C-Rock is a Brute! Good Fun B-Page Ride

First a wee bit of dog walking. Trees on the street in rare form.

Without the walk, Koda would be a basket-case by the time we got back, so around the block we went, and it was a sight for sore eyes. Finally we hooked up with C-Rock. And he was not going to back off the moving speed pedal. We got plenty of rests in, but the south side hills were brutal and so was the brickyard. I don't remember it this difficult.

Either my engine is worse than I thought, or I didn't have it today. The climbs were kicking my arse. This was the longest ride of the year by far, with some blistering descents. Check the graph not the max speed - Max is off. Some timely stops to schmooze. Great to ride with C-Rock again after all these years, and to have G-man along for the trip. he learned a lot more from following Corey than he would from following me. And he got a better workout, too. Since it took me significantly longer to grind up those hills.

Finally "Black" in Business

Finally "Black" in Business

With bad weather clearly visible on the radar, and humidity buildup clouds forming, Gordo and I held out in the hopes that our erstwhile ride partner C-Rock might be able to join after a 2 hr postponement. Last cell-phone check from the van — maybe we'd ride from Haypath up the Greenbelt to Jericho from C-Rock's place, or meet at Stillwell. No dice, Corey, unfortunately, was stuck for the duration. The bikes fit in nicely in the back of the van -- room for three across, if needed, or two adult bikes and two small kids bikes, same as before. NOW WHAT? So, the question was, how much would we bite off this time. How much of the black. Gordo answered that question at every turn he wanted the go in the black direction. With this the hottest day we'd ridden since August, it was a sweatfest. HARDTAIL I was kind of interested to ride Robby's Hardtail today, though I never guessed I'd miss my own ride as much as I did. (In the shop being fixed.) You feel most every bump much more so than with the rear shock. For guys with well-sed backs, that's a big deal. Also, when you ride someone else's bike, you underestimate how much you are used to the rebound of the shock, the grip of the tires in the sandy gravel, and most importantly the modulation of the brakes. Super-sensitive, grip these a fraction too hard and you are locking up - dangerous on tight fast ledge-drop gravelly hairpins - or going over the handlebars. They need some work. I was also not liking the grip of the stock Nokian NBT 2.0's. We ended up climbing down a couple of small cliff-ledge, like drops that I swear we rode the other week — or did we? One I know we climbed up, while going the wrong way the night we got lost. That was pretty obvious, it was clearly unrideable in the "up" direction, by anyone other than spidergoat. But at least the gears worked, so no excuses there. In fact the 8-speed setup worked very reliably, including on climbs under a little pressure. Talk about coincidences; today on the trail we stopped for a while near the train tracks to say hi to Rosario M. and his friend (a colleague from work out doing some hardcore hiking up from Jericho Tpk.) It really was the most unlikely place to meet, in the sense that they were emerging from the woods just where the bike trail met the hike trail. FULL MONTY We rode the entire loop today, pretty much soup to nuts, including the nasty yet amazing rooty switchback course by the railroad tracks. Have to admit at one point there, breathing at max capacity already and facing a hellacious long climb out, I said screw it and walked up the boring-looking straight gravel path. Next time! For some reason it seemed drier and more slippery in the gravel than ever before. Or maybe it was the lack of traction. Conti Vertical Pro 2.3 > Nokian NBT 2.0, there's no doubt. With so much unfamiliar territory we allowed ourselves to be knocked back down to a 4.7 moving average. Gordo though rode like a champ. His climbing pace is way ahead of mine — he wasn't out of breath for a moment. Whereas I was close to 90%.

NOPIX! Woulda Shoulda Coulda taken some good photos today — almost perfect weather, perfect lighting, but we were too intent on the course and getting through it, to remember to take the cellie out. Only time it came out was when I was on the verge of calling emergency services for a rider down. We heard them crash badly on a big drop on the trail behind us, and went back to check.

One of them was fine, the other was writhing in pain. They told us they would be OK, and as a new rider came round the drop, the injured bloke sprang to his feet and got to the side. We stayed with them until we were sure they were OK. Just goes to show you you can't be too careful with these courses. Neither was wearing a helmet — God knows what they were thinking. One nearly ended his life right then and there in the wilderness, a long way from any possible help, save a GPS coordinated medevac maybe.

Trail Time, Confronting the Black Head-On

An "epic" ride at Stillwell for Batman and Robin today. Epic for me in the sense that it was the first time I'd voluntarily (not accidentally, see Feb. 20) confronted the gnarly Black course head-on, since the supposed SVTachycardia scare (or whatever it was) there in 06/07, or whenever it was. I have some medication that is supposed to control that, but no guarantees. Still the Cardio say my heart is "fine," the EKGs and Stress Test were good, he took me up to a good lather, and that worked out well, so back to the hard stuff.

That episode at Stillwell 3-5 years ago, and then while running that year, had shaken me to the core. And was it hard to get over that hurdle, mentally. Everytime I'd get close to a good 2 hour ride capability, the neck disks would go and I'd be back to square one.

Once you're out there on this circuit you're more or less committed to completing it, and there's no way of avoiding strenuous effort to get back home, and there are no shortcuts that I know of when you get deep in.

We've "trained" hard enough since February, so there ws reason to believe we'd be up the challenge, assuming we didn't get anymore lost than the last time. We cruised in at a relaxed pace and I took advantage of opportunities to coast. Soon, however, there was no let up. The switch just flips from approaching Normal moderate MTBing to maxxed-out with the first series of roller coaster sections, and it's all full-on from there.

Panic mode tried to set in as the HR went up to a solid pounding on the first hard climbs, breathing to full capacity, and as the ride became more committed into the chutes and steepest climbs. Definitely nervous at the point of no return. But that said, this trail had such great flow, it's hard not just flat out enjoy it. I could imagine with more familiarity of the momentum points, it could get easier.

The spin-it-up vertical, rooty, gravelly climbs really get the heart rate up and keep it pegged there. It felt like an hour but it was only about 31-39 minutes — maybe I lost some data somethere.

Mount Laurel wasn't as bad as I remembered, just a climb you need to pace yourself on.

The little plank bridge was a welcome landmark, but no water flowing in there right now.

Somehow, though, with all the other riders out there, and the fact that we were aceing some tough technical climbs and drops, it felt good. We may have missed one poorly marked side section, but not going to sweat that.

Gordy wanted some repeats on botched technical climbs, so that was another occasional rest. We also had 3 or 4 "mechanicals" — rear shock lost air twice. That lead to the chain being too slack in the steep climbs, the gears refused to hold their shift, resulting in a lot of cog/skipping/grinding fails. Gordo dropped his chain to the inside at least once. Some built in rest points to fix the problems. And a couple of stops with other passing or passed riders to shoot the breeze, also made for a relaxed ride.

Maybe we took it too easy, as we had plenty in the tank for a final sprint. The max speed recording function was way off (15.9), as we easily hit 16-20 for a while at the end. Big ring fun.

6.1 moving average is good for this place in my current state of fitness ... last week we were 5.3 in a somewhat less challenging section. Then again we had to skip the final technical 2-mile section, as the skipping gears were not going to work on those climbs.

Van, Just add Bikes.

The old van ...
It had it's day, but
alas, the cost of repairs
eventually outstripped the
reasonable cost of replacement
and we had to say goodbye. It's very sad, trading in a vehicle that took you, the faimly the dog the boards the bikes, some 80,000 of its 129,000-mile life. Too soon to go. But a new engine harness, a new PCM module, new sniffer leak detector, needs new this, new that, new the other, were a bridge too far.

Boy this is an old pic. The kids were but 7 and 10, so they had smaller bikes, but before we got the hitch, you could fit all four in there, and a couple of windsurfing masts. The van could do amazing tricks like gobble up a windsurfboard slided, slid, slidden, under the second row of seats. You won't see that again. All the new seats have a lot of ... infrastructure underneath them.

But the new one has stow-and-go. And there are a few convenient configurations there. That came in handy today. The new hitch should be welded on in a week or two, but in the meantime, Gordy and I got out for a couple of laps of the partial blue course. Lots of brutal rooty climbs keep the pace down on this circuit. But it has some of the best flow in the park in some other spots.

There's one spot that's a tight switch back up to a root step up. It's granny and pie-plate material. Always winded after that one. First time round, there was enough mo to get over it. Second time 'round not so much, but a first-ever mini-wheelie helped get the front wheel over, and from there just a spind-grind to get the back over it. Fun stuff. A little wheezy afterwards, but not too bad.
Toss some bikes in the back and go.

Long Live The King — Henrik Lunqvist?

OK so this is off topic but just a reminder, the King may have retired but BK is still the King. Looks kinda like Henrik Lundqvist to me, tho.

Frank is Back and Badder than Ever

If there are no photos, it didn't happen, but I saw this one on FB — think Steve Domjan took it — and it says it all. Frank is Back and Badder than Ever. Looks like his surgically repaired (?) arm appendage is working fine; even though he said it "hurt like hell" afterward.

Ran by him on the road the other day, and he was geared up and ready for action. Meanwhile Chuck and I were clubbed bup and ready for a lesson with our friendly local PGA pro.

I'm betting we both had great days. Well we know we did. All we need to know now is — did Frank find wind? Was he sailing more epic conditions? etc etc.

... and Back to the Trail

Decisions decisions.

After a solid hour and a half ice-skating yesterday, our legs were dragging a wee bit to start, but still energized enough to take on three laps — two via the second half of the blue trail and a lap of the green, about 50 minutes all in all.

As we arrived at the Stillwell lot, another rider just finishing for the day reported, "it's as perfect as it gets out there." Hard to believe there was ice in the puddles just a couple of weeks ago. This was not that far short of T-shirt weather. Put on a wind shell for good measure and opened up the sleeves halfway at the shoulder zippers to let the breeze in. A nylon t-shirt underneath was all that was needed.

And he was right, perfect weather — just the right temperature about 55, sunny, slight breeze, and almost ideal trail conditions, give or take a couple of soft/muddy spots in the usual boggy parts of the green, but the blue trail and the rest of the woods were rolling nicely.

This place is always a fun ride, with some very fun — almost pump track like — flow on parts of the blue. Lots of tree pairings to scootch the handlebars between; gravity-bending roller-coaster sections. It's good to be back in the saddle.

Gordo was highly motivated to redo any steep climb/root sections he biffed on the first attempt, and made them all on the second try.

This was definitely a longer, faster effort than last time. Lost a whole chunk of map data after a stop to chat with some other riders at the top of a hill section, and forgot to restart the GPS. One old timer gave Gordy a major boost of encouragement to ace a steep gravelly, section the two of them had just walked up. The kid is making major progress.

P.S. don't try this at home without goggles and a face shield: after pumping the rear shock to 205 psi last week it felt too stiff. So I decide to press on the schrader valve to let a few PSi out and get the sag right. Pwoosh -- high pressure air and vaporized oil shoot out. And sprits my forehead and glasses. OK. Shoulda read the manual,I guess.

Probably let a bit too much out, but the ride never felt to plush.