not a bad place to ski

I left the Nikon in the car or coulda brought back some decent pixels of how much snow was away from the parking lot
glad i finally got there and checked that box. it was a good day for a quicky, and now I know what could be there

don't know what this is

but I expect it's going viral

"Nail"

what's this, a trail ride?

from Todd's DSLR

Todd finds his boost after a few laps

Colin, the first person I've seen do the Jersey ramp.

trying to launch/double from the berm over the next roller.

Bad lighting and good rhythm

End of the season

Bring the Riding
Pedal Driven

thanks for the help Wendler

I always feel like I got away with something when leaving this place unscathed.

a 1 x pain in the ass

Last chance for this 1x8 idea to work. I'm one part away from shelving this bike until next Labor Day, taking the Reba and putting it on my single-speed, then ordering a double or triple setup for the front of the EWR for next year.

3 different chain guides
nylon homemade custom spacers
many sizes of chainring bolts
a very destructible alloy ring
and an indestructible TomiRing

the funky angled downtube on the EWR prevents the pricey Paul chain guide from reaching the correct spot, and the Paul is designed for a narrow chain and no bashguard. I like bashguards and want to make this work with one. The cheapie Third-Eye seemed like it should work, but for some reason it still let the chain dive through an invisible gap. The funky EWR downtube also made it hard to get screwdriver and fingers in there to adjust it and move it clear after the chain did what it wasn't supposed to do. Dive and suck.

my new ride looks a lot less problematic
gotta get this thing over to Buck's soon...

B-double E double R U-N beer run

wanna play?
got your 2-beer entry fee?
Inquire within

2, 4, and 24's

the pump track is two years old now
the local club is now officially off the hook.
track work began the day after Teaberry 2008,
two years prior to that, at Teaberry '06, I pulled into the lot with a Suby loaded down with several skis, surfboards, and multiple bikes. It was the beginning of the move from VA to PA.
I think that was the year of the bees. Elk got stung up pretty bad. Albert and I got lit up trying to retrieve Elk's bike for him. I think Albert broke his [frame/fork/stem/bar] during that race, on that one rocky section . I think the rocks were wet that day

Riding the pump track has definitely changed the way I think about my riding,
I no longer think raw, rugged, techy, gnarly, rocky singletrack is the only way I can have fun on 2 wheels. If I don't have 2 hours for a road ride, or 3-4 hours for a mtb ride, I can always get worked in 20 minutes at the pump track.
It's led to harder stuff, like skateparks and now BMX. Yea, I sorta live a lot of my life backwards; have a kid at 40, start BMXing at 48. Terrain parks at 45 when I've been skiing since 18. I do at least have an early history in skateparks Version 1.0 from the '70s.

thoughts

• carving a 20" back and forth on a half-pipe is a full-on happy quad burn
• doing it on a skateboard is comparatively easy

• I find myself on danscomp.com more than speedgoat.

• My eBaby Watch list is all 24 stuff

makes me wonder though. Oliver is sitting here teaching himself how to write Japanese while I blog & search for BMX bikes online. And I just had the brilliant idea that possibly I need a 20" for the parks and a 24" for the tracks. anyone want to buy a road bike? I need to make some room in the garage.

• I've found myself driving by skateparks. That weren't on the way home.

• it feels a little perv checking out skateparks when I don't have a kid along

I just consider it like going to a gym. it's something you can do alone
I often go to a gym in Fall to prep for glisse
why not just hit the parks and call that a gym?
seems a damn good cure for the month of meh too

somewhere off the coast of Delaware sometime recently
source

self inflicted??

the short story

when you run a 1x8, and this happens to your 1, fill in the blank......

the really long story...
About 11 miles in to the 100. First thought, damn, I'm gonna be really drunk by noon. What else can I do? Aid station volunteer? Go back to camp, change clothes and do kitchen help?
That walk of shame heading back to Aid Station 1. Judging from some of the faces I saw coming the other way, I was having a pretty good start for a change. The new bracket start worked well for everybody. Walked back to 1 and checked out the bikes there, not a lot to choose from. Hitch a ride to AS-2 where I knew there'd be some support and maybe some parts, or maybe I'd find a friend there volunteering whose bike I could borrow. On the way there we see another dejected rider with his thumb out and head down. He blew out his rear hub. As we loaded his bike onto the rack, I couldn't help but notice that perfectly serviceable triple chainring he had. I asked for it, and he said sure. I felt bad though, as I could easily give him my rear wheel and then he's back in the game. I offered to draw straws, my wheel or his chainring, but he wasn't that interested, said it's all mine. Thank you Blaine from Charlottesville. I couldn't get his middle ring off w/o crank removal tools, so I took his big ring and bolts from him. Barry had come across me earlier and we attempted to do this same procedure. Yes, BQ was willing to give up his big-ring to me. But we didn't have enough of the right size bolts to make it work for both of us.

So, backtrack on the road to AS-1, and then get back to where I was and back in the game. Enter the Lynn Trail climb behind the 3 sweepers starting to take down arrows, solidly in 550th place. At the bottom of Wolfe Ridge Trail, I was in 546th place, and the rescue litter was headed up for the one girl I passed in that section. Dropped my chain off the outside numerous times down Wolfe and even a few times on the gravel after Wolfe. It took me a while to learn I could only use the 2nd and 3rd cogs on the back if I wanted the chain to stay on. The gear killed me on the paved climb to 2, the sharp edge of cramping with a lot of race left. Passed a few more people and realized that all those I'd been passing were planning to finish in the dark and had their lights in their drop bags at 5. Started worrying about 4:20. If I missed that cutoff I'd have to scavenge or borrow some lights.

When I rolled into 2, they were happy to see my #61, as there was some radio chatter about that rider. That paved hump right after 2 was wicked in that gear, and I easily passed a few people on it. I figured I'd have to walk almost all of the Hankey climb, which I'd actually been looking forward to doing this year with my bling 1x8. I also figured I'd walk all of the Braleys climb, and most of the end to 5. Couldn't get 4:20 out of my mind. Up Hankey I started catching riders in tennis shoes, a rider with a pop-40 radio blaring, some noisy old bikes, and other riders with their own tales of woe. 4:20, 4:20.

Found my 3rd savior of the day at AS-3 in Jeffro, the uber-busy neutral support friend who gave me the middle ring and bolts off of his own bike and we made beer plans for later for the swap back. Found Crouse and Nick at 3 getting ready to hit Braleys, they had a beer hookup and latched on with them up 250 to Mountain House. Things were all good then, I had the right ring, all 8 gears worked, the chain stayed on, stomach's working, and only needed to think about 4:20.

Braleys was great, and I rolled the Dire Wolf road section really fast singing that song in my head (pleeeeaaaase, don't murder me.....). Slowed a bit on that middle section, thinking about the right turn and 4:20. Humped it up the last 5 miles to 5 as fast as I could. Our buddy Marshall was the man in charge at 5, and he laughed when he saw that I was the rider #61 he'd been hearing about on the radio.

There's no way in hell I would've finished if I hadn't had the 32 put on. If I had to walk most of the 25 miles to 5, I wouldn't have made the cutoff and my mental game would've gone down with the legs. I was very lucky. I benefited all day from the kindness of many people. Lucky. Thanks people.
Congrats to Mike and Barry for #12.

Ya shoulda been here Wednesday
from Surfline

Hagerstown
in his high-zoot hand-me-down Fox threads

Hatterask

caught the first real wave I paddled for on Tuesday,

a nice clean longish left, it opened up a little for a nice little ride. but it was a left, so I didn't make much of it
I got a few more like that during our best go-out so far.

north swell & light winds in Buxton, no swell reaching around the corner at the house.
it was clean, like yesterday at the 1st groin, maybe cleaner, and less crowded,
I could grab some of the shoulders of the peak waves that the original riders had either kicked out of or closed out of. Leftovers were all I could muster. The 8-10 guys & gals dominating the peak were catching them at the groin and riding them 100-150 yds. I'd jump on when they were done or on those they skipped.

Next day was smaller and cleaner and we got there well after dead-low tide. All of the better surfers must've been on it earlier in the tide cycle as the peak was only about 5 or 6 mostly longboarders, and from a quick look at the lineup, I thought it looked mostly like a bunch of guys like me, plus one girl who was totally killing everyone. She caught anything she paddled for and rode most of them 100 yds. Thick strong body, blond hair, black bikini, symmetric art covering much of her tanned skin. She easily dominated the lineup, catching4-5 good waves to everyone else's one. I kept getting in her way the first few waves I paddled for, even though I had position on a couple of them. She gave no quarter and expected none as she paddled around us and caught whatever she desired. She kept staring at the beach while waiting on the sets, as if she's keeping her eye on her kids or something. After schooling us for a while, she paddled in and went to play with her friends in the shorebreak. They were an odd looking bunch on this beach. Pale, skinny, inked, learning how to bodysurf the shorebreak. Looked like it could be their first time to a beach. Then she dropped her longboard down and grabbed a cig. Not that I was staring at her or anything..... I was on the beach by then letting Andy have a paddle-out.

Barry arrived late in the week as the winds picked up out of the wrong direction,
Tom & Julie brought their Stand-Up Paddleboards, which were a lot different, and not easy.

the kids all got plenty of water time in, and often were literally and figuratively in way over their heads. they all got their scare on a few times, and were all thoroughly entertained by Tom on the SUP ocean tours. a lot of kids can fit on one of those things.

you could hardly say that we surfed our brains out all week. we had 2-3 marginally decent sessions at best. Andy did well for his first time and got himself into decent position at the 1st groin peak and paddled for a few waves. he took a board to the lip, but managed not to put anyone else in danger. Barry/Tom/Julie got skunked on surfing, but brought other water toys to use instead. It's a tough sport, and a tough place. Swell, wind, and tide all need to coincide to produce the great conditions. If there were no wind, you could at least have ridable surf every day of the year around Buxton. But, Hatteras Island without wind? There would not even be an island if there were no constantly opposing winds.

Todd's annual guys trip in October is a possibility if I still wanna get my surf on back there, and if I can motivate some driving partner(s). anyone?? It's a long way to go to drink beer at a campfire. If there's surf is the only way I'd decide at the last minute to go.

the Sound was pretty tame on an east winds day

Andy gets the fam ready for an epic lunch run, or, as Oliver called it, the Wild 100 of kayaking



oh yea, and the Wild 100 if anyone or I still care....
it was harder/longer than usual
rained for a few hours after checkpoint-1
it got cold, we took it easy, no show-off moves.
didn't know where 6 was going to be until we got to 5 at the top of Props. we knew all the non-Plus racers were heading straight down Props Run to the finish. we didn't know how far we'd get sent to find 6.
lots of comments at the post-race party about the length. Andy and I were out for 11:19 I think. We were about 20 minutes behind the winners of the 2-man Plus. Those 20 minutes could've been from my map reading failure, a failure to notice the extra pink-highlighted line indicating a legal stretch of pavement we could've taken. A stretch that's never been legal to use before, and when we got on the parallel singletrack, it was so overgrown, unused, and filled with blowdowns, we wondered what was going on. It pays to look closely at the map, even when you think you know everything already.
Even though we did an extra checkpoint, we still got in before most of the non-Plus racers. Most of them were well over 12 hours. Many finished in the dark. Many had rides of woe, of missed turns, extra climbs, bad choices. Looking at the map in the morning, I thought it again looked like a simple straightforward course like last year. That everyone would take essentially the same routes. I was certainly proved wrong on that, which is why many of them finished in the dark. Knowing Gil, we expect next year to be shorter again. Will I be there??

EWR v IF

have only rolled it around town so far
hops great
manuals great
wheelies easier than the IF
what else would I expect from a Jay da Hey designed frame
surely these attributes will translate into a shorter 100 time, right Jamie?

I remember a long ago Spring Maximus, probably cold and rainy, as we rolled down Bendersville Road to stage. I was in a tight pack, Jay is right in front of me and pulls a manual. I got nervous as I had nowhere to go if he went over or back. I had to keep telling myself there's no way in hell Jay deJesus is going to crash on a paved road. He sat down on the saddle, and wheelied the whole descent and cruised to a stop at Log Sled. Watched him feather the rear brake and keep the front afloat the whole way down.

these pics are for my benefit, I know most folks never liked geometry
I should be able to get at least one Michaux ride on it before the SM100.
have races the next 2 weekends and this new ride will probably be staying home. But Teaberry?? this bike is all over Teaberry. we'll see if the driver is though one week after Shenandoah

EWR OWB

ephemeral playthings dropped at the end of our alley thanks to some street improvements

cleaned a certain flat rock in Meeshow for the first time last night after watching Howard work it out. it's one I've half-tried before, and have watched 2 others nearly get it. hope I can still pull stuff like that on the new ride