Secret West Hartford dirt jumps

A few years ago, I chronicled the secret dirt jumps of West Hartford. It was blog post that featured comments from Damian. Remember that guy? Where did he go? Was it something I said? We should have never taken him to New Haven, he probably moved there.

I was riding around yesterday on squishy ground, but trying to avoid it by riding on the secret town-sanctioned cut-throughs of West Hartford (the ones that El Presidente de Chine likes so much). I decided to stop in at the secret dirt jumps and see how they were doing. It appears that the double has been greatly improved since last time I stopped by. Read more!

Riding for the camera

At some point, my mom read about how cyclists with GoPro cameras have caught hit and run drivers. So for Christmas, my parents got me one. It was very nice of them. However, I am fairly certain that my mom never saw the videos for which these cameras are actually intended. You know, like these. Or the one where the guy jumps from space.

As you know, I'm a pretty crappy mountain biker, so there's no reason that you'd want to watch me pedal around in the woods. Yet, the little camera is pretty fun to play with, so I've been attaching it to things while I'm riding.

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Fall riding

When I was in middle school and high school, fall used to be my favorite time of year. I actually liked all those new England trappings of fall. For some reason, I get a lot more enjoyment out of daylight now. So, as it starts to get dark early, I get depressed. It's especially bad when day light saving time is over. Everything feels very claustrophobic.

The one upside is that leading into this bleak period, the weather becomes pleasant and the trees are.pretty. I think we're at the onset of that now. I got to enjoy some of that when I rode up to westfield the other day. Apparently, they extended the bike path over passed the really sandy section, but not over the scary train trestle.

Also, will there ever be a time when I'm next to the southwick dirt jumps and I'm not on a road bike?

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On why maybe I should become a NEMBA trail ambassador at the West Hartford Reservoir

I'm not much of technical rider, anybody can attest to that. Heck, I can't even ride backwards. Though like people better than I am, I enjoy a good cut of singletrack of moderate difficulty to ride. I've been riding at the West Hartford Reservoir since I was 11 and have seen trails evolve and mostly devolve and now I think that I have come to an understand of what happens to the poor trails there.

1) A stretch of cool single track comes into existence. The terrain at the Reservoir lends itself to good trails, so the trail might be pretty good.

2) Trails gets more popular, but it's hard. So, cheater lines and trail braids develop. However, sometimes a section was so difficult that a whole cheater trail develops.

3) Trail has become to decimated that it doesn't really have any good lines left and then people start adding stupid stunts to it. Why am I seeing people with chainsaws at the Reservoir now? I guess it's ok for maintenance, but I get the sense they're doing more than just that. Also, why are all these "jumps" so lumpy and misshapen?

I bring this up because there's newish trail that avoided a big mud pit (legitimately avoided it, it was wasn't one of those trail widening dealies). It had this tight hairpin that had a small ledge at the apex. I liked it, because it was difficult. Well, apparently most people who ride it found it too difficult and made this cheater trail that has become vastly more popular than the original trail. I tried blocking off the cheater line once, but my blocking was moved away.

There is one case where the trail degradation has helped. Someone attempted to make some bike park-esque thing off the the rt. 44 lot. It was terrible, all the "stunts" were really poorly constructed, to the point that they'd fall apart when ridden. The trail avoids them now for the most part. I guess it beats riding on the levee, but just barely.

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Bugs

I've never been to Seattle, but I'm supposing that we're having Seattlesque weather right now. Undeterred at quitting time yesterday, I rode off for the Reservoir with a rain coat, some fenders, plenty of racks and an awesome pannier. Winding my way through West Hartford, I happened upon some secret dirt jumps in an undisclosed location. While only a couple feet tall, the doubles seem pretty well constructed. If you're nice to me, perhaps I'll take you there.

Then I rode the Resvervoir, which was probably a mistake because it was much wetter than I anticipated. Saturday's storm was no joke. While I regrettably added a couple of ruts, I did unblock a creek that some doofus had put a clog-bridge in, thereby flooding this whole low spot. So my trail impact probably zeroed out.

Clam sauce on the move, with fancy bucatini. Perhaps my best clam sauce to date.

And, perhaps my finest beer-battered cod to date!

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Mounds

I was all excited that the City had built dirt jumps down by Colt Park where the snow mountains had been. Sadly, they're actually just gravel mounds into which I sank when I rode on them. Read more!

Bokeh

I've been listening to the new album by Bibio a lot lately. It's called "Mind Bokeh." I had never heard the word bokeh before and assumed it was made up. It's not. Johanna harnessed the awesome power of wikipedia to learn that bokeh is a Japanese word for the part of a photograph that's out of focus. The shallower the depth field, the more bokeh.

I don't have a great camera, probably because it's part of a cell phone. However, it's the only cell phone I've ever had that has a macro zoom. I'm not sure if it's a virtual macro zoom or if it's actually part of the lens. None the less, I can get good bokeh with it. As seen in the above picture of a Siamese carrot.

And for those reasons, Salem jumped off this wall.

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Spooky mountain rally

I've played with the idea for a little while and I think I want to go through with it.

It'd be a two hour race made out of Goodwin Park and Cedar Mountain, coming out to 9 miles or so per lap. I think that'd mean that you'd get two or three laps (you'd have to fit two laps in two hours, to start lap three). This could be fun, right? You'll be scored on speed, style and intelligence. Beginning of May? Rideable on either a 'cross bike or mountain bike, I'd say.

Anybody interested?

Another Eel!

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My Jump

When I ride to work through Trinity, sometimes I jump this little gap in the parking lot by the field house. Often, there's a car parked there, but on nice days, there isn't. Today, there wasn't, so I did my lame little jump.

The end.

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