Schnooze; Miscalculate; To the Doggo Go the Spoils

So CK calls at 10-ish — "want to go for a paddle?"

Not a bad idea, except it's 30F outside — a little below freezing, and there's ice drifts on the bay.

This would definitely mean wrestling with a drysuit...plus the wind is supposed to be 8-13 out of the North. So we're talking a wind chill of minus-fuhgeddaboudit!

Fine for windsurfing maybe (if it was a 10mph windier) then we wouldn't give a rat's pahtootahy about the wind chill, but paddleboarding in 30 F — the water better be flat.  

LUMBERJACKITIS

On top of that I discover that movement is not coming to quick. Yesterday's log-splitting mini-marathon had taken a toll. And there was the prospect of amore of the same, except involving moving bigger logs at Grand Nanny's.

It did not materialize. The tree fellers took all the wood back to the house next door--from whence the tree was felled.

No matter, for a bit if exercise, surely I could ride the MTB on local roads, up the hill, to the same trail as last week, and back?

First, however, K-dog should have his walk. He deserved every inch of pavement and treeline explored. But the further we ventured down Sandy Hollow, the more I noticed patches of snow that had melted and refrozen into black ice. This was not a good recipe for cycling anything without studded tires.

Ah well, best option is to continue the dog walk and get in a nice hill or two. Up Shell Road the silence was a delight to listen to. So quiet in every nuance of soundless winter tranquility. This is most unusual. It bears stopping and listening to in every whispered detail of distant birdsong or far, far away indistinct background murmur.

Kodog, meanwhile, sniffed on. The treeline above the valley is always an encyclopedia of raccoon scents, a canine olfactory treat and reward for climbing the small but steep hill. We took our time and returned home to more of the same quietude. I stopped to listen to it some more, until some neighbors pulled up in their car, breaking the moment and my gaze into the sky. I would definitely not startup the chainsaw today. Too beautifully calm to disturb.

Gimme Shelter ... in the Trees and Hills

With what feels like a broken(?)finger, but is most likely a hyperextended knuckle/partly torn finger tendon, windsurfing was out of the question.

Poor timing since it was windy and sunny as you'll get for mid-January.

A clearing cold front swept in while I got the bike prepped and the dog walked. And by 2:30, the afternoon wind was blasting bark off the trees with 40 mph-plus gusts, so a standard roadbike ride was not a great or even safe idea for playing in traffic. Let alone anyone's idea of fun.

For sure today was the day to take a ride in the shelter of the hills and trees. If I was going to be slow, it might as well be where I'm going to be slow anyway: Uphill. A perfect bike hill climbing day. And with limited time available, I'll use the hills and wooded section near home.

This particular hill had been calling for a while. It's a good mile of Cat 5 and it always a fitness challenge. And it leads to yet more hills, and a repeatable off-road section of singletrack and fireroad that's perfect for an MTB.

A small piece of what is a long and winding climb

The spin up definitely got the lungs filled and the heart pumping. And a few odd aches and pains surfaced, but by the time the ride was well underway, those pains receded and the final grind up Irma came more easily than ever.

The trail was firm and dry — except where Matt and his scout troop laid new wood chips, turning it into a purgatorial mushy fireroad climb. But the climb back up might as well be difficult or what's the point?

Some of the technical tree root sections were rearranged courtesy of Hurricane Sandy, but there are still some interesting details in there. It ends with a real fast outlet, and a steep sledding hill where, today, the wind was so strong in my face, it held me up on what is normally a somewhat hairy drop.

Well put that one in the books as a viable option for a blustery day, and a good excuse to go up hills at one's own pace. The slow speed — it was the wind, I tell ya!

White Knuckle Sailing

Pete Roesch, getting it done at Gilgo Beach on Jan 19. Even on a 47F day, sailing in the ocean in January is tough sledding with all that neoprene between one's hands and the booms. I'm sure Pete's hands are so used to it by now with all the sailing he's been doing, but usually by the second jibe on the outside, my hands are screaming in pain — not from cold, but from the thickness of the gloves and how it kills your grip. A lot if it's down to the the first runs. Having the boom height right, the harness lines in the right spot. Everything dialed for the conditions, and complete faith in your 12 year old mast, booms and universal joint ... erm I meant new wave gear. That's when you have to know when you're going to be past the point of "it's all I can do to hang on in a waterstart or a jibe recovery to get back." You don't want the lst run of the day to be the last run.
Right now, I've got something badly wrong with my right hand — hyperextended it a couple of weeks ago and the tendon that operates that finger in the palm is swollen through to the first two knuckles, so windsurfing in neo gloves is OTQ. But this is a good look at what it looks like. Except that Pete makes most of his outside jibe, while I swim with the fishes resetting as the waves wrestle the rig in the other direction, 1/3 mile offshore trying to stay calm.

When is a calorie not just a calorie?

In the various fora that I belong to, a lot of folk are on various quests to lose weight. I've been pursuing one myself for years, and it's been a real roller-coaster ride, and all I can say is I'm down 20# from my high on Thanksgiving 2006.

But there were times I nearly gained it all back.

Sure, I count calories in and calories out, these days using an App called Lose It , but working with a nutritionist last year helped me fine tune things a little better, and to keep me on the right track.

Here's a little more research, that I find I often refer folk to who are interested, not just in counting calories, but also in what they are eating and how it affects their ability to lose weight.

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/06/when-a-calorie-is-not-just-a-calorie/

May not be truly cold yet, but ...

Fox's MTB jacket shell has removable
sleeves andexcellent pit ventilation.
Otherwise it's a real condensation
collector (does not breathe).
Note to self: I really have to do
something about that right
 shifter and the bar tape job. 

@roadbikereview: Pro Tips: Jeremy Powers on Riding in the Cold:

Jeremy Powers knows a little something about riding in the cold. ...

bit.ly/102ae4P

    -- shared via UberSocial http://ubersocial.com

Not sure I'm quite ready for sub-30 temps, and Rapha gear is not an option, but the link above is for those thinking about riding in colder weather.

When it gets that cold, the trail firms up, the mud freezes over, and it's less frigid among the trees. And the road bike will give way to the mountain bike.

Glowing in the Gloamin

L.I. Sound's North Shore in the last of sunday's glowing tranquility.
The smallest dots on the water are possibly the luckiest this afternoon
 — ducks. No freezing rain, no wind, no waves for them to battle today.

Sands Point delivered a Wordsworthian Lake District moment this afternoon — somethin g right our of my favorite poem, "The Prelude."

But in a matter of seconds, a thick purple-gray fog cancelled out everything visible on the north side of the Sound, save the chimney of the old prison on Hart Island.  One other shorter navigational tower pierced a thickening haze that threatened to roll its darkening ghoulish mass southeast across the water, up the beach and into every crevice of remaining light on the North Shore of Long Island.

Manhattan was obscured in the fog, whether its residents knew it or not ;).

But here, for a moment, the sun tried to penetrate the clouds, tried to illuminate the serenity that, however briefly, had turned this considerable body of water into a pond fit for ducks, small fish, and all sorts of tame critters of land, sea and air.

As my friend Cory would say, "Niiiice."

--
--
I wished I'd had my Nikon for this but at least the LG 670 phone got the first photo. By the time the fog rolled in in its spectral ghostliness, I was already picking up speed for the sprint up Vanderbilt. I have a 5th place "KOM" there I need to improve on ;)

Talking about KOMs (King of the Mountains) I nearly ran into Rich Simons on the way home. Rich was out for a fitness update too, taking a run down toward the point. And since I was wearing my full cycling "battle rattle" he was probably a little surprised to be greeted by such a strange looking begoggled bikerider. My choice of eyewear — too keep the winter winds out, it a wee bit on the Charles Lindbergh end of the spectrum.

New Is Nice ... Worn, Used and Appreciated—Even Better

Bright, shiny and new; sure that's nice. But few things give me the satisfaction of a piece of clothing, a tool or some device that got worn and used over many years doing its appointed job, bringing value in the process, and coming out the end looking like they did.

I've got a few pieces of clothes like that. They fit perfectly, they were worn often, they lasted years—or were coaxed into lasting longer than they should, and they show the story of their lives to those who can read the threads.

Few photos exist of my old Axxis 260 LTD, this is one
from the secret spot that used to be, at the end of
Ariel Ct. in Sands Point, NY ... now developed into a
cul-de-sac of exclusive beachfront homes.

It's even better if you took a gamble on them, paid a few bucks (or quid, or euros) more, and they delivered what you'd hoped and more.

I guess a few photos would be in order. And a few stories. Maybe one at a time.

Since many who stop by these pages are windsurfers, I'll start with one of those items.

I've been through scads of sails by now, and upwards of a dozen boards, easily.

I stopped buying new windsurf boards years ago.

At some point some windsurfers find the quest for elusive perfection in a board for a set of conditions is sometimes met in one board, but often times it's an exercise in futility when seeking a board for a different set of conditions.

It's bittersweet when one of those rare "perfect" or almost perfect boards dies of old age.

One such that I owned was the F2 Axxis 260 LTD Xenon Edition. I bought it on one of my first trips to Cape Cod in a guy called Steve's windsurf shop near the Barnstable Road/route 28 outside of Hyannis. Back in its day it was seen as the last of the retro shapes. A wide nose, volume and mast track forward.  Slightly thinned tail.

Second board from the left. Translation: "Here then, is what a nautical Ferrari looks like."
OK, slightly overstating it maybe, but a very fun board all the same..

No board I ever owned jibed better than this 94L number. I was/am a shitty jiber, but somehow this board made it feel easy, with the width and the volume just where you needed them as you were in that trickiest stage of the transition.

Some days it planed easy. Other days it didn't want to budge. "Something's wrong with that board," said Charlie Kim, one day at ITB, when I just could not get it going. Other times, it bailed me in the impact zone of my first hairy sideshore hurricane (offshore) 7' swell off Cedar.

I rode it so much I pulled out every footstrap insert in the board.

Once I accidentally dragged it behind the car, by its nose along the road after a the 100-lb loaded  triple gorge rack flipped over the rear trunk — and the board hardly complained. The skin was like toughest rawhide...or polywhatever. Almost indestructible except for the footstrap inserts.

I beyotched about it's sometimes quirky performance in the chop — bouncy in too much wind/sail. But other times it seemed perfect even with a 4.2.

Surely must have been rider error, bad fin choice perhaps. Frank and I would say, "a little too wide in the hips," maybe but other times that was a godsend. Mostly you just had to get fin, mast track position and sail size right.

It liked to jump, though. And with an extreme amount of V in the hull, it had no issues with Hecksher chop, boat wakes and cross-chop. For a "heavy" 18lb board it was pretty fast too, for its day.

STRAPPED
I also bemoaned its lack of a center strap for waves. I tried offsetting across a bunch of inserts, but that was dangerous and very uncomfortable as the angle was "naff" on one side.

One day I will drill some fresh inserts I think.

Next ... the OO by Brian Hynde

Amazingly the board had crazy range. 6.2 wave sail to 4.2 high wind sail.  Light wind wave to Tropical Storm Bertha and every bit of Heckscher chop in between. That is until I got the other "almost perfect board", the Open Ocean ... but that's another story. In the mean time "Nice job Werner Gnigler."

Flow with the Slow

Looking at the numbers I thought, "this was impossibly slow!" I could not believe the 9.9mph/10.3mph moving average.  8.5 miles and 757ft of vert.

Oops. Got dark quickly. Good thing I
have the headlight packed and
the blinkies already on. 

But that's maybe slow is what you get when you haven't ridden in a month, after the flu/sinus, and you went to bed 2 hrs after the ball dropped in Times Square, and that sinus was acting up a little, again.

After fixing a flat to begin the session, and counseling the dog "to be patient" and that his "turn would come," I finally set off, with 45 minutes left before sundown.

I always carry a camelback with the heavy light battery if it's near to dark,  necessarium to repair and get back. The clothes for 38F riding ("realfeel" 29 in the wind) were scattered in the van and the basement. Finally the Niterider light "just in case." and finally, finally zipped the sleeves back on the Fox shell.

At this time of year, motorists are not expecting many cyclists, so I put the blinkies (blinky lights) on from the beginning.

The first major hill descent did not go well — red light and a car waiting to turn left into my path, at the very bottom/fastest part of the hill.

The bail out here is a right turn, and I took it for safety's sake, right into a grind of a 1/3 mile long 200 ft climb.  It felt like a mile. On the plus side, it's a great way to warm up early in the ride. it might kill the average speed, but the challenge is a good one.

This climb I always try to sprint as far
as possible from the fast descent that
precedes it. But a car turning left at the
bottom of the hill had killed all momentum.
Nvrmind. Better to be safe and slowdown
than risk being hit.  

Tree logs still congregated at the side of the road, leftover from Hurricane Sandy — plenty of debris to watch out for ... but I was at little risk of a wipeout at 4 mph climbing that unending slope.

But once it ends, the next mile is all downhill with a few sprintable mini-valleys.

Now the downhill, that's where you have to be careful. twigs, grit from road-sanding trucks, potholes, ruts, and a dimming winter afternoon light. 

So, on the second downhill, bearing down at warp speed on a phalanx of highly oblivious afternoon strollers, we are presented with a momentary conundrum. Thread a zipline to the far side of the road, or slow down. Slow down, of course. Just going to have to brake, that's all. No sense in freaking people out with a close-quarters 30 mph fly-by. Even if most of us don't think of 6 ft as close, at 30 mph, it's not going to be received well, and it begs the unpredictable pedestrian or a kids bike to emerge from the midst of the group. Not worth it. Besides, young kids love it when you go by, and they always call out Hi, and they really appreciate a "Howdy" and a wave back. It makes the world a little better place in a very tiny way. And you know what? those are the parts of the ride you are more likely to remember.

I just wish I had remembered to with a Happy New Year to the guy who stopped to ask if I was "alright?" when I was troubleshooting my bike light as darkness descended. I forget it takes this Niterider 20 seconds to warm up to its full H.I.D. egg-frying, white-hot brilliance.

Yes, a slow ride, but slow, going with the flow. I'd do it again, even with the effort required to get it together and drag the but out there in the cold. Now, time to spray the saline solution.