Interesting new ways to make yourself tired

Hiking is fun and so is cycling. Generally, though, the hike a bike is not something the people seek out. It's good for character building, but you try to avoid routes where you spend an hour carrying your bike your shoulder. I did this once and was proud to say that I did, but I'm not jumping at the chance to do it again. Hiking is best done without a vestigial bicycle.

What I do recommend is riding to a hike and then locking up your bike. You get to spend maximum time outside and it discourages going too fast: you don't want to ride too hard so that you have energy to hike and you don't want to hike too far so that you can ride home. I did this yesterday wherein I rode over to Ragged Mountain, met some friends and went for a hike and then rode home. Originally, I was going to get a ride home, but apparently everyone thought I was super tough and didn't bring a bike rack. This probably doesn't work if you're planning to go hike Mount Adams or something starting from Connecticut in a day. It does work, though, if you want to go to Ragged Mountain or Heublein Tower or something more low key.

It's sort of the same principle as riding your bike to go fishing.

Ragged mountain is mostly not all that great for mountain biking. Would anyone want to ride on this? There are a couple of interesting sections of singletrack off in the unpopular part of the Reserve over by the powerlines. 

I was lying on this rock for a half hour yesterday looking at the trees and contemplating my trivial existence.

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Why is it Bash Bish?

I went for a hike yesterday with Johanna and Marko in the vicinity of Bash Bish Falls upon the Taconic Trail. For someone reason, everyone I know, myself included, always wants to call "Bash Bish" "Bish Bash". My theory is that "bish bash" rhymes with "splish splash" which is sort of a waterfall sound. Upon googling Bash Bish, the legend behind the name involves capital punishment for trumped-up adultery charges, witch accusations and suicide. It's quite depressing.

I have some limited experience hiking on the Taconic Trail sort of near here on Brace Mountain. Johanna and I actually rode our bikes up it once on our most epic mountain bike adventure ever. We rode on the multi-use trail. It seemed that it was seldom a multi-used trail, because hikers were pretty surprised to see people on bikes, not in a "go away" sense, more in a confused sense.

Anyway, this rambling mess I'm writing here is vaguely premised as a way to post some nice pictures of the hike we went on yesterday.

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Wintry Mix

This past week is best described as a wintry mix.  Midwest, and the Northeast.  Small towns, no towns, tents in the wilderness, and back to the big city.  Hiking, biking, flying, driving, and buses.  Amazing graffiti. Ice and leaves.  Slippery rocks.  A really heavy bike that never should have existed, but did.

Crowd source funded bicycle graffiti in Urbana, IL.

I've been toying with this crowd source funded graffiti concept in Hartford.  If any CT local graffiti artists think this would be neat, get in touch with me.  Sort of like a mural (getting paid) but with the artistic freedom of a graffiti piece.  I've got a venue that is interested and could help publicize.  Lately I've been all about the Tavis / Skan stuff, which we saw a lot of today in Rocky Hill.

Beautiful sandstone canyon in Southern Illinois.

You wouldn't expect there to be massive cliffs, sandstone canyons, and mountain lions in Illinois.  I can confirm the first two, and the third is a maybe based on the eviscerated deer we stumbled upon while free-hiking in the Shawnee National Forest.  Valerie and I spent a couple of days hiking and winter camping over the holiday week.  It was awesome.  No one was there.  It might have been the frigid temperatures that resulted in our private camping and hiking experiences.  On night two of camping, I awoke with frozen condensation on my sleeping bag.  First rule of having fun - nobody died.

Back in Urbana, IL, I caught up with Joel at The Bike Project and put some time in on one of the oddest bikes I've come across.  This so-heavy steel rig from White Auto Inc was outfitted with some truly obscure Shimano components.  A rear disc brake was mounted by way of a self tapping screw.  The Shimano Positron shifter and rear derailleur were actuated by two cables - and indexed.  If it weren't for the inherent shitty quality of the rig, I might have adopted it.  The rear wheel had a radial hop of 1/4" and the front fork was misaligned, and I expect both were that way when the bike was new.  It served it's purpose as a loaner bike for a couple days, and was put back into TBP circulation.

White Auto Inc.  WTF?  Swedish tyres.

The top tube sticker had texture, like leather, to make it look fancy.

Yes.  This is a Shimano disc brake.  And that adjustment knob is a non-functional cover for the actual adjustment underneath.  More WTF.

And the Shimano Positron rear derailleur had two cables with a ball bearing for indexing.  WTF x 3.

Lovely mat brown finish.  

The Bradley Flyer is awesome.  Although the schedule can be sparse.

On my way back to Hartford, I caught the last bus back from Bradley to downtown Hartford.  If you are a downtown resident, the Bradley Flyer is awesome.  For $1.30 you get an express bus trip from Hartford to the airport.  Way cheaper than the $40 cab ride or parking a car at the airport.   The only drawback is that the schedule is sparse on the weekends and still not great during peak travel times.  It would serve Hartford well to increase the frequency of the airport express bus.  It would be way cheaper than something like Fastrak and I think the convention, tourism, and resident benefits would be significant.

On Sunday Josh and I wandered South and Southwest from Hartford.  I crashed on some slippery rocks and there was much graffiti and train tracks.  On the topic of graffiti, there is a final public input session on the Hartford Downtown North plan on Wednesday, Dec 11th at the Hartford Public Library.  You should go, and make sure that Heaven gets proper representation.

I heart graffiti.

And heart it even more when it incorporates existing features of the structure.

Sometimes a border catches your eye.

Josh really likes cracking ice that is suspended above the ground.

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Ride it. Love it. Respect it. Pick up the Trash.

Just saw an announcement of a trail cleanup day along the East Hartford section of the Hockanum River Trail this Saturday, June 1st.  9AM-noon.  Meeting behind the East Hartford Town Hall on Main Street.  It seems they are also having a competition as to who can make the best Gorp.  I'm going to skip the trail mix challenge and try to weird out the AMC hikers with my trash bag toting bike trailer.

Huge fan of this trail and if you don't know about it yet, you're totally missing out.  As one astute fellow and very occasional Beat Bike Blogger notes, the East Hartford section near Main Street is "like road bike single track."  Also pretty nice for walking and running.  Hidden gem.  The Hockanum Trail (and associated linear park) is much longer than you would expect.  Hopscotching its way along the Hockanum River valley all the way through Manchester.  

June is a busy month.  Just check out the Real Hartford list of fun stuff to do.  Didn't purposefully post over Brendan's most entertaining video of a bicycle towing a load of tin cans.  He likes river cleanups, so will likely approve.

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The man who drank water from Dudleytown

Johanna and I hiked the Mohawk Trail this weekend. It's one of the CT blue blazed trails and it used to be the Appalachian Trail until the late 1970s. I recommend it. Quiet, pretty and the only blue blazed trail I know of with lean-tos and campsites. We had a good time. Saturday night, I got to sit by the fire drinking apple brandy, smoke my pipe and look at the stars.

The other thing about the Mohawk Trail is that is goes through Dudleytown- THE MOST HAUNTED PLACE IN AMERICA!!!!! Or, not, who knows? All the paranormal websites seem to give contradictory information. Most people say it's on the Mohawk Trail, but the Warrens say it's not in the Bonney Brook Valley at all and nowhere near Dark Entry Rd. It's hard to verify things in the world of superstition. Dark Entry Rd seems like a really nice neighborhood, though.

Anyway, we hiked through there and it's really quite pretty. The Bonney Brook has a beautiful series of cascades. There are also lots of no trespassing signs from the ominous sounding Dark Entry Forest, Inc.

And, as I was thirsty, I filtered some water from a Bonney Brook tributary and drank it. Hopefully, my demise isn't approaching anymore rapidly than it was before.

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Balancing what I like with what I don't

I still have no idea why I got involved in this, but I'm nearing the final throes of my first semester of law school. The New York Times keeps telling me I'm a moron for going to this kind of school and I tend to agree with them. At the onset, I had the feeling I'd be able to ride my bike more. I was wrong. There are laws about this and laws about that. So many of them. I'm really only interested in laws about mountain biking, so maybe I should have got an LLM in mountain biking law.

There were some 'cross races, in which I did poorly, because I'm getting fat and don't maintain bicycles.

But, the big news lately is that I finally I figured out how to get to King Philip's cave. Only took a boy of the Farmington Valley 22 years.

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Soda review

About a month ago, I got an email from someone named Victoria asking me if I wanted to review soda for the blog. Snow soda to be exact. Since this is a bike blog, I explained that I generally prefer drinking beer. None the less, it's hard to refuse a free case of anything, so I consented to review and a few days later a case of soda (12 pack?) arrived. It would seem by googling "snow soda", this type of free-case-of-soda-for-review model is major part of their advertising plan. Other companies have tried this with us and to date, I think I reviewed some kind of training dvd and I was sent some knock-off camelbaks. They weren't very good, so I decided that maybe reviewing them would be a disservice for the knock-off camelbaks. The training dvds were ok, though I still think I prefer riding outside in the winter to watching a dvd involving riding while I'm on rollers.

Anyway, snow makes three kinds of soda, Cola, Cranberry Pomraz and Lemon Lime, that they put in a tall can. The can is 12oz., but it's tall like a red bull can. The Cranberry Pomraz, despite having a weird name, is quite good. Not too sweet and it tastes like cranberry, pomegranate and raspberry. The cola isn't too good. It tastes slightly off and a little flat (kinda like Tab?). I understand they purposefully don't carbonate their sodas too much, but I think this cola needed more bubbles. The addition of rum didn't really help either. The lemon lime is ok, but could probably be just slightly more sour (or bitter)- maybe in the direction of that San Pellegrino Limonata stuff or Ting.

In the grand pantheon of sodas, I'd say the Snow ranks better than Jones. The Pomraz is better than all of the Boylan sodas, except for grape. It's not as good as Hosmer. It's not as good as the old recipe for Fresca. And, nothing is as good as Northern Neck Ginger Ale. So, if it's Sunday and you're out of Miller Lite, maybe you should grab a Pomrazz. Although, they do have more calories than a Miller Lite, so only grab one.

Ed. Note: Johanna also drank some of the soda, but she doesn't have a blog, so we'll never know what she thought.

Another soda related thing to which I would lend my seal approval are these Portland Design Works sodapop fenders. I put them on my Diamond Back and rode it around in the rains of last week. They work 90% as good as complicated fenders, but are 90% easier to install. They're supposed to be removable, but the way that the fender mounts to the rear "brake" bridge abridged that, so I can only easily take off the front one.

It rained so much I became blurry.

In other news, I found a new and steep way to get over Talcott Mountain. It's especially helpful if you need to get from Tapas in Bloomfield to the Pickin Patch in Avon.

don't fall in this well on the Avon Land Trust's Hazen Park trail.

On Sunday, I went for a hike.

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(no subject)

I've been outside as much as I can muster lately, but it's not really leading to anything to write about. You go outside, it's nice, what more is there to say? Lots of mountain bikers at the reservoir again. It's good to have company.



Johanna and I did some hiking and camping on the AT last weekend.


First race of the year this Saturday!

And, some very sad news about that kid at UConn who got hit. I hope he's ok. Read more!

Expedition speed

I'm not going to attempt to take credit for the term "expedition speed", but I'm going to do all that I can to propagate it. Dario and I first heard Salem mention it last Thursday whilst we rode slowly through the beautiful and shotgun filled Glastonbury Meadows.



If I understand correctly, expedition speed is another way to say that you're going slow. However, unlike regular going slow, you must have an intent look on your face, gritted teeth and an inflated sense of importance. You probably should wear some wool for good measure. It's perfect for riding this time of year.



A nice thing about expedition speed is that you don't even have to go very far if you believe that you life is part of an ongoing expedition. Thus, my ride to work this morning as well as my mountain bike ride at the reservoir yesterday were all part of the same expedition. The same went for my ride with El Prez and Dario on Saturday, the snowy powerline ride last Tuesday, the hike I took on Sunday with Johanna and the trip across the street today to buy a sandwich. Heady and philosophical, right? I mean, I have no idea where I'm going.

Also, unlike an expedition, expedition speed doesn't require you to carry camping gear or ride a Surly Big Dummy. That'd be totally inconvenient.

I think this may be a little bit like Rapha and their epics, but we do it mainly in color and have mountain bikes. I'd gladly switch to black and white if Rapha started giving me some free clothes. I think my cell phone camera even works better in black and white.

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Unrelated, but two observations:

1) Those of you who frequent the reservoir are probably familiar with the very rideable two foot drop on the blue trail about midway along the ridge. Well, the big winds and falling ice (or something) has fell two trees right there, so you can't ride up the hill on the other side, they effect made a 50 foot fence. I'm wondering if a chain saw will be needed or a log stack can be made. Any thoughts those of you who are good at trail maintenance? Should I start being a CT-NEMBA trail ambassador around here? Do they have enough of them?

Drop off in the background.

Fallen trees.

2) The NYT's Spokes blog is generally lame (like the beat bike blog), but they had a very interesting post today about the history of bicycle clubs in the US. I guess the League of American Bicyclists did a lot to maintain the color barrier in cycling (though they have apologized)... sort of like how they want to make cycling in Connecticut seem terrible. Read more!

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!