Sign here please...

Let's say you own a business, say Black Bear Burritos; Outdoor Adventures; or a physical therapy practice,......, and I came into your shop with a clipboard and said"...hey, would you like to have more wilderness and nature in our country, and cleaner air and water, and healthier plants and animals? Cool, sign here please" Who wouldn't say yes to that? Look at all these folks who did. Look at all the health professionals supporting more Wilderness. How many of those folks signing that understood the ban on bicycles, and no ban on horses, skis, or guns?

This is what we're up against. Regardless of right or wrong, regardless of whether an act written in 1964 should control where someone can ride a bicycle 50 years later, this is the way the fight is playing out. The current congress people don't know all about this act, they don't necessarily understand the term "mechanized" and what it includes and doesn't include. But what they do understand is numbers, and big numbers of signatures get their attention. This is the movement that is underway. We can already see how others have their game face on. The West Virginia fight was nearly over before bikers even saw the card. The last ditch phone and e-mail flurry many of us took last Spring resulted in the saving of Spruce Knob/Seneca Creek, but we lost Dolly Sods.

Environmental law groups are picking apart the Forest Service's own policies and federal laws and telling the Forest Service how to do their own job. And they are usually right. Do we mountain bikers have anyone who will be doing the same in our corner?

We should not be complacent in waiting for the comment periods, and taking the public civility of the W advocates in the meetings as a sign that we are seated fairly at the table. I don't think we really are. The W's are already working behind the scenes, with Congress, while we're writing letters to the FS Superintendent.

what's next

Now that the pump track is fun & done, you might see a few more topics on this stuff on this page for a while. Feel free to tune out if you like.....

The George Washington National Forest Plan Revision process is beginning again, and it's another battle with Wilderness advocates, as well as a new major player in our public lands, Wind.

I like wilderness, but not Wilderness. I try to spend as much of my personal time as possible in wilderness settings, on a bike, on skis, and even surfing. I fully appreciate protected areas and resources, like National Forests & Parks, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Canaan Valley Wildlife Refuge etc. Those are all wilderness places, but not Wilderness places. The difference between the protected GW National Forest, and the unprotected Michaux State Forest is night & day (but this is another discussion...). I consider the GWNF well protected, but serious and new threats loom.


Check out some of the preliminary comments submitted to the FS so far. Official comment period is still months away, but many groups are already seriously on this in a big way. Read the incredible (and very long) letter by the Friends of Pendleton County. Remember that old guy who used to come to the Wild 100s and promote the Gnarly North Fork? I wonder if he's involved in this? Read also the letter from the Hang Gliders and Paragliders organization. What do you think 200' wind tubines will do to their sport? Most of the comments are pro-wilderness, anti-wind, and pro-species. I found the word "bike" only one time in all those pages, and it wasn't even from a mountain biker, though the writer was at least throwing us a bone in the Sherando area.

The meeting section of GWNF website

I like the idea of wind energy as part of our global future, but I don't like the idea of using our public lands for it. At this stage of the game, utility scale wind energy production is barely profitable for the energy companies despite large subsidies. Wind also contributes very little to the grid, and has not replaced any coal-fired power plants. It may in time, but I wonder if the future of wind energy lies more in small wind. Small wind is defined as smaller turbines used on ranches, farms, and by townships and counties. Small wind is generally located on private land.

I'm not anti-wind, in fact, I'm very interested in the GIS side of the alternative energy industry and would even consider hitching my own future to it in some way. But the current way that wind energy is controlled by subsidies and large energy companies like Dominion, Allegheny, etc. indicates that it's no different from the oil and coal industries right now. And their target, for cheap windy land, is our National Forest ridge tops.

If you read the hang gliders concerns, you know that they consider the whole Massanutten ridge as a unique national resource. Those ridges were listed as potential for wind development. If you've ever ridden your bike on those ridges, you know that that idea is ludicrous. You know how narrow those ridges are. Can you imagine the disturbance needed to construct the roads to carry those long turbine double-trailers; and the huge cranes needed to lift the turbines; and the huge flat spot that would need to be created to hold the concrete pad for each turbine?

Look at the marginal ratings for utilty scale wind on the Mass. ridges. Note the higher potential in Shenandoah Nat'l Park, and west on the North Fork and North Mountain ridges. Look out Wolf Gap area....


Note how much more utility scale wind potential there is in the coastal region. Look at the Potomac, Rappahannock, and James river basins compared to the ridgetops of Massanutten and Great North mountains.
The National Renewable Energy Lab's GIS app
Wind Powering America (wind research, mostly pro-wind)
Anti-wind in Pennsylvania

I'll be sending in my comments and stories to the GWNF Supervisor Hyzer. They will be pro-bike, pro-Scenic Area, and anti-wind.

peeps

Thank you Ben Blitch

I hardly know what to say about this guy.
This guy, who is only 28 years old,
who has so much background, experience, energy, skills, talents,
he's been everywhere, can relate with anyone,
lawyers, councilmen, firemen, dirt jumpers, racers, landscapers, skaters, managers, kids, laborers.
Ben is in this game for so many reasons, and they're not all about bikes. If you're lucky enough to hear his presentation at the upcoming National Trails Symposium, you'll get a good idea of what he's all about. If you get a chance to ride a trail he's worked on, you'll get an idea.

THANK YOU BEN! I hope to work with you again soon.

The real posts on the track are over here for the week.

Some personal observations:
It is really waaay harder to ride a pump track than I thought it would be. If I'd known how hard it would be, I'm not so sure I would've pursued this. A couple laps totally wears you out, and you come off the track breathing like you just powered a time trial. The legs do get worked, much to my surprise.

Our track is still totally soft, and hasn't yet had a drop of water, but it's still ridable on a bike with no chain. Tim keeps busting his chain somehow, and he was able to ride 11 laps without a chain. This means our track is very well designed and built thanks to Ben.

One of our Town Councilman, the one most interested in our track, and the man most responsible for getting our rail-trail built years ago comes by each day on his morning walk, and again each evening on his Harley. Tonight, he got off his Harley with a big smile, saw about 25 kids, parents, and adult mtn bikers around, and said "...this is not big enough......we need to cut that bank there down, and expand down into there.....".

People are showing up out of woodwork. There's a guy who won the 1999 Cycle Messenger World Championship bunny-hop competition. He now lives here, and talks about starting a Trips for Kids program where he'll bring city kids here to ride the track. He's trying to beat Ben in who can first gap the backside's berm-double roller-berm combo.

There are a couple kids who can manual the block, and only quit because of the stop sign at the bottom of the hill. Hopefully some decent video to come of them. Other kids can whip 360's and J-hop about 4 feet high. None of them had ridden a pump track before either, and some of them are killing it.
I'm pretty surprised about all the interest and support. Seems every other local is too. The only person who doesn't seem at all surprised, is Ben.

folks should start finding an excuse to get to Chambersburg for a few hours.

Day 1

I'll be bloggin' over here for the week of the pump track build.

Caledonia-to-Frederick

Yea, that's what the Outlaw talks his friends into, like Jay here, all smiles at Totem Pole. Joe also convinced one Big Dog to partake as well.











This group and I rode the Michaux portion with them to Mackey Run, and then we turned back to home. Joe and I have been talking about this and the route and trails for over a year, with all the trails planned out. So, I monkey wrench their gig, and stash a 7-pack of Dales Pale at the Rattlesnake Run Rd. creek crossing, Travis shows up, we squash all the cans, and then we start up Sucker Punch. This was a completely un-discussed, non-vetted singletrack climb, that really slowed us down, and lived up to it's name. Thoroughly softened up, we make our way to Mackey Run and bid the thru-bikers adieu.


My first time back on Mackey since the winter, and it was a killer. Hard to believe Travis has cleaned every section there. I'm gonna hit that a lot this winter. Wore us all out hard enough that we took mostly roads to get back in 6.5 hours.








This mossy lounge was Donna's favorite part of Mackey.

As I type this, I'm not positive the intrepid trio made it back to Fredrock yet. I know I probably sabotaged their ride with the beer stop and gut punch trail additions. Or maybe they ran into some political troubles skirting around Camp David?

As tough as their and our day was, hey, it ain't as dangerous as cyclocross.

stylin'

I like this shot of Dominic,
the safety plate
the wheelie finish
the drop bars
the fixed gear

I believe he and his buddy Carney will be adding their names to the list next year

photo stolen at low-resolution from Jonathan Bruck

the evening ride

curious

pic from the flood year, swiped from IPlayOutside.com

Year --------- time
1999 ---------12:10
2000 ---------11:00--------(the flood year with the different course)
2001 ---------10:35
2002 ---------12:26---------(still sick stomach from TransRockies)
2003 ---------9:58----------(first year on single speed)
2004 ---------10:42
2005 ---------10:21
2006 ---------10:53
2007 ---------11:05
2008 ---------12:09
2009 --------- 11:04
2010 ---------12:39 -------(geared, chainring fun)
2011 --------- 11:45 ------ (back on the SS)

test ride

Checked out the pump track in Harrisonburg on the way into the Shenandoah 100. Was pretty fun, a little tough to ride on my 29er, but still doable. This looks to be a little bit bigger than the one slated for Chambersburg, and they have plans to build some new larger tracks at the same park.

The 100-mile test ride with the new Honkin' Bar went pretty well, though it was my slowest 100 in many years. Probably can't blame that on the bars. Maybe on the prior evening's Stage 1 of the rockstar. All these years of doing the 100s and watching fellow competitors have shown me the importance of a strong performance on Saturday night. I knew that at my current speed level, my best chance for a leaders jersey would be after stage 1. So I went for it, and found myself still at the pavilion, hours after the other 1000-milers, the cupcake/philly contingent, and the WV Night Club all went to their tents. Before long, I looked around and noticed that there was no one still up except for volunteers, Young Matthew, and me. Matthew was going strong and sucking up years of insider info from the graybeard, preparing to throw it down tomorrow in his first Shenandoah.

Awake happy with the bullhorn and the gong and proceed to do basically,.... nothing for the next hour. Didn't need, or want to eat too much, just needed some hydration and basic digestible fuel to get me 31 miles to AS-2. Fruit, yogurt, figs, the breakfast of rockstars. Cut to 06:27, the back of a green Subaru in dawn's low light, dinky headlight, searching for the right items for my Camelback. Tubes, pump, CO2, NUUN tablets check, but where are my tools?? D@mn, I still gotta hit the porta and get my ass on the line in 3 minutes.

Started at the back of the pack with fellow1000-milers Quigley and Riggin. Yea, was hoping for a special call-up for us, or maybe a 1000-second head start or something. We hang at the back long after the leaders have probably hit the bridge. I think someone had time to go get a cup of coffee..... No biggy, my buddy Albert was back there with us, and a few other friends who would figure prominently in the enjoyment of my day were still back at their campsite trying to get ready.

I can tell going up Narrowback that I am not in my usual crowd. I can really tell that when we hit the first 10 yards of trail and about 6 people immediately jump off their bikes. It used to be my strategy at my first few long races to start in the back, and try to pass people all day to the finish. With now 500+ people doing these things, that strategy doesn't work so well. Sure, I didn't exactly blow up like I have a few other years (where I actually did start near the front and tried to hang), but everything all the way up Lynn and down Wolfe took longer with a long slow train ahead of me.

I rode a jackhammer all the way down Wolfe. The Honkin' Bar is stiff alright. I guess the people that buy this bar usually ride 8" travel bikes. But if this seems so stiff, then the last 3 bars I've had on my bike must be way flexy. I don't know if flexy is what I desire in an aluminum bar. Too much pressure in the front tire and that bar made for a rattling, cautious descent. I'm thinkin' ...cool, I still have 80 more miles to see if I like this handlebar... I let some air out of the front tire at the base of the first Hankey climb and the Dowell's descent was much nicer.

I never got a chance to test the log-hopping ability of the Honkin' Bar. The logs, including Nick's facial log, were all cut out. There wasn't another log to hop for the rest of the race, nor any real reason to have to lift the front end. So unlike Michaux, where you're lifting your front wheel 10 times/minute. There was one log though, I guess a tree fell on the course overnight, it was on the way to Braleys I think. It was a little higher than my comfort range, but I was antsy and hadn't been able to hop anything all day and wanted to test out the bar. It was an elevated leaner, higher on one side than the other. A friend riding in front of me stopped to walk over the low side, I called out that I was gonna give it a go, and he let me have a quick look at the high side. I gave it shot, but was too fatigued to clean it. So, 0-1 on log attempts on this way stiffy bar. The Honkin' Bar loses a few more points.

The rest of the race was pretty uneventful for me, not a lot of excitement back there, other than riding with Young Matthew and Carney. Chris pulled me around all day, and I hung with him as long as I could until his dot got smaller on the way to Little Bald. Last year he was about 10 minutes in front of me, and his buddy Dominic was right behind me. Two years ago I finished right behind Chris. Seems like Chris and I were both slummin a bit, about an hour off our usual pace, with several rest breaks thrown in there.

AS 5 goodies, didn't need any of it

Each year, I try to make sure I have enough gas to ride Hankey the second time. Passing people there makes me happy, and I savor the minor victories nowadays. Rolled in around 12 hours, which was about 2 hours later than Kim was expecting me. She was forced to listen to friends wondering what's wrong, and had begun to get concerned for the tired old 10-timer.

Classy Chris has a plaque for the 1000 Mile Hall of Fame club, and our names will be the first four on the plaque. Yours could be next. So, will there be an 11th for me? Will I be like the aging and ineffective Cal Ripken just riding out the streak until the band finally snaps? Or do I possibly have one more .300 season in me? Two days later my answer is of course, yes, I'll be back for more, and was thinking an awful lot about this during the race. Could be a new era for me. I certainly question whether I can (or want to) do 10 more of these with only one gear. Maybe I should test ride it before next September.

Congrats to the fast folks, and to all who've finished this great race. And thank you Chris Scott for providing 10 years of these experiences. You'll probably never really know how important your races are to us regular riders.

changin' stuff

So I'm a little freaked out over that broken handlebar a couple months ago. I used a Fubar for a while, but it kept slipping, so I over-tightened the faceplate bolts and already started to crimp into the aluminum bar. Then I put on my old titanium White Brothers DH bar, which required 2 shims to bring it up to the 31.8 of my new Thomson stem. It slipped as well, and I got concerned with over tightening after TimmyD's broken faceplate problem at the 101.

Looking for stronger and/or thicker bars now. They don't seem to be made in the funky swept-back style I've gotten used to over the past 3 years. Maybe when Jones gets his new ti H-bars out,........ if I feel like plunking 4 bills??

I got Merv to order this Truvativ bar and I also have my eye on this cro-moly AtomLab one built by a BMX star who used to work at the shop with Quigley and me back in Lake Ridge in the 80s. He moved to Cali and started making bombproof parts for the jump and DH scene. A cro-mo bar built for dirt jumping and downhill certainly oughta be enough for my situation. So I'll be rolling the SM 100 with a new bar, the 4th bar that's been on my bike this week.
And when I wasn't wearing out the torque wrench on the 4mm bolts all week, I was changing rear tubes and trying to find a mysterious thorn that I got on the Weds. shakedown ride...., the first ride on a new tire. I guess it wasn't much of a shakedown ride if I've since replaced the bar, chainring, chain, and put in 2 more tubes. I guess I'll have plenty of time tomorrow to see what works... better start packing now....

typical

So, I wake up today, the day after vacation and see and read this.

"My rating for this morning assuming that the wind continues to stay off-shore & the swell continues to be at waist height. We have the best conditions we have had in about 2 weeks. The on-shore that the OBX has experienced for the last 4 days has finally switched & is now off-shore. I would check it out right now!"

This is one of the main reasons I took to mountain biking so quickly in 1987. I can ride anytime I want.

Hatteras pics

the shots I get with a 5-yr old point & shoot

one of Kim's favorite eateries, John's for fresh fried seafood. try the dolphin basket

The surf wasn't great, not at all. Not one single day of easy waves. Winds at 20mph out of the east-northeast really chopped up the surf for many days. Of the 8 days there, I caught at least something every day but one. I could bike down to the end of the street, and then walk to 1st jetty at the lighthouse. Did that for a few low-tide dawn and dusk patrols. One session I was the only one out at the lighthouse. That's a sure sign that either the surf really sucked, or 0630 was too early for everyone else. I did get some decent waves that session, with only one fisherman around.
Quigley came in Friday night and we got out a couple times at the Frisco Pier, and once at the house in Buxton. All 3 sessions were pretty tough, hard waves to paddle into. He caught some waves, and got worked pretty hard too. Said something about 100 miles on a mountain bike being easier than an hour on a surfboard.....

apparently, motorcycle flats are a lot more complicated than mountain bike flats. a wood screw controlled the next several days of our friend's life.

always worth a go out

ferry crossing

catch the glassy evening low tide before the next few days 20 mph NE winds rip the surf apart.

Hatteras 1

Arrival evening, the tide was a little too fat with some easterly chop. I went out anyway at the house and it was better than it looked. A few other guys in the lineup, and I caught a few short moments of face time.
Was hoping for a low tide glassy session at dawn day 2, but it was already (or still) choppy and fat when I checked it at 0630. Followed my formula from last year, and waited for the tide flip and hit Frisco Pier where the wind was more offshore, but with very small gutless waves breaking on a chest-deep sandbar about 100 yards offshore.

If I planed my longboard up to speed, and got just right in the best spot of a wave, I could grab a second or two of open face before the whole section spilled into foam. Gutless, but at least worth a paddle. A lot of paddle for little. Serious, skilled surfers wouldn't have been caught dead in waves like this. Only a few old guys like me out.

more of the future?

These are plans I found last week on the MORE site of two public bike parks, both with skills areas, freeride features, xc singletrack, and pump tracks.


I like the look of this future too. This is the kind of stuff that will keep me riding into old age. And it will be fun riding this stuff with Oliver and his friendz,... until they're old enough to not want the old man hangin' around anymore.....

Ski areas have been into this game with lift-served freeride and downhill parks for some time now. For some reason, I never bit into that scene even though I do like to go downhill. But these kinds of parks intrigue me, a lot. These look like they could be fun for hours at a time, especially if the kid is into it too. Not that I think anything like this will be coming soon to a venue near us, but I like the looks of it all the same.


Now, for yet another kind of future. This is a trail in the 'Shed. This is a 2-mile trail that I could ride back and forth on for 3 hours and be perfectly happy. And perfectly wasted afterwards.

the future of mountain biking?

An Economic Experiment to see if spending a couple hundred thousand dollars (from grants and taxpayers) can lure mountain bikers to this region to play, eat, sleep, and spend.

This is fresh machine-made trail at Raystown Lake. It doesn't look like much now, compared to what I'm used to, but riding it was a different story. I don't have the vocabulary to really convey how much fun it was riding these new trails. It was the fastest and most intense I've ridden in some time, ....almost road-riding like intensity. Every second, up or down, we were pinning and grinning it. On your toes, weighting the front wheel, trying not to wash out or blow a curve, trying not to get too much air to make that curve just after the landing. Trying to keep up with Withers and Straub was a blast.

[freshly cut, we did not ride the above two sections,....next time. pics stolen from B4's site]

I never thought I'd be a fan of machine built trails. I remember about 10 years ago when Dan Hudson got excited about the new Stephens Trail near Camp Roosevelt in the GW being built with a SWECO machine. I didn't pay that much attention, I just loved the descent off Massanutten ridge, though I used to call that trail the uphill downhill trail. It seems that having some peanut butter in your chocolate and vicy versy is the key to flowable sustainable trails. The new Raystown trails are a perfect example: every 20 yds. or so, is a grade reversal and/or a curve. This means that while you're descending, every 20 yds. you have an uphill roller or a berm to bleed speed. And when you're climbing, you get lots of breaks. It also means that water can't stay on the trail for more than 20 yds. at a time which cuts out the rutting and erosion problem.

The elevation change from the lake to the top of the trail network is about 400'. When we turned our backs to the lake and headed up, it wasn't the type of settle in and suffer climb that I'm used to in the GW and Michaux. There were plenty of rolling dips to briefly recover on. Not the kind of drops where you hate to lose any elevation on a climb, but nice rollers to rest on and get some momo back. These pro trails are built with grades not exceeding 15%, with most only in the 10% range. This means everything is middle-ringable, and very SS-friendly.
Actually, nothing at Raystown was of the settle in type of riding. You needed to be on your game at every moment. There are no obstacles like logs or rocks, there. The biggest obstacle is speed. Speed can kill you there. It's so fast, and there are so many curves, rollers, berms, and whoops that it would be so easy to wash off into the brush or wrap your helmet around a tree. If there's ever a race here, I would expect far more carnage in one day than all the Michaux races combined. It's nutzy fast.
An interesting contrast between these kind of trails and the kind I'm used to is that machine built trails are initially built wider, with a built-in bench cut, and then get narrower over time as vegetation grows in. The singletrack I've worked on in the Forests are usually built by hand, without full benching, narrow at first, but they tend to get wider over time, and slowly shift downhill beyond where the bench should be.

The Raystown Trails are also being built with other uses in mind such as xc skiing. A friend recently remarked that no trail that's good for xc skiing could possibly be good for mountain biking. Well, I now totally disagree. Yea, it's not the same as the GW, Abby, Heaven or Hell, or Iceberg, but it's absolutely as fun for me. Taxpayer Trails are good!!! I hope it succeeds.

the Wilderness in my head

I returned to the Wilderness 101 this weekend. I did the first two installments of Chris' version in 2001-2002, but then missed the next 5 of them. Hmmm, Oliver is 5 years old, coincidence??

I had a good, uneventful race, no flats, no mechanicals, no crashes, etc., but I'm not thrilled with my time of 10:55. I started in the very back and felt I stayed there, riding mostly alone until AS-3 or so when I finally started catching up to familiar faces like Frank and Harry. Funny how my mind works; last week in the blistering Curse, I told myself that the 101 would have to be easier. In the 101, I convinced myself that the SM 100 will be easier.

Looking back at those 01-02 results, I see that in the 2001 race, I was 17th overall at 9:17, interestingly, right behind Harry and Frank. I replaced my derailleur (with the spare I always carried) on the Fisherman's Path after ripping it off on the entrance rock. Would I have been sub-9? Seems absurd for me to say sub-9 anymore.... Jay Duffy won that race by more than 30 minutes with a 7:07. Kuhn-dog was 2nd, Jake von Gettier was 6th with an 8:15. Myracle Mark was 13th at 8:59.

In 2002, I rode the race with my friend Steve Viers who would be my Trans Rockies teammate later that summer. We rolled in with BarryOM at 9:52. Keefer won it that year with a 7:32, nowhere near Duffy's blazin' time. Was Jay juicing the year before?? Harlan was 8th.

So, the course is maybe a bit slower now with some more trail added since the first installments. I'm certainly slower and older, and riding my cheater bike in a race that isn't as cheater-friendly as say, Fountainhead is. My time is about an hour slower than 2002. I guess it isn't all that bad, but I sure seemed slow out there and started asking the questions.... This time the questions were turning into actual discussions in my head. Yet another reason I like doing these with lots of friends around....., they keep you safe........ from yourself.

Rollin' in pedal-file-style with Barry. This was also his 3rd 101, and he and Buchness are also members of the short bus that have done every one of the Shenandoah 100s.

Happy campers, always fun to be around.

Crunch time

Alright folks, it's getting to be crunch time for the funding for the Chambersburg Pump Track we hope to build next month.

Thank you all for your donations so far! I think its especially cool when we get those small donations from peeps that live far from Franklin County, and likely will never ride our track. Number of donors is almost as important as number of dollars. It shows the Boro that there are many interested folks for this kind of thing, and it tells me that we're doing the right thing for the bike community. That this is the kind of bike park we'd all like to have in our downtowns. Thank you all for your support, our cycling community always amazes when called upon. I hope we all get to ride it soon.

Hit the BikeReg link to help us get it done!