Shifts

So, with rare mechanical skill, I installed some Deore XT Dual Control lever/shifters on my Stumpjumper and ran new cables. I didn't think I could do it, because I can't do much, and there were some hiccups along the way, but it's done and working. However, I'm not so sure I like these levers. Using the brake lever to shift on a mountain bike? I dunno... Maybe I should have put those thumbshifters on instead.


Anyway, on to the weather that's been occuring. I'm not sure what all this snow is going to do, so Eel #4 might have to be truncated or something. Stay tuned.


This isn't really the best blog post ever. Sorry.

Update: here's some truncating. Read more!

Thanksgiving, etc.

Sometimes I feel like the things I write about in the beat bike blog are just boring rundowns of my week. I don't really have insights or sprinklings of profundity. So, here's another entry.

I thankfully got a mountain bike ride in on Thursday morning. It was slippery. I didn't take any pictures of it, but you can imagine me riding at the Reservoir. I didn't have much time, because my parents were coming to pick me up for Thanksgiving at my uncle's house in Boston, a trip which used the below-pictured bridge.



I had to work on Friday. No one else had to work and thusly Papa's Pizza was the only place open. They were friendly and made me a fish sandwich. I attempted to return from work the cool way, through the flood control, but I got there just as the guy was locking the gate. I pondered my options and decided that I should try to find a secret way around Wethersfield Cove. Lacking a canoe, I was unable to get very far. I decided those woods, or as google calls them, The Folly Brook Natural Area, are by the spookiest in Hartford (or that could be Wethersfield). When I got home, I was moody, slightly muddy and didn't have any desire to go to Critical Mass.


On Saturday, I discovered on a limb on Chandler Street with Salem & Peter.


On Sunday, Dario, Peter and I tried to go to Collinsville, but a twig ate Dario's old NR derailleur. I watched it happen, quite disturbing.

With some daylight to spare, Johanna and I took a quick romantic jaunt up to Hublein Tower via the Avon Land Trust trail. Then we went to Ichiban.


On a sad note, our friend who's a scary bunny has vacated her apartment and is officially down in New York. The Hartford glitterati is no more. :( Dan and Lex were around for some moody festivities. Read more!

Sinkhole

Not sure if any of you heard about the sink hole yesterday, but that right's where the Hockanum Trail is that I've talked about lately. Read more!

The Next Eel?

Last Sunday, Salem & Peter Waite organized a ride off into the hinterland off towards Lake Pocotopaug. It was fun, friendly and ended with a pot luck (and it was quite wet). Maybe that's what the next Eel should be like. Or maybe not. Competitive is cool, too. However, the problem I'm having figuring out to do a competitive Eel is that people may get lost with what I'd to do.

A view from the Keney tennis courts.

I've prattled on about "mountain biking" or at the least the dirt to ride in Hartford and closely adjacent places. It'd be really cool to make a race of it, but like, everyone would get lost or at least they'd be focusing on a map a lot. It'd also be cool to just do a group ride with a pot luck. Which is preferable? What do you think? Is racing actually fun? At the first Eel, it was pretty tough to keep everyone going the right way, thus I rode the first lap with everyone. Even then, I think I recall Josh ending up on the railroad bridge. Also, it's hard to disperse prizes if participants aren't time. Maybe there's another way to judge: ride this route and come back with the coolest photograph or object? Best story?

Another view from the Keney tennis courts

I think you can do like a 30 mile loop. Or, maybe a 50 miler if you head all the way down to the ferry in Rocky Hill. So, does anyone want to do this. Can it be done as race? Does anyone care? Does anyone want to help me? I think there was something cool about the first Eel, I'd like to keep that going.

Crazy maple trees!

West Coasters were able to follow this map, though.

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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!

(semi)urban mountain biking

So, I want to do this compendium of urban mountain biking in and around Hartford. I don't really have anything coherent yet, but I found something new (to me) to in East Hartford: the Hockanum River Hiking Trail. It's got an orange blaze and is maybe a half a mile long. It loops you back to the rest of the Hockanum River system's boardwalk. Parts of it are very cool, but it was very leaf-covered and hard to track today. It passes a really cool looking dam.

Oh yeah, I saw this crazy truck in front of City Hall today. I guess the dam picture didn't come out that great. 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.

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Cool or exploitative?

So, I saw this video of a downhill event in the slums of Rio. The course looks cool, but I'm wondering if any of these residents were asked by Red Bull if they wanted a bike race through their homes. What do you think? It's a little more obtrusive than Danny MacAskill riding by and doing cool tricks. Do downhillers worry themselves about such things? Read more!

A few items for consideration

1. >I don't want to get shot this weekend. Once again, I'm returning to Vermont. I don't usually go during hunting season. VMBA advised to wear orange or red and not ride where people are hunting a lot. VT Fish & Wildlife says that you can hunt within like ten feet of a road. Much of the land where I go in Glover is posted no hunting. However, the people who own it can hunt there and might do that. I plan to stay on roads, but some of those roads are pretty quiet and I've seen blinds near them. Any advice? Only ride at Kingdom Trails, where hunting isn't a concern?
2. Why wouldn't you want to say hi me? I'm a nice guy and look non-threatening on a bike. Last night, though, I had like a half dozen unreturned greetings at the Reservoir. I'm hurt. At the onset of the ride, there was a nice guy with whom I was leap frogging picking up blow down from the recent high winds. There weren't over the top or anything. Just "hey" to someone who's oncoming or someone whom I'm passing.
   
3. Chris is at Interbike in Providence. Cool, eh? He's also spreading the word about Hartford 'Cross. He better write up something cool for us.
   
4. Speaking of Hartford 'Cross. If you come day of with a usable part or tool for the Urban League, the $5 surcharge'll be waived.

I have no plans to run in the marathon.

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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!

Badass hawks

Johanna and I tried to do some mountain biking today, but it didn't go very well because I thought it'd be a cool idea to ride without tools, a pump, a tube, or anything other than my wallet, keys and phone. So, I was punished by mountain bike gods (or cyclocross gods, because I was riding my 'cross bike) and got a flat.

After regrouping, Johanna decided to go for a run instead and I rode around on the old Stumpjumper. Nothing interesting, though I did encounter this sort of creepy guy. Then later, there was this badass hawk that I happened upon that had just disemboweled a duck. Damn! The fury of nature!


I couldn't figure out where the hawk had flown, so I did not get a picture of him/her. 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!

First bike ride of the second quarter of my life or last bike ride of the first quarter

I'm not all together certain. It was my 26th birthday yesterday and I went for a bike ride on the old singlespeed. It was the first time I took it out since I broke my thumb with it back in June. Since then it's developed a new chain and a new rear cog. I'm still riding with a 20t, but I'm using a Surly cog instead of an Endless Bike Co. one. So far, it rides exactly like it did before. The Surly cog is steel, though, and the Endless Bike one aluminum. It'll be interesting to see which lasts longer. Steel is suppose to by a significant margin.


Fall is definitely arriving soon.

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2 cats

So, that race in Massachusetts happened yesterday. As promised, Brendan raced Cat 2. Brendan's bike, however, had no desire to do that.


I pre-rode the course, well some of it, and thought it was going to be a fun race. It felt fast and manageable. I stopped pre-riding when I came upon this crazy floating bridge.

Crazy floating bridge.

Crazy floating bridge with Brendan and some other guy.

I figured that the Cat 2 start would be faster than the Cat 3. It was, but not that much faster. I was in fourth going into the singletrack in the woods. Positions changed a bit until the crazy floating bridge, but I was in fourth getting to the bridge. My rear derailleur had started shifting funny, but I didn't really think anything of it until the other side of the floating bridge. It promptly shifted the chain into the spokes on the other side of bridge. I fixed it and on the next shift, it did it again. Things were not looking good. I lost a whole slew of positions and realized that I had bent the derailleur, though the hanger looked ok. Needless to say, this made riding with speed up any hill very difficult because I couldn't shift into any of the lower gears. I took it easy for a while, trying to figure out which gears worked and which gears didn't. I finally settled into a groove and could ride at maybe 75%. I caught back up to two 19-29 people and was started to feel a little more confident. It being my first Cat 2 race my expectations weren't very high, so I was just riding for the sake of riding and having a pretty good time.

Then my chain broke and I stopped having a good time. I ended up jogging the second half of the third lap and finishing with a depressing +2 hours time on an 18 mile course. Although, my wonderful girlfriend, Johanna, was waiting for me a little ways before the finish for some cheering up.

Brendan on foot.

She took the picture, so you can't see her.

Also, Cat 2 seems to be a good fit, though it'll be awhile until I win some socks again.

2nd also, one of the reasons that the crazy floating bridge was so crazy was that the water on either side was like four feet deep. I was told that in the Cat 1 race, someone tried to do a slick pass by running around the bridge and he sank. Also in the Cat 1 race, someone tried to jump on to the bridge, busted his ass and crashed into a tree.

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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!

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