The Walkabout Trail

Sometimes trail names can be so benign as to make no connection to the place, or the experience ahead of you. I'm thinking here of a trail like the JB Hudson Trail, or the Arcadia Trail, in Arcadia. What does either name tell you about the trail or what you might expect to ride? Not too much. Unless maybe you know a good story or two about JB Hudson.

On the other hand a trail name like the Purple Panty trail at Lincoln Woods is so fitting on so many levels it's scary. Ditto with the MT Tom trail. Not so much the Tom part, but the MT designation lets you know you're gonna do some climbing and there might be some views. It evokes a challenge, and it delivers in style. Sandhill trail in Arcadia is also aptly named as well because, well, there's a crappy sand hill in the middle of it. You can't bitch and complain because you were warned, after all it was right there in the name.

Unfortunately no one ever names trails with really descriptive names like "worst ride ever", "pinch flat haven", "pickle central", or "the place some guy broke his face". Nope, it's never close to being that accurate, and that means you have to go find out for yourself. And, really, that's half the fun.

This past Saturday I decided to go ride the Walkabout Trail in George Washington State Park in the 100 degree heat and humidity. In this case the trail name gives it all away up front, and it provides some big clues on what to expect. Anytime you see the word WALK expect trouble, or masochistic fun, depending on your point of view. Also, when embarking on any trail named after a rite of passage one should expect some sort of challenge. In this case it's a 9 mile rock garden that can make you a better rider, or reduce you to a whimpering clown.

As it turns out the trail delivered on it's promises, and it handily kicked my ass during some of the slowest riding I've done in a long time. It took me almost 2 hours to travel those nine miles, and I can honestly say I only walked a small percentage of the trail. It's definitely rideable, but it's really tough in a mentally wearing kind of way. I repeated a few tricky sections just to learn the line and clean the worst parts. Mercifully there's almost no climbing on the trail itself. What you will find is a carpet of rocks, roots, downed trees, overgrown singletrack and a few swampy sections thrown in for good measure. And don't forget about the deer flies! Friendly bastards, they'll accompany you for most of your journey. And rest assured, they'll be certain to bite when your immediate attention is required to keep you from headwalking on the trail.

I rode out from the parking lot at Pulaski Park, a small parcel located within the ~ 4,000 acre George Washington State Park. I followed the Walkabout in a counter clockwise direction, but somehow I managed to lose the trail after I was back in the vicinity of Pulaski. It may have been the heat, but I completely missed the markers on the fire road and just kept riding. And riding, and riding. During the slow brain bake on the sun drenched fire roads I drained my water reserves while simultaneously heading in all the wrong directions. I knew I needed to go west, but every dirt road I picked would inevitably veer north, east or northwest at best.

After a little over an hour of brain boiling fun, and a loooong descent I didn't want to climb back up, I found a fire road heading due west and rode out as fast as possible. I hit a paved road and figured "it can't be more than a mile or two back to the lot". Right about then I saw the signs letting me know I was in Thompson, CT. Shit.. OK, well at least I was headed in the right direction. I stopped at Quaddick State Park in CT and asked the kid at the kiosk where I was, and how I could get to Pulaski. The directions seemed easy enough, then I asked him how far it was. His answer of 10 minutes in a car sounded easy, and I was psyched. That feeling lasted for about 2 seconds while my electrolyte starved brain did the math. That's when I realized that at ~ 50 mph a car covers almost ten miles in 10 minutes.

10 miles is 10 miles. It's no big deal usually, its' barely a warm up ride right? At this point, however, it was pretty bad news. I felt like someone stabbed me in the eye, and the anger sharks were definitely swimming in my head big time. I soft pedaled to the intersection the kid described, and then I saw a nice big hill waiting for me. OK one hill, whatever. Wait, there's another one. And, oh great, there's another! While nudging my way up the last hill I contemplated just getting off and walking, then I realized I was already doing this. Cool, no need to continue thinking it over! As I was getting back on the bike I realized that the power lines on my left were indeed the same power lines I crossed about 90 minutes earlier. They dump out about a mile from the parking lot.. There's nothing like learning the boundaries of a park or forest the hard way. Now I really know the lay of the land, yaaay for me..

No pics from the ride, but here's some quality entertainment for you. Thank you, drive through.

Happenings

Warning! There's not a whole lot of bike related content below. I had a 50 mile + road ride planned for last Saturday, but the 2 hours of super charged riding at Lincoln Woods on Friday (not to mention the beers at the Fez) landed me in a near coma until 2 pm on Saturday. As Stacy put it "I don't think I've ever seen you quite like this". Indeed. So instead of riding I got my shit together, and we headed over to McCoy with Bruceapallooza himself to see the Bosstones/Dropkick Murphy's show.

There were a lot of people there, the paper reported that there were 10,000+ tickets sold. Pretty friggin' crazy! Anyway, the stage was set up in the outfield, and there was some temporary flooring laid down to protect the grass. Someone thought it was a good idea to sell the legions of "punch me I'm Irish" dudes beer in plastic bottles. Not too surprisingly an impromptu bottle toss/fight erupted prior to the Bosstones set. While it was slightly amusing to watch, it further cemented my well known feelings on the stupidity of most people.

So we dodged bottles and hung out near the front while waiting for the show to start. The Bosstones opened with Kinder Words, and then they blazed through an hour plus set (they did slow things down to bring Dicky's Mom out for her birthday). I'm not going to include the whole set list, but they did play some great songs that they haven't been playing a lot since the reunion. These included Illegal Left, Toxic Toast, Devil's Night Out and You Gotta Go!. The initial reaction from the crowd was kind of tepid, save the action from the already drunk 300lb fools seemingly out to crush kids just trying to have a good time. Watching big dolts in green Celtics shirts, and a few with Irish flag face paint, mow down much smaller people was kinda lame. Luckily the big goons got all tuckered out Clubber Lang style, and everyone resumed having fun after a while. All of the above is why I prefer to see bands in a smaller venue, but I'll take what I can get and had a great time anyway.

The really nice pictures above and below are courtesy of Mike Gaughan of Whatever Magazine and are used with his permission. He takes some really nice pics in general, check out the link above. Thanks Mike!

We moved to the stands to watch the DKM show. I hadn't seen them in ages, and they seem to have a whole thing going for themselves that works. Not really my kind of thing, but good for them. We made our exit during Barroom Heroes (one of the few DKM tunes I know) and escaped ahead of most of the crowd.

I did get out to Foxboro on Sunday for a good ride on the Schwinn. Rigid 26" riding definitely works me over now that I'm a pansy 29er rider. The beating I took on the trail far exceeded that which I received at the show on Saturday, though both were slightly less than what Margaret dished out Friday night. All things considered it's certainly no worse than the beatdowns local racoons are know to bestow upon my favorite bartender, so I'd say we're even..

Confessions of a Cycling Addict?

Last night I threw my Kona Kula on the stand to work out some kinks with the shifty bits. I managed to finagle a quick fix, but I realized full well that the chain is on it's way out. Perhaps there are a few more solid outings in it, but this is assuming they're coupled with diligent post ride cleaning. The bike has seen plenty of crud from the winter straight through the summer, as we now seem to be living in a sub tropical thunderstorm rich environment.

Anyways...fiddling with the Kona, and thinking about replacing the chain, made me think about the ridiculous amount of bike crap I have. My place is starting to resemble a used bike lot without the pushy sales people. Granted some of my bikes have been with me for a few years, but how did I justify buying all this stuff? I ride a lot, but not so much that I could ever need all these bikes. I could probably just get away with riding the On One with two wheelsets (road fixed/'cross freewheel) and one geared MTB. Somehow I have acquired two rigid singlespeeds (one 26and one 29 for good measure of course), a 29er FS bike, a fixed/SS 'cross bike, a geared 'cross bike and a geared HT. WTF is wrong with me? Oh, I know I'm missing a proper road bike - that's what wrong with me..

Seriously, I envy those riders with one road bike and one MTB (and a 'cross bike). What is their secret? Do they ride less? Probably not. I'm willing to bet they figured out that maintaining multiple bikes is a PITA, and that they could live with less. Bummer for them; as they'd never be able to have conversations with themselves like the below example of what goes through my head when the mere thought of selling a bike meanders into the postholed muddy field that is my brain....

Me: Holy Jeebus H Crackers!! WTF?? DUDE you have wayyy too much crap. You asshole!
Me: What? Oh, yeah, well you see I need all this stuff. Why don't you go think about something else, or go shoot water at the cats, that'll keep you busy.
Me: Huh, oh yeah that was fun! Hey! You fucker! Seriously douchebag, sell some stuff and do it sooner rather than later.
Me: (Shit, I'm not avoiding this topic am I?) Er, well, ummm... yeah you see once again I need this stuff for all the different types of riding I do. I'm a veritable Tour de France of bicycle multitasking.. yeah that's it. Why don't you get it?
Me: I don't get it because we only really ride like 6-10 hours a week, and there's 6 damn bikes in this house!
Me: Well, it's not like they're wall art or anything. They all get ridden more than Seinfeld's green Klein at least..
Me: Whatever, you're an idiot - who references Seinfeld in this day and age? Aside from TV addled morons?
Me: Seinfeld is totally relevant (great, this is shifting away from the bikes!).
Me: Again, you're a tool - sell some stuff!

Me: Ok, fine here's why I can't sell anything.. The Surly: It got me into 29ers, and it's an awesome bike - so what if it's a 30lb singlespeed that makes our body sore for days after climbing a few miles on it? The Kona: This is for going sooo fast and pretending I still care about racing. No way that's for sale. The Niner: Jesus man, how else could I go sooo wicked fast and huck the gnar?? Really - how else? See you got nothing.. The On One - best bike ever, SS 'cross bikes are completely awesome and totally practical! Everyone should ride one screw gears.. Which, logically brings us to the geared Fuji 'cross bike. C'mon man! So, do you expect me to ride fixed, or SS, all the friggin' time? Of course you don't.
Me: Fine, what about the blue Schwinn?
Me: What? Oh, that. Dude it's freakin' Bass Boat Blue for crissakes! C'mooooon guy(channeling Carl from Aqua Teen here)!
Me: Yeah, it's sparkly and blue and, and err uh.... hey, look Family Guy is on.
Me: Again, that show is on like every five minutes..
Me: Yeah, it's the one where Brian is drunk and they reference pop culture like every 3 minutes without really having a plot..
Me: Oh, hey this is great!....................................

Not much happening around here...

I rode with Uncle B from Providence Bike on Friday morning waaaay down in the hinterlands of Arcadia. I had to scope out a beginner/intermediate loop for Sunday's scheduled ride series event. We rode a bunch of the trails near Browning Mill Pond including the Arcadia trail and the 95 trail. Due to the high humidity the rocks and roots alike were all aglow with an icy green sheen. This unmistakable hue serves as a warning to air down and ride light. After losing about 50 pounds of water weight we headed back to the car and figured out how to cram the bikes in the back once again. My dreams of getting up to three bikes in the Fit are mostly shot down. I'm thinking maybe if both front and rear wheels are removed it might work with one of the rear seats up, but I'm not 100% sure on that one.

I made another trip up to Chase and Lincoln Woods on Saturday morning on the On One, and once again it was fun to bang around in the woods on that bike. Pinch flatting on a rock roller was not so fun, but luckily it waited until I came to a stop to go from full to dead flat in 2 seconds. Good thing, because that roller might've hurt me otherwise.. Later on Saturday I bumped into the road warrior known as Apples at the post Cox Charities Bicycle Gnar Gnar Huck Jam party that was graciously hosted by the Samartanos, and their wonderful friends Lyons and Judge. As for the race, well, I completely missed the 2/3 race but I arrived in time to catch the 50 lap (!) Pro race. I hear some serious bike wrangling took place in the 2/3 with Adam St. G almost winning all the prize money, and I also heard that Scotty lapped the whole field on the first lap because he was going soooo fast. Word on the street was the only thing that slowed him down was his skin catching on fire due to the excessive speeds.

The Pro race was fun to watch but admittedly I was kind of bored within about 30 minutes. Bike races (and rides) are more fun to do than watch. Also, not knowing anyone in the race makes it even harder to watch with out rapidly losing interest in the whole affair.

After catching up with some Misanthrope on a scooter (catchy band name maybe??) I moseyed over to Whole Foods with Billy Dee Williams (aka Noah "Colt 45" Jacobs) for party favors and beer. I then made Noah ride up Doyle on his rickety bucket of bolts, all so we could raid my fridge for more beer to bring to said soiree. Much fun was had by all and the rain held off which was a nice touch. I had to lead a ride the next morning down in Arcadia so I booked it home through a winding down Waterfire and hit the hay.

Rumor is someone I know (his name rhymes with James Grimley) would like to start some sort of underground 'cross race this fall somewhere east of Providence, adjacent to a path designed for bicycle riding. Keep an ear out for it, it might be fun.

Here's on old picture of when the Kula was rigid..

Dirt Drops and some woods riding

I had a rare weekend full of nothing, no obligations meant I could go for a ride and try out my new bars. I picked up some WTB Dirt Drops a week or so ago via the online garage sale that is MTBR. Originally I intended to turn the Karate Monkey into a "monstercross" bike but I quickly realized I wasn't that cool, and I didn't want to mess with a good thing. So I figured I'd pop them on the On One and see how they work with a fixed/singlespeed 'cross bike.

They're really made for mountain bikes but I had a feeling this would be a nice bar for the Il Pompino. The first ride was weird, my body wanted to disagree with where my hands were and riding in the drops felt odd. The next ride things got better and I was digging the added leverage on the steeper climbs. Saturday I threw on my other wheelset shod with Ritchey Excavaders and a 16t ACS freewheel for a little off road riding. The 35c Ritcheys are probably about as big as it's going to get on the On One, there's not a ton of room back there. The gearing is steeper than I used to ride SS cross at 40x16 but I figured it would be doable. Here's what it looks like in 'cross mode:


















I rode up to Chase the way I always do; N Main to Smithfield Ave and eventually riding in behind the school on Old River road. From this entrance you can ride a little bit of trail before hitting the wide open grassy sections. I rode a few laps of Chase and then did a loop of all the trail in the Eastern corner. The gearing proved to be pretty spot on for Chase and the road riding wasn't too bad either. I was never really in danger of spinning out while not feeling over geared, pretty much perfect. The bars elicited the feel of SS mountain biking with really wide swept bars when I was climbing in the drops. Being able to torque on bar that afford a ton of leverage made a huge difference, and this allowed me to make it up a few climbs at Lincoln Woods I otherwise would have walked. I almost made the long climb from the ball fields but I stalled out and walked a bit to where it levels off before continuing the ride to the top. After letting my heart migrate from my head back to my chest I wanted to see how secure things felt at speed. To do this I cut across the middle of the Coaster and shot down the old rock roller across the wall ride trail, and I eventually sped down towards Goat Rock. As long as I stayed in the drops things were great, and the more technical riding reinforced the idea that the bars are meant to be ridden in the drops while in the woods. I kept riding in LW and found myself riding much of my usual MTB loop with very few issues. The ride wasn't as fast as it would've been on a mountain bike, but it wasn't super slow either.

I headed out of LW via the trails on the South side of the park and hit Cobble Hill road. On my way out I thought about how much room for some new trail there is in that small pocket of woods. There's just enough room to build a sorely needed beginner loop - maybe something to look into.. Anyway, I decided to ride over to the Old North Burial Ground as it was on my way home, and it only sits about 2 tenths of a mile from my place. I don't ride in there enough. In fact I always think this after a ride in this cemetery. The decrepit state of the pavement in the burial ground makes it perfect for knobby 'cross tires. Instead of the squirmy cornering you become accustomed to on smoother (that's a relative term around here, I know) pavement you'll find the tires grip like glue in the cemetery. There's so many interesting nooks in there and a few little hills make it more enjoyable. In the south west corner you'll find a large plot of unknown graves marked only by numbers. These people were re-interned after the land known as the free burial ground was developed. It's a kind of depressing little place nestled between the river and Interstate 95. Not surprisingly no one is ever back there. Seeing the river out of it's latest commercial context is kind of cool, at least no one lights it on fire this far out...

I took a few pics before the battery died on me, lighting was tough mid afternoon with a really bright sun in the sky.

1000 feet of fun

So last Friday Ben joined the Friday night crew for a tour of Lincoln Woods. He had a GPS unit with him, and as it turns out there's 1000 feet of climbing in the loop I normally ride. It's also about ten miles long. I'm not really surprised but it's nice to quantify it for those wondering what to expect. Descriptions such as "hilly with kinda hard climbs followed by fun descents" don't work for some folks. When I'm in shape the loop takes an hour, in the winter it's at least 15 minutes slower. The Friday rides take it easy, and it can take two hours depending on who's there and what they'd like to ride/re-ride in the techy sections.

There's a nastier version that adds another fire road climb, at least a few hundred feet and nearly another mile of trail (it repeats a descent). The fire road climb is particularly lame because it feels like you're riding up a road constructed entirely of marbles. Lots of fun. I don't subject people to that one, there's this pesky part of me that actually likes other people a little bit.. Anyways, 1000 feet ain't much for those residing near actual mountains, but for those of us near sea level this is about as much climbing as we will find. I'll take it though, at the very least it takes the edge off of those few times I find myself on an actual mountain each year.

Speaking of actual climbing.. when I do find myself shuffling up a larger hill/mountain like a withered goat I'm nearly always forced to reconsider just what it is we do in the woods on our bikes in a place like RI. Is it really mountain biking? Without the climbing is it more likely just woods riding? Is there anything wrong with that? Probably not, at least I don't really care. Just random thoughts being tossed out there.

For anyone wondering how life is with the Honda Fit all I can say is; Great! Last tank came in at 40.2 MPG. That's with ~ 70% highway and 30% city driving. It has enough room for a bike standing up with the front wheel removed, and a whole lot of extra space for gear. Ask Noah, it holds a lot of crap.

I may have mentioned it earlier but my Twin Six duds arrived a while ago. They design some really sharp clothing, the argyle jersey is snazzy enough to convince me to wear a lycra jersey more than wool. And I'm not just saying that because I get a small discount on the goods. I'd pay full price for the stuff any day. On a related note I noticed that a guy I used to ride(and occasionally work) with in Winston Salem, NC is also on the team. A fast guy by the name of Marc Driver. Marc, if you happen upon this drop me a line. There's no contact info for you on the T6 site.

No picture so here's some music. Fishbone's much improved version of a Sublime tune you may recognize.



Here's the video from Brad's comment --->

It's about damn time...

I finally commuted to work in 2008. It seems I've definitely turned into a fair weather commuter this year. In years past I'd start in March or April, now it has to be 70 degrees and sunny for me to slog the mostly uphill 22 miles to work. Today's ride convinced me that the road tires need to be installed ASAP. Kenda Kwicks are neither quick nor are they actually the advertised 700x30, they're more like 32s. They're sloooow on the road. Not too surprisingly they felt fast on the roughest pavement. You know the kind that's porous and feels like Velcro with road tires? I'm talking about the kind of road surface that normally makes you look behind to see if you have a rear flat. Yeah, well apparently that stuff feels great when ridden with big ass 'cross tires. Too bad there's not more of that stuff out there.

The ride home is mostly downhill so I have that to look forward to. Well, that and the inevitable cluster f*ck that the Lincoln bikepath will become after 5:30. But I'll deal with that any day as it at least gets me away from Mendon Rd for a few miles.

I think I'm going to hang out at work for a little while after 5:00 to let the Franklin, MA Soccer Mom Deathcar Brigade thin out a bit. You DO NOT want to mess with little Billy's trip to his pre-planned activities.. no, no, no, you don't. Believe me when I tell you this; Don't fuck with the Suburbs. They fight back with blithely ambivalent driving skills piloting MiniSuVans equipped with XL Mocha Lattes, whining little angels, navigation screens, DVD players, cell phones and a nasty attitude. There's no room for hippies in "spandex", so get the hell off the road you fruits!

Cripes, don't I sound like a bitter asshole... What I meant to say was: Ride to work folks, it's good for your health!