Riding with the Squid

Burnt out as I was from yesterday's 2-3 hours of surf, and too much sun, a long ride with the Squid at 2:30 was just too good to pass up with perfect riding conditions.

One of Brookville-Muttontown's many horse farms,
and great bike riding vistas.

Being a pair of cyclists, we were well overdue for a ride together, despite the difference in our talents.

It had been years since we last took on the road together, and with Lenny's knee back in fine shape after surgery, the time was now.

So we swooped down hills and clawed our way up Long Island's nastiest slope...and it was as bad as I expected and as good.

len proves it's ok to wear a helmet.

Lots of speed. Lots of climbing and lots of potholes and some stretches of smooth ashphalt inbetween.

But the views, where Cleft Rd opened on to Beaver Lake on the south side and Oak Neck Creek on the north, were breathtaking with the September sun glistening through these always-surprising tree shrouded lakes. It looks like a mini paradise for waterfowl and a few wise fish.

A fast causeway splits them before the hills and trees close in again.

We dropped by Stehli for a visit and a little sun, before skirting Bayville and Oyster Bay.

The the Squid had a surprise up his sleeve for me: Mill Hill. Nooooo. A vertical wall of pain and torment. It did not end well, but rather on two feet. This hill is unthinkable and will require a lot more work on my part, before I conquer it. But the rest of the ride was fast and fine. A good few out of the saddle sprints sprinkled in and one more tough climb. Before we cruised down to Young's Farm.

Pick up a Pumpkin or more, if you visit the farm, and a loaf of their excellent bread. But get there between 11 and 4 on Sunday, or you'll miss the goodies on offer.

Sometimes you just gotta be there, part II

Technology, surf reports, cams, wind reports, they are great tools, but even they have their limits.
Sometimes it takes a little imagination and a willingness to go to the beach anyway.

Today, in the dentist's parking lot, the news was not good: Swell 1.6 ft; cams looking flat; wind — not even on the menu. I'm a type-A-something. I don't like to sit around during the day, not even on a beach, I prefer to be active, moving (note to self...learn to relax a bit more).

So when M got out of her appointment with the tooth fairy, I figured, "heck let's go anyway and just take a walk along the beach."

Now the beach on a sunny September day is not so bad. In fact it's glorious. Maybe a little chilly and the water definitely wetsuit-worthy, but that didn't stop a few people from taking a dip in just their swimshorts anyway.

And as we walked I noticed that out of the pervading illusion of general flatness, a small left swell was dishing up long lines of breaking 3 footers and the occasional 4+ foot wave.

Wax surfboard, action.

The 8-12 mph NE breeze was not a problem. Haven't had such a fine easy uncrowded left day in years. the main competition was the high density of fishermen, but I went to the east and things were much better there. The waves held their shape with the strength of the swell. There were even one or two 5 foot waves.

Another note to self. Ignore the cams more often* and get more quality surfing time.


*and bring the SUP and a sail just in case. I was SUP sailable, too. although challenging with a drifty side off thing going on.

More Hills, More Grinding, More Dirt — We Do this For Fun

So, a complete wind SNAFU.

Took Gordo to Oyster-Bay/Center Island, even though he was not in the mood to windsurf or surf. Mistake No. 1 You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make 'em drink!)

We get there, it's unexpectedly honking. Back home it looked merely breezy. This was not in the forecast for up here. ... And Windfinder Pro said it was 8 knots.

Eight knots my arse, more like 18.

Rough seas on the sound side, far too rough for a novice. And the bay side was directly offshore. One mistake and he'll end up on the other side, in Billy Joel's backyard. Since he doesn't tack yet, strong straight offshore winds were out of the question. I could have sailed myself, but I wasn't going to do leave him on the shore twiddling his thumbs.

"If you are down to do something else, I'm totally down to do that," he said.

Long and the short of it; we turned tail, re-geared for biking, and put in a good 1.5 hr ride, hills, trails, technical and road. It felt like more climbing than descending, if that's possible. (But what that really means is more time climbing than descending.)

For Gordo, going up long hills is an out of the saddle walk in the park. Not sure he even broke a sweat. He went up Longview like Contador but without the steroids. Me, I'm huffing and puffing. In the time I take, he can circle round 3 times and do the same hill over again. I might have a few techniques for hopping over roots and kerbs up my sleeve, but that's about it.

We had some good fun on the trail section, but the technical climb got the better of both of us. We could call an interference on Oliver a large light-colored lab/pit mix. Did not want to ride that single track while he was on it alone off the leash. But he was too cute, and was genuinely confused in search of his mistress, as the calls and yells from the soccer game down below had him turning in circles.

Surf, SUP or WindSUP?, Gilgo's Still got waves

TBH, I did not expect waves after leaving the house so late this morning. The tide is everything, and it was looking like I was going to arrive at the beach too close to high tide.

Plan A and Plan B. Turned out to be a Two-sport afternoon.

But this was one of those Saturdays after a long, fried week where you've just got to get out an do something physical to clear out the pipes.

So, I needed a plan A, a plan B and at least plan C — to ensure I did something sufficiently strenuous and worth the effort. It was one of those days that could go any which way, just a little too windy, flat water, or perfect surf, that you needed to be prepared.

It was sunny enough when I got there.

And in that spirit, I decided if there was too much wind for surfing or SUPing, I would rig a sail and SUP sail the Fanatic for the first time; if there were waves I would prone surf the 9'0" Ben Aipa, and if were no waves I would just get a good long flat water ocean SUP paddle anyway — come wind or high water.

Arriving, it didn't take long to get back into the fun, friendly ambience of Gilgo, getting into a couple of convos with complete strangers, and in both my languages.

One of the folks I spoke with was a familiar looking surfer who was finishing his session. He advised me there were still waves and the 9'0" would still be good. I took him at his word and was not disappointed.

That said, I have a lot of work to do paddling into waves in offshore wind; the bigger the wave--the more the wind up the face the harder you have to paddle. It was touch and go whether to SUP sail, but who needs uphauling in fluky wind in the surf with others around? Nobody.

If you can paddle; paddle, whether lying down or standing up.

One of those days you just surf and SUP until sunset. Crowded,
but too excellent to stop.

About 3:30 high tide killed the last waves, and I figured it would be a good time to SUP. There was a light swell running, witht he occasional set that broke to shorebreak. If you caught it right you got a ride, and kicked out in time before you got drilled.
I forgot how tricky sup can be. I find lying down surfing easier, balance is a full time issue on the SUP. When you catch a wave surfing, you're usually in trim with your feet fore/aft. Not so on a SUP. Get going on a swell and the thing just shoots off and you shoot off the back. It looks like amateur hour. But it's a great feeling all the same. I kept a contstant paddle going, round in circles and figure eights, to catch the swells.

Great paddle 2 1/2 hrs minimum — we'll see how much Advil I need tomorrow.

Ride the Cliff (no Wind, no Surf)

Maybe it had been windy after all, but
Indian calories were the order of tonight's
sunset celebration of a day well ridden. 

So … my first full weekend off in two months.

A chance to get some quality exercise time in, and today was shaping up to be a beauty of blue, sunny , perfect temperature, calm day.

Maybe a little too calm — no surf/no wind — day, from the point of view of cardio and endorphins. Sure there's light-wind sailing, but I needed to get my HR over 130 for about an hour. By that measure, it looked like a no-brainer for a bike ride.

After a tyre-inflation brain fart that led me to rupturing the inner tube stem (unlock the pump head maybe?). I decided there was not enough time to fix the road bike flat … and grabbed the MTB instead.

Down into the high-tension cable
easement for some MRB exploration.

One of the evils of Strava and Map My Ride is that riding an MTB mostly on the road looks ugly on the averages and segments and whatnot. A 30 lb MTB up a mile long Cat5 road hill is not a pretty speed combination.

But the plus side of the MTB coin is the ability to combine road and trail and even try some "backcountry urban" — unfamiliar combinations of off-routes and long-unridden roads, and places where no bike has gone in years.

THe start up Longview Hill was not going well at all, so I cut across Stratford and onto crescent, to a new steep climb up to ridge. FRom there a few sections of singletrack — the high speed descent, great for bike handling skills in the dry and gravelly trail.

7 pseudo dips at the end and then the torture side trail up and down to the lacrosse field and back up the steep technical to the road.

After the dead end,; the way out.

I could not face the steep road section back to the trail head, so I peeled right and turned the ride into an exploration of the cliff perimeter.

Brilliant idea, as it made what was old new again, and the ride turned into a 1:10 epic of hill after hill after descent after hill, and more hills, plus …

An off-piste descent into the high-tension cable easement.

That was good, but overgrown and in need of some serious machete work.

It dead-ended in bushes and a hardly used shed.

I turned around and ginned back up through the weeds, spiders' webs and stinging things.

Up through weeds, spiders and stinging itchy things.

The return was another smorgasbord of hills, steeps, 12-17 percent interludes and three fun decants including the main Schreiber trail section.

Great workout, great fun, new route. I'm almost glad I accidentally flatted my roadbike tyre.

No-paddle take off by Wingnut

And, this one's for my own reference.

You know it's possible, but you know it's kinda tricky.
Wingnut makes it look like a walk in the park.

There are no waves in New York .... KELLY SLATER AND "THAT AIR" NEW YORK quiksilver pro 2011

Jalapenos and Hops, Vegetables and Surf

If jalapenos and hops are vegetables, then it wasn't an all grain and protein weekend. But, ala, only Jalapenos are veggies, hops are still a grain ... albeit a worthy one.

Leaving Long Beach ...timing.

 Wait... we did have some eggplant last night —  Baingan Bartha — and some legumes (chickpeas) ... but this was otherwise a mostly grains and protein weekend, with a little cheese thrown in for good measure.

After surf session today we hit Longbeach's great barbecue restaurant ... Swingbelly's ... where if you frequent it too much you will end up with exactly one of those.

THe Nachos are ridiculous with scattered nuggets of barbecued ribs/pork/brisket, or some other delectability. And the beers on tap are top notch.

The surf ... wrong tide — outgoing, lots of rip, knee to occasional head-high sets, sucking and dredging. Far from optimal, closeout city and not very safe. But we had a good time anyway, meeting up with Steve Lella, Grace, Shane, Tucker, Brook, and co. The beach house looks great and all the renovations are improvements.

... and Gordo came with me to a local surf shop and birthday'd out his sweet sixteen on some schwag that will help Long beach Rebuild business in the scheme of things.

When Bonga the Surfer was "Just like one of us"

So Bonga Perkins might be my favorite surfer, back from the days when the VCR was hooked up (before the wife unhooked it for the kids' Playstation, and before I lent that great video [what was it's name again?] to StanTheMan and never saw it again) but here's a vid from some early days on the North Shore, taking a basic "singlefin yellow longboard" out in shortboarder territory on a pipelineesque day.

It's almost unthinkable to be able to empathize with a surf immortal like BP feeling vulnerable and newbish in unfamiliar territory. For some of us it's normal everyday. One never imagines a great surfer like Bonga could ever have felt even the remotest bit "out of place" in an element he exhibits the greatest of ease and fluidity. But the singlefin yellow was a challenge out there even for BP, until he got it dialed.

Gotta love the humility from someone who's arguably the Wayne Gretzsky of longboarding.

You had to be there, exactly there ... somewhere in the surf

Sometimes you just never know ...  a desperate, "crapola" onshore surf day can turn into something quite "worth the trip."

With only one free, non-work day (Sunday) this Labor Day weekend, I needed to de-stress from what has been the mother of all deadlines. Long and the short of it — I was going to go to the beach and get wet, come heat, come humidity, come thunderstorms, come lugubrious clouds, no matter the conditions ... you get the point.


So I packed the van, called Frank for some recommendations, and discovered he was in the same need of a salt-water dip. I was tardy, so Robby, who needed time to get his work together, decided he'd tag along for an afternoon of reading a the beach, too.

We arrived and took our time checking the break, figuring out where the best place might be to catch the peaky, shifty, and sometimes crunching surf. Tide was low-mid-incoming.


It was a slightly crowded situation with a few highly talented surfers out there. Plenty of rip currents and a good number of beachgoers added to the mix.

I had been thinking of SUP sailing on the 9'6," but with so many surfers in the water, and a good number of knee-to-waist-to-shoulder-high sets, the regular 9'0 and 9'6" longboards were just the ticket. It all depended on where you were, when, and which break you picked. the size was there if you were patient. The quantity unlimited.

But the paddle outs were a beast. I found out pretty quickly that the SUP/surf session two or three weeks ago did not cut it as far as prep for a full on hard working paddle-out through multiple whitewater dunkings.

And the prize for truck of the day at RM2 goes to... vintage
Suburban.  Board slides in slides out; who needs a rear
window anyway? How much time you want to waste
getting to the water, is up to you.

But judicious rests between the sets paid off. Reviving just enough paddle power to make the waves I wanted and get a couple of fun rides and a couple of fun crashes.

Need more paddle time for sure. That said, I was pleased with the Ben Aipa.  A good knee-ride, a good standup ride and a few short rides that ended with off balance crashes. I want to get this board sussed out -- I feel it coming.

At one point during a paddle-out, I thought Id made it over the top of a "big incoming." I was wrong. Instead, going backward over the falls, as the wave ripped the board from my hands.

I don't miscalculate those too often, and lesson learned.
I should have and could have paddled harder to get over/through the lip of that one. Don't ask me ho, it's all in the moment, but I feel that ass-whooping needn't have happened. Still a good wake-up call. No schnoozadaisical paddling when the set waves have some mustard to them.

Must have been a helluva set.

The last time I had a hold down that long it was a a swell with a name like Linda or Hugo or some such alphabetical storm nomenclature. Yes really. Those you don't forget. Except that day the swell was 7-9 foot. Today, however, it was a mere 2.3 - 3.3 ft swell, and about a short 6 second period (see chart).

Interesting Factoid:
The "point where the waves break in water depth" is "at about 1.3 times the wave height. (A 6-foot wave will break in about 8 feet of water.)"

I fully rotated underwater, backwards cartwheel style, and waited patiently — I honestly had no idea which way was up, and there was little point in wasting air swimming downward or sideways — for it to release me.

Holding breath a bit longer, a bit longer still, bouyancy finally prevailed and I kicked the rest of the way to the surface.

Saw the board to the east,  took another breath, pulled it in by the leash, grabbed it by the tail, just before the next set did it's best impression of a small avalanche. It wasn't as big as the first and had already broken. No big deal.

Lenny is concerned about the bodywork on his Sub.
This one shows him much can be done with fiberglass
and Benjamin Moore paint.

Surprisingly, for such a crowded holiday weekend beach, we ran into Florian and his buddy Pieter /Thies(Sp?), with Pieter's kids in tow having a grand time.

For conditions where I really didn't expect much — just wanted to paddle and get wet and a little beach time — it was a good day to be back on the longboard after nearly a year off.

Could have used a few more of the regular crew. C and S ... you know your names. I'll call / text next time, promise.

Yes, for a while there it got real glassy in between the swells, and that happens more when they are large enough to block the wind. They cleaned up and lined up even better later on.