, relaxed a bit, and then packed up for the 2 hour drive home. Kind of sucks to DQ anytime, but a bunch of factors made it not so sucky - mostly the fact that I’m still way out of shape (I had no business on those hills, ha), the sun was giving me it all it had, and this being the first race of the year there will be plenty more chances to pull the coveted DFL.

So no bitterness here, just in the beer. I mean I was outside riding my bike on the first 85° Saturday of the year…what did you do?

Music Monday

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on April 17, 2006
in Music
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Artist: Johnny Cash
Album: The Original Best of Johnny
Song: What Do I Care
Description: Rock and Roll or Country?  Who cares.  I’m putting this song up this Monday since this is what I was listening to on the way home from Charlottesville on Saturday.  The song is simple, as most of his songs are, but it’s a song that makes you happy to be heading home to your lady…and after a day like Saturday…that’s all I needed.

Download here.

DT

Allergies Suck

Published
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on April 14, 2006
in Beer, Bikes, Brewing, Dirt, Food and Life
. 1 Comment

It’s been probably more than 12 years since I last had allergies. Well that all came to an end this past weekend and has lasted this entire week. Talk about miserable, we’re talking about it all - more snot than God ever intended man to have (gross I know), try to get rid of it and you get a bloody nose. Sinus all flaired up and itchy throat, which causes your ears to freak out…tough life, I know. I still managed to get out and lead the Wednesday night ride at Colt’s Neck, which turned out to be a really great ride. Not as much stopping as usual and we took a new option that Lee pointed out last week, only this time I took them up into the technical singletrack off the beaten doubletrack CCT. It’s off camber with a whole bunch of steep ups and downs. It only adds about 0.4 miles, but the real advantage is you get to ride on the dirt and not the pavement. The loop took about an hour, which turned out to be great timing. Turns out this Wednesday was when another one of the local homebrew clubs was having their meeting.

The WortHogs meet at the Hard Times Cafe in Herndon. We got there just in time after the ride for me to enter my beer into the extract brewing competition. Unlike the BURP meeting, everyone who attends the meeting is a judge. This is nice, because everyone gets to try the beers instead of only the certified judges getting to taste the competition beers. I had two things working against me from the start - we had just finished mountain biking, so the beer I was entering wasn’t chilled. Also there was no style guide for an American IPA (a style guide usually lists what to look for in that particular style of beer, like aroma, appearance, taste, etc.), which can probably be good and bad, ha. Anyway, I entered my beer and a group of us sat down, ordered our chili and a pitcher of the Racer 5 IPA. The homebrews we had a chance to judge varied from exceptional to beers I didn’t really want to finish the sample. The expresso Stout was truely wonderful, and at the same time, the Vanilla Stout seemed to taste a lot more like a Belgian Saison. Our table didn’t get to judge my beer…cause that might be a little unfair, ha. At the end of the night, they announced the competition winners. I walked away with a 3rd place for Hop Dog IPA (Steve get’s credit as soon as he makes me a label logo that incorpates the Busterman, ha). So I guess that makes it a blue ribbon and a bronze medal. Pretty exciting and a great end to great all around night.

Yesterday I went ahead and packaged up a couple of bottles and sent them in for the AHA NHC 2006…thats the American Homebrew Association National Homebrew Competition. Damn hobbies! Nothing left to do now, but wait to see how I do…or don’t do. Oh, and of course keep on brewing.

Anyway, with the exception of being sick and having all the pollen in the air, it’s been a pretty good week. Kristin and I have been grilling out on the barbecue a lot. There’s just something that grilling veggies on the bbq that really makes them outstanding. Instead of getting mushy, they stay crisp and yet take on the distinct smokey flavor of the bbq. Paired with some dry rubbed cod and you’re ready to go!

It’s Friday and I’m so ready for the weekend. Possibility of racing down in Charlottesville tomorrow, then Easter dinner with the extended family. If you’ve never met my family, just realize it’s a complete show. It’s usually something like 30 of us, ranging from kids to adults, throwing the smackdown on huge portions of food, catching up with each other, and taking the time to remind each that you’re still family and I can still make fun of you…

DT

Blue Ribbon!

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on April 12, 2006
in Brewing
. 4 Comments

So it’s official.  I just got an email forwarded to me by a member of the BURP listserve…my American IPA that I’ve labeled Hop Dog IPA just took home the blue ribbon for a first place in the April homebrew competition.  Pretty good start for my first competition, no?  All the results are available online, just hit up the BURP competition link and scroll down to “8 Apr”.  There were 15 entries in 13 different style categories, just to give you an idea of the competition.  Evidently I can now enter the AHA extract competition, which I have no clue about.  Pretty cool though.  I just hope I have enough of it left to enter the competitions AND have some for myself!

DT

Music Monday

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on April 10, 2006
in Music
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Artist: Fat Boys and Run DMC
Album: Both songs are from greatest hits albums
Song: Fat Boys and You Be Illin’
Description: And it’s back, Music Monday.  Tonight I’m going with a theme and that theme is near and dear to me…food.  Both are old and funky.

Download here.

DT

Updated Race Schedule

Published
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on April 7, 2006
in Bikes and Tech
. 1 Comment

So I took Gary’s suggestion and put together a little wiki action.  It’s not done yet as I’ve only had a chance to create the basic pages and have yet to decide how I want to actually add the race dates, but here it is: Race Wiki.  I moved the Excel spreadsheet to here.  If you like it, create an account and help me out.  If you hate it, well just go and download the excel spreadsheet.  Best of both worlds.

Oh yea, it rained today and I was thinking that meant no night rides tonight as the rain came down pretty hard.  But after some quick investigating, it looks like Colt’s Neck should be fine.  If you are thinking of riding, but are unsure whether the conditions are good,  check out this link: Weather Underground.  Remember, the general rule is to wait 24 hours for every inch of rain.

Also, not sure why, but the front page of the blog went to bold for some reason.  The last few posts are fine, but all the links in the sidebar and a few older posts still on this page are bolded up.  No clue.  Maybe they’ll eventually drop off the page and go back to normal, because it’s nothing inside the post and I haven’t changed anything within the CSS files.  Who knows?

DT

Not Slacking

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on April 6, 2006
in Beer, Bikes and Dirt
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Well it might look like I’ve been slacking lately, but it’s quite the opposite. My companies contract got extended, so the 80 mile roundtrip commutes continue. At least the money they *hopefully* will be giving me to cover some of the gas will end up just about covering all the money I spent fixing the car, with possibly an extra $200 to put into the rear brakes that have 5% life left…

Last week I did some riding, I want to say I rode Colt’s Neck and Wakefield, but I can’t remember. I know I got in one quick lap of the race course at Wakefield before the MORE Board of Directors meeting. 3 hours later, out of the meeting, had to put the tools back in the Wakefield tool cache and take all the new tools off of Scud’s hands and into the back of my car. Wise words from a previous Trail Boss…“You’re the Trail Boss, not Trail Bitch…make sure everyone knows that or else you’ll be burned out before the end of the first trail maitenance season.” Thanks for the advice Big L.

Saturday had me getting up super early. John-O and Spearmint dropped by the house and we all loaded up in Spearmint’s truck to make the trip up to the Frederick Watershed for SingleSpeedOutlaws Punk Bike Enduro.  I’ll be sure to get my pics and write-up sooner rather than later.

This week saw the first weekly Wednesday Night Ride at Colt’s Neck…soon to be the hottest ticket in town, ha.  Hopefully I can actually lead this thing week in, week out.  It’s dubbed as a MORE/City Bikes ride, of which I’m a member of both.  The ride went great, 6 people, no mechanicals, and Lee even taught me a new section of singletrack.  I knew it up to a point, but I never knew where it came out.  The section will now definitely be a part of our usual loop.  Ok, time to head home and see if I can crank out some PBE reportage…

DT

2006 Race Schedule

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on April 6, 2006
in Bikes
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Last year I put together a race schedule for my own use and sent it out to a few people to use and it seemed to be a pretty good local resource.  Well it took me a little longer to get around to it this year, but here we have it, DT’s 2006 Race Schedule.  I even put up a link to the Excel file, so you can download and tweak it for yourself.  Hm, maybe I should add an update date to the page so people can see if it’s been changed since their last visit.  Anyway, 2005’s Race Schedule has been moved here.  Hopefully this helps people out.  If I missed anything, just shoot me an email or leave a comment.

DT