Reflection, Reparation, Repentation, Rejuvination, and Recreation

Reflection, Reparation, Repentation, Rejuvination, and Recreation
Having fun on the Midnight Beast

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Apples to Apples?

So I dusted the cobwebs off the ol Ted Wojcik yesterday and took er for a spin. Aired up the tires and hit the regular marsh loop. I was gonna take it easy and 'get used to it again'. Right away realizing remembering that this bike likes to go fast, about 90 seconds into the ride, I blew my first stop sign and didn't look back. My first lap blew away the 29er time by 2 minutes. How could this be? The first ride around on the 29er blew away the Ted by 2 minutes....so, the old brown bike has gained 4 minutes in 3 months?
I guess pedalling that piggish Redline is paying off--I've become stronger by pushin that thing around. I mean, it must be at least 6 pounds heavier, nevermind the rotational mass of the big'guns with regular tubes and such...
Which gets me to thinking, maybe I should race the Teddie at the Race to the Top of VT next month....I've been hemming and hawing about whether the 29er would make me faster or slower up the hill this year. Just thinking about not having a granny though is makin me tired...But I don't need a slower time this year, I'm at the top of the age range and don't want 30-something place or worse this year. Next year I'll be sandbagging though, up into that next age bracket.....
Time to do some beta-testing so I have some real stats to go on.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

All Uphill from Here

In anticipation of the end-of-August 'Race to the Top of Vermont' , the 4.3 mile slog up Mt Mansfield on the toll road, I've been trying to focus on doing as many uphills as possible. Trying to work on my diet as well to reduce lactic acid and muscle fatigue as well. Never having really 'trained' for anything in particular, I'm learning as I go.
Last week's Ride of the Week was one where I found M Ramponi on the trail and we hammered out some great hill climbs in the hour and a half I had before going to work..I somehow managed to shake off most of the mud, sweat and dirt before entering the kitchen for my shift.
This week's Ride of the week has to go to a road ride with a good friend yesterday. We ground out close to 50 miles with lots of hills on another hot day, before again crawling into work for another 10 hours...
Sometimes work just gets in the way...

Summer






As I have strayed away from posting this year, I guess I hava lotta catching up to do.

In June, we had a few notable events at Wompy: Railbed clearing to connect key trails--a quick easy project with the great crew that we had, which included The infamous tandem-riding Schows
with their newborn(weeks-old) Ellie in a frontal sling, helping with sawing and lopping limbs...

SEMass NEMBA and FoW hosted the First Ever P
an Mass Challenge Kids Ride Mountain Bike Loops! A drizzly day with a huge turnout, I was very impressed with the organization of the PMC in general. Parking, registration, marshalling, vendors, lots of good free food for the volunteers, including Hingham's own Red-Eye Roasters with made-to-order french press coffee! We put together two loops for younger and older kids, and the best thing was that they all learned something along the way, and they were all ridin' and smilin'!







Another couple of Trail Care Days(TCD) resulted in at least 3 more bridges being slip-proofed with wire mesh...










I actually held an 'every friday morning' ride at Blue Hills for about 6 weeks straight,until the kids were done with school for summer. One morning there were 6 of us!











Early July, we went on vacation and stayed up in Laconia, which is of course the motorcycling capital of the east, but not the most bike-friendly place around. Off-roading in that area is limited to a few dirt roads and housing-construction sites. At least within minutes riding from the condo at Weirs beach. I did find a cool park within a 6-mile road ride on the hottest day of the century which left me close to heatstroke by the time I got there to enjoy it. Most notable of that week (besides water-body hopping from the pools to various lakes and rivers) was the ride with Matt and Kevin from CNH NEMBA at Franklin Falls Dam. Swoopy cape-style riding with hardly a rock or root, and a Sidewinder-style ravine ride to top it off!


Sunday, July 25, 2010

Found this relic at a blueberry stand on Rt 28 and Province Road, near Barnstead...not sure how old it really is, thinking it's one of those later generations chopper similar to the Walmart StingRay's. Probably real heavy and hard to ride, especially with the cranks bent inward past the chainstays...

Looks like the kid bolted on some galvie pipe to make it look like an exhaust...

I love the old rusty farm machinery too