Hiking

Yesterday, I went down to Cheshire Park for the Cheshire CX. Last year, I was getting over a cold at this race and it was brutally cold and windy. I know that's not something you complain about in 'cross, but you can't help but take note of it. Such was not the case yesterday. It was a beautiful sunny day, with a temperature right around 60. I really enjoyed this course last year, because it has a long fast stretch of rolling double track through the woods. This year's course had a more developed artificially twisty section near the spectating and registration pavilion. I'm getting better at riding those things, so I kind of like it now.

In terms of my actual race, I had a good start and I thought I was maybe sixth or seventh into the first turn. I passed a couple of guys in the first and second lap and then maintained that position until well into the final (fourth) lap. There was this Cyclonauts guy, whom I passed earlier on, catching back up to me. I was pretty sure that I was going to be able to hold him off until the finish. And I would have, except that I tripped over the last barrier and landed on my face. It didn't hurt, but you aren't moving as fast sprawled out on the ground as you are when you remounted on your bike and pedaling again. I couldn't catch him.

It would seem my estimate of my position was quite inaccurate, because the Cyclonaut and I were actually contesting 2 & 3, not 5 & 6. So, in a big surprise, I ended up finishing third. Who'd have thought that I was riding in second for most of the race? Of course, this is still Cat 4...


Today, Johanna and I are going to Macedonia Brook State Park. I like that park a lot. It even has a large pile of rocks, acting as a physical challenge. It's not quite as cool as the physical challenge at People's State Forest, but I like it all the same. It's also not nearly as difficult as hiking down
the Flume Trail at Franconia.
That first picture is me trying to recreate one of those vintage cyclocross pictures that everyone is so into these days. In person, it really looked like that, especially because Salem and Dario wear a lot of wool and were riding fixed gears. Regrettably, my cell phone camera doesn't work very well in low light.

Oh, I also won some socks. Read more!

Wild rice and scenic lice

For some reason, I've had a hard time picking up the blogging machine and writing an entry. It's not like I've been avoiding my bike or there's been a shortage of funny bike-related anecdotes, I've just been word weak. I told Mary V Rickel Pelletier that I'd promote the Wild and Scenic Film Fest thing at Trinity on here, but I guess I need some accompanying bike stuff to go with it.

Let's see...

On Tuesday, I took a ride with Salem, his friend Gary from that big state out west, and others. It started off like a normal ride with 'cross bike: we rode on some roads and then in a park. There was a lot of almost losing lights, but it turns out none of them were ever lost. Then at six, we met up with this group ride that rides the Hop River State Park Trail in the dark starting from Manchester to someplace in maybe Columbia, Bolton or Coventry, I don't really know. I had no idea this trail existed until very recently. It's very nice and has some tunnels. The ride split into the fast group and the not as fast group. Riding with the not as fast group was nice. At the turn around point (where ever it was), I soon learned the worst time to get a flat tire on a fast a group ride: shortly after the turn around. Everyone has regrouped, is ready to hammer back, is thinking intensely about the hammering and is not thinking about much else. So, when I pulled to the side to see if I had a flat, I wasn't really part of anyone's consciousness. I set to work on fixing the flat, which was difficult because I was without tire levers. I was just about to improvise with the quick release when someone rolled up on a 'cross bike, but wasn't on the ride. It was slightly weird, because I was in the middle of the woods at night in rural Connecticut, but I guess one should never underestimate the popularity of whatever it was that we were doing. This nice gentleman had levers and I was back in business without having to resort to quick release improvisation. We started riding back together, but this guy was faster than me. So, I had a peaceful and pleasant solitary ride back.

On Wednesday, I had the day off. I read about CT-NEMBA doing a ride at some place called Grayville Park in Hebron. I decided to mix it up and join them. I also knew that I had to clean up all the bike stuff in the kitchen and living room because Johanna was getting mad about it (with good reason). I was moving things to the basement and in the basement, I discovered a bag with tubes in it. I decided that the tubs shouldn't be in the bag anymore and removed them, only to discover a cute little bat. At first I thought he was dead, but I juggled the bag and he moved in a living fashion. It was warm outside, so I put him under a leaf in the backyard.

So, anyway, I drove down RT 2 to Hebron and rode. Nice guys. Nice trails. It had been awhile since I rode an actual mountain bike. I remembered why I like them.

If you trackstand with one hand in a picture, it actually looks like you're tracking standing. I stole the picture from Mark at Cyclesnack/CT-NEMBA.

So, here's the film fest info:

please join us Saturday afternoon:

Wild & Scenic Film Festival:
Saturday, November 14th at 2:30pm matinee

Cinestudio on the campus of Trinity College

Eight new environmental adventure films selected from the Patagonia Wild & Scenic Film Festival. See magnificent places on a big screen. (full festival program copied below)

$12 advance tickets on sale now by calling REI (860) 233-2211
pick-up tickets purchased via telephone at the door
Call now - 9pm Friday evening for advance ticket discount.
{ticket price at door = $20.}

If you are not able to attend, please consider purchasing "community" ticket/s ($12) in advance on behalf of "Inner City Outings and/or City of Hartford "Urban Adventures" Program. For telephone ticket sales, call REI 233-2211 or visit the REI store in BlueBack Square, West Hartford.

This is a fund raising event for Park Watershed Revitalization Initiative and Farmington River Watershed Association. A summary of 'Last Descent' is listed in Thursday's Hartford Courant:

http://www.courant.com/entertainment/movies/hc-altscreenc1112.artnov12,0,4354451.story

bests,

Mary Rickel Pelletier

Project Director, Park River Watershed Revitalization Initiative
www.parkriver.org

in collaboration with the Farmington River Watershed Association

Oh yeah, there was also a bomb scare at work yesterday. That was weird. Read more!

New places & The Hartford Alley Cat V

I tend to fall in routines. I eat at a lot of different restaurants, but I almost always order the same thing at each respective place. The same thing happens with bike rides, I ride in different places, but once I establish a route/loop of trails, I keep riding the same thing. Or, I get lazy and don't even try and find a new place to ride. That's a character flaw and I'm trying to fix it. My Friday Afternoon Club of Italian Snails or "Le Lumache" has shown me a bunch of cool stuff. In fact, this past Friday was sort of a quid pro quo of me revealing some cool trails in Keney and I was shown a crazy bridge and reshown the Hockanum River Trails in East Hartford.

I'm also trying to fix it in the self-motivated sense, too. On Wednesday, armed with my fenders, I rode up my local hill and discovered a cool promontory/chill spot as well as further adding to the mystery of the MDC stuff on Cedar Hill. Why is everything on Cedar Hill/Mountain so mysterious?




On Thursday, I picked up my straightened 'cross bike from Central Wheel and set off into the reservoir and points north. This is where I'm most guilty of becoming a man of steady habits, but lately I've found some new things and started connecting more interesting loops. This ride led me down a trail that I'd never been on before and I found a water crossing, which are quite elusive at the Reservoir. There are those two rocky ones on the trail off the blue trail in the northwest corner, but they've both got boards to ride on. This is an honest to goodness creek to ride. The only thing marring the discovery was slipping down a rock a few hundred yards before the creek and smacking my knee. I only found a cool little trail at Penwood that cuts out some pavement riding, but is also open to bikes. It may not actually be that cool, but the carpet of yellow leaves made it really cool last week.


Friday was the day of crazy bidges and Hockin' numb, but its evening also brought an alley cat: The Hartford Alley Cat V. Sean organized it and dressed as the blue Teletubby. I think there were about 14 entrants. It was a night race, so I attached a bulbous headlight to my normally sleek Nishiki. We left from the Warehouse parking lot on Bartholomew. What was cool about the start was that there was no manifest, it just directed us to go to Evergreen Street. I had a hard time opening the envelope because I was wearing gloves, so I didn't get out of the parking lot as fast as I would have liked. I made up time on the way and caught in the driveway at the same time as the guy who left first. We race up the stairs and were given the actual manifest. It was very cool that we had no time to plan. The stops were Elizabeth Park Rose Garden, a house on Oakwood, TJ and Ken's house and Bushnell Park. Here's my route. The house on Oakwood had some physical challenges: big shot of grain alcohol, 5 pushups and then bob for an apple. Bobbing for the apples was great. What a great way to cool down. TJ claimed that I had to eat a stick of butter and I was instantly crestfallen, but he was just kidding. At Bushnell Park, we had to shotgun a beer. I came in first, followed by Aaron, Peter Barr, Marshall (who has incredible leather tooling skills), Dave (often called poseur Dave, but I think that's not the nicest name, there also may have been someone who finished in front of him) and then more people, but I didn't know most of their names. I ran into my old friend Linda, though, which was cool. She's living in Whitney House now. I got a cool & tight tshirt, but the real prize was this incredibly awesome Bailey Works bag. Oh man, you can fit like six watermelons in there. Or, six rotten watermelons and not have to worry about them leaking on you because the lining is some kind of space age roof tar.



I think the 666 spoke card is what gave me the edge.

Read more!

We're lucky that this didn't happen to us

Hartford is cooler than Seattle any day of the week. Read more!

Cross pictures

I've got a couple of pictures now.

I've also got some by Luis Cotto on picasa. CCBA has them on facebook.

Here are some taken by Cedric De La Cruz of the men's 1/2/3 race:




Read more!

Hartford crossed

Hartford's motto is post nubila phoebus, which means "after the clouds, sun". I suppose that's true pretty much everywhere except those strange cities in the northwest. Luckily for the race yesterday, the cloud part was on Saturday and the sun part was Sunday. We had incredibly beautiful weather, but more than adequate mud to make things cyclocrossish. For those reasons, we had way more people than I anticipated. Like I was hoping for around 100-120, but 180 showed up. The C race had 53 entrants.

I took a break from the hectic registration table and enterred the C race. I had a really strong (for me) start and finally got a chance to ride the course. After the first lap, I think I may have been in the top 10. Then my deraileur caught a stick and messed everything up. So, I sadly DNF'd.

So, thanks to Melissa, Johanna, Art, Jonathan, Jason, Ben (x2), Sean, Chris, Craig, and everybody else who lent a hand. Also, to the sponsors: Ghostship, Central Wheel, Hooker Brewing and REI.

Oh, if anybody has good pictures, send them to me. I took a grand total of one. It's not even a good one. Read more!

Reminder! Hartford 'Cross!

In addition to my new kitty, Alina, something has been keeping me awake: Sunday's 'cross race. You may recall Eel 1, when people showed up and it was cool, and Eel 2, when not so many people showed up and it was still cool. Those were low-key and there wasn't much money or whatever to worry about. Sunday's race, on the other hand is a sanctioned event and there's money and there are people whom I don't know. I think I have my ducks in a row, but you never know.

People have been signing up with greater frequency this week. I just paid Riverfront Recapture $750 for use of the park. So, sign up! come watch! become a sponsor! let me get some sleep!

I hope the person who had their cool old Schwinn locked in front of City Hall is racing. And, a bike of that vintage shouldn't have been named "CrissCross", it should have been "Kris Kross". Read more!

No more bikes

Johanna and I got a new kitty, who's about eight weeks old. She's a Russian Blue and much cuter than a bike. I'm thinking that I should give up on bikes and just blog about cats. Any name suggestions?

Considering my performance at Mansfield Hollow last weekend, it may not be a bad idea.

Cyclocoffee!

Read more!

The course

Art and I went over to Riverside Park last night for some kibitzing about the course. I think we successfully incorporated both of our ideas quite well into a kick ass course. It's mostly flat, so it's going to be very fast. And, faithful to my description on bikereg, that levee is tall. It's also rideable, so we're thinking there might need to be something to make that more difficult. The other cool thing about this levee is that it creates the opportunity for some cool off-camber nasty stuff. Further, the course is going to have a fair amount of pavement. There's also a nice section that goes right along the river, though I doubt most racers will be thinking about the picturesqueness. I hope people like it.

Pictures are unrelated to post. Although, I would like you to note that this bottom picture illustrates how nice of a guy I am to trails. See, those planks there are always getting jiggled and jangled apart by the bikes that ride over them. Most people just keep going and leave them askew. If I go over them and separate them, I stop and put them back together. That's what I did here. The ring of pepperoni is not something that I would eat. Read more!

SSWC

I received a text message late on Friday from a blogging brother, Joel AKA Billy Hoyle. Little did I know, but he was in Durango during the Single Speed World Championships. Very cool.

I can't seem to get the picture of my phone because my card reader is acting up, but there's a picture of a bunch of single speed mountain bikes locked up in weird places and Joel's text: "Im in durango this wknd & the singlespeed championships are going on. town's nuts." I replied asking him if there were lots of men in skirts and superhero costumes and he replied "howdyouknow?"

Since I was in Connectict, I didn't do any of the aforesaid stuff. I did go on a pretty awesome dirt road (and a bit of single track) ride with Salem & Art Roti yesterday in the wilds south of Glastonbury yesterday. Since those guys are better than me, the limits of what I can ride on a 'cross bike were pushed. Oh, and another plug for Kool Stop salmon brake pads. Those things are so awesome. My bike actually stops now and stops pretty well. 'Cross races this year are going to be much different: I will go slow & stop, instead of going slow and crashing into trees.

I also went to Peoples State Forest. No bikes there.


That picture of Jacquie Phelan was stolen from her website and isn't even from 2009. I guess everyone is still hung over from the race and haven't posted any pictures yet.

UPDATE! Here's Joel's picture:

Read more!

Not dead yet

While I'm glum that Josh is no longer writing in these parts and that we're got some personal turmoil floating about, I'm not going to let that derail the blog. My guess is that our few readers were here to read about (greater) Hartford & bikes not other, more dramatic things.

So, I'm going to write a bit about some bike stuff.

First, I met with Art & Jason last night about our plan of attack for Hartford 'Cross in October. I think we're in a good position to make a pretty awesome race. So, if you're part of some kind of something and want to do some sponsoring, shoot me an email at oiseaux@gmail.com. Otherwise, come and race or come and watch. You really should come, it's much easier to get to than that race in Maine.

Second, the D2R2 is in two weeks and I'm sort of terrified. I think that I'm in ok shape, but like, it's supposed to be the hardest ride in the world. It's like the Leadville 100 meets Alpe d'Heuz times 50. I've decided that I'm going to ride my rigid mountain bike with semi-slick 1.5"s on it. I don't know if that's a good decision of not. Maybe someone can counsel me. It's a light and comfortable bike with low gearing. That seems like a good choice, right?

Third, I'm doing my first Cat 2 race on Sunday at Hodges Dam. I'm making the jump from beginner racing to mediocre racing. I'm expecting a last place finish. I also haven't raced since two months ago at Winsted Woods, so I'm totally out of practice.

Fourth could have been about my vacation to Vermont and riding my bike, but I didn't take any pictures of it. No one wants to read my narrative about getting muddy at Kingdom Trails.

This is Still Hill Rd in Glover, VT. Imagine if you got to commute to work on this!

Read more!

Problems

Since America has presidents, America has holidays for its presidents. I get those holiday days off from work. So, over the last six days, I had four of them off. When I have days off and Johanna has to work, I try to go mountain biking or at least hang out in the woods. (America also has trees and a holiday for them, but I don't get Arbor Day off. Too bad.)

On Lincoln's Birthday, I went off to Mt. Riga with my 'cross bike to climb CT's biggest hills. This was a totally failure as these are also CT's only seasonal roads (as far as I know). So, I took a long and snowy/rainy walk, pushing my bike through the highlands of Salisbury.

You cannot ride most bikes, but especially not a 'cross bike on hills that look like this (because of the snow, not the steepness):




On Saturday, I decided to use an actual mountain bike to ride in the snow and went to the reservoir. After about 1/4 mile of riding my chain broke. But, I came prepared. Well, sort of. In trying to fix the chain, the chain tool broke and I couldn't get pin all the way back. It was mostly back in, so I figured I'd probably be alright. I wasn't and the chain broke a 1 1/2 mile later and couldn't be fixed. This is the third cheap Lifu chain broke that I've had break. In fact, they generally are half broken after their first use. I bought a Park Tool now. It'll probably last until my fingers can't turn it.

On Sunday, I went for a road ride with three newly-met-by-me dudes, Ryan, Gabe, and Kyle from UHa. That was totally uneventful and a pleasant ride. I also now know what inland East Windsor looks like. Or, maybe it's inland South Windsor.

Yesterday, with another day off, I tried to ride at the reservoir again. I didn't fail per se, but thawing old snow requires an incredible amount of energy to ride through and has next to no reward.

I did get some cool rewards yesterday unrelated to a bike from my stove.

Home fries and tofu scramble:




Kimchi miso soba with tofu & bok choi:

Read more!

Romance

Valentine's Day is my favorite holiday. I love love. If you love love or love your love and are wondering what to him with him/her, here are two cool things happening on Saturday:

Sorry about the recycled picture.

Opa Opa Wintercross! There's no reason for me to explain how late season cyclocross and valentine's day are inextricably linked, because it's so obvious.

This guy is going to play one of these things.

This is a reminder and invitation to the second CATALOGUE show at:

56 Arbor Street
Hartford, Connecticut 06116
Suite 216 (second floor)

When: Saturday, February 14, 2009 at 8:00pm (performance)

Rodrigo Queiroz, the Brazilian-born-heavily-and-

awardedly-accomplished
classical pianist from the Hartt School of Music and UConn, will be
performing his current repertoire at 8:00pm for our February installment.
CATALOGUE will take place each month (debuting with Jamie Horgan's
drawings this past January) and is hosted by Joel VanderKamp and Joe
Saphire.

The studio is located at the front of the building (Real Art Ways is in
back). For directions or questions, please contact:

Joe: saphire.j@k-o.org 860.216.3826
Joel: joel_vanderkamp@yahoo.com 773.259.2669

CATALOGUE Ahead:
March will showcase Sam Ekwurtzel, the sculptor, and all-around good guy.

Please pass this invitation to those who might be interested and we might
have missed.

Joe Saphire
Joel VanderKamp

Read more!

The New Year

I hate that Death Cab for Cutie song called "The New Year".

So, we're deep into 2009 and there hasn't been a post yet, so I guess I'll put something up. I haven't been doing much bike related lately. I put some studded Nokians on my Stumpjumper and rode it around in the snow some. The tires actually work pretty well on snowy things, though it seems that you can't ride in snow that's deeper than like 4" or 5". That seems pretty acceptable, though. The bike has rim brakes and they're pretty unacceptable in the snow.

I also have two bicycle related resolutions, or maybe they're goals.

1) Ride the D2R2.
I know that randoneuring is usually for people with helmet mirrors, but it also seems really difficult. So, I'm going to do the 108 mile edition of the D2R2.

2) Make a 'cross race happen in Hartford.
I put the bug in Ben Bare's ear for him to bring it up at the last Bike Everywhere and Jay and some others seem genuiely interested. I hope for Keney park, but most other people seem to want to do it at Riverside Park. Doesn't really matter to me as long as it happens.

Woodsy!

Anybody else got cool ideas and plans for 2009? Read more!

Mud and cowbells! Mud and cowries!

Photo credit to *Denise* on Flickr.

I resurrected the old Stumpjumper for a ride at the Reservoir last night. The surprisingly warm mid-December temperatures definitely invited it. Even the drizzle/mist for the first half of the ride wasn't too bad (though it made my pants kind of heavy (I don't know why I decided to wear pants)), and, unlike usual humid rides, the top of mountain wasn't in a cloud. The falling mist and the unfrozen ground made for a greasy ride, but no crashes. Someday, I hope someone joins me on one of these. It's like that ride we took on Saturday, but triply exciting.

Photo credit to Johanna, who's the best girlfriend in the world for accompanying me to Dayville for this race and taking pictures of me.
There are some other reasons, too.

I think the Danielson Adventure Sports' Beer Cross thing was great. I did two of the three races. Since I'm not very fast, I never did that well, but had a great time. They're very low key, but have a nice course and everyone is friendly. They also don't have horrible music blasting the entire time like most races.

At this last race, I think I did ok. I started slightly better than usual and was just off the leaders. However, since they're the leaders and are fast, I never saw them again except off in the distance when the course opened up. Like in most races, I found myself in no man's land. Significantly behind the leaders, but also significantly ahead of some other group. At point, some really fast guy caught up to me and passed me at a great rate of speed. It was impressive. Later, with two laps to go, this other guy caught up to me after I had made silly mistakes. It was pretty exciting, we exchanged positions a few times. I finally passed him with about a half lap to go and was holding him off pretty well. My brakes weren't going to have any of that success though, and with about 500 yards left, they quit at the bottom of a hill and I crashed into a bunch trees. The guy, who's actually pictured above, passed me and I never caught back up.

Also, pictured up there is the horrible labyrinth they decided the course needed. Over all it was a quick course and then all of a sudden there was this terrible and muddy thing that I could never get through with any amount of speed. Ugh! It was totally unnecessary.

Now that the 'cross season is over, I must say, it's way more fun than mountain bike racing. Maybe it's the bigger field, maybe it's the more laps, maybe it's the barriers; but I feel like there's a lot more happening. However, riding a 'cross bike is a lot less fun than mountain biking. Maybe I should Read more!

Two personal items

My knee is feeling better, thanks to everyone who had advice. Although, it seems to be the inserts for my shoes that Johanna gave me that did the most good.

Also, come to Dayville this Sunday for the Opa Opa Beercross. It'll be fun. They even give you free beer.


Read more!

Cheshire

My cold went away, so I raced today.

Since I'm not very good, I didn't do that great. I didn't get lapped (no one was being pulled, so that wasn't a fear). It was a pretty tough course as it was 60% woodsy single track with some rocks and roots, but I think that's fun because it takes my mind off going slow.

Two things I must do: stop starting in the back of the pack and get some better brakes. I actually raced pretty well with my cohort. I passed a few people and held off the guy who was gaining on me despite almost dropping my chain (I caught it like three links before falling off, but lost time messing with it). However, I was so far behind every in front of me that I had no hope of ever catching up. It's the opposite of how I mountain bike. My last race this season, I had the hole shot for like a mile and a half and then let people pass me. With cyclocross, I start at the back and then move from 25th to 21th. It'd be better to go from 12th to 17th or something like that. Regarding brakes, the ones I've got right now have no stopping power. It's kind of scary. Read more!

Brendan's new losing pursuit

Looks like fun, huh? I don't have any pictures of the run up.

I bought a used Raleigh cyclocross bike off of ebay a few months ago to help the economy of the Pennsylvania. It's one of those 1x8 dealies with an older dura ace rear dérailleur, STIs, and older dura ace cranks. I stole Johanna's Maxxis Steve Larsen tires for some traction. It came with really terrible tires. Well, don't get me started with what I was presented with from UPS.

Since none of our local parks have cyclocross courses in them, I've gone off to the eastern part of the state for some racing. I went to Mansfield Hollow two weeks ago for my first race and Dayville last weekend. Obviously, I didn't finish anywhere near first, because I'm not very fast. I'm not too depressed with the results, though - more or less midpack results in both. Well, I was futher back in the first one, but moved up in the second. I have the same problem I do with mountain biking, in that I start pretty strong but let people pass me in the middle laps and do adequately catch up. Although, with the field being bigger. There's a lot more actual racing taking place. The Mansfield Hollow race had 50 or so and Dayville had 30 something. Midpack is nothing to complain about. Besides, riding with one of the cheapest bikes out there is definitely worth some bonus places. Read more!

More defeat!

Does anyone know if they still hold that 'cross race in Southington? I've decided I want to shiver and do poorly in a new kind of racing this year. The only New England races I could find are Northampton and further away. Let me know. Read more!