In it

Haven't been blogging, because I haven't been riding.

Martha's Vineyard was fun.  Got some beach volleyball in.  Also got a nice red going... peeling now, itchy but "peely" fun!!

There I am airborne

It's my brother's birthday today... forgot to text him late last night (he's over on the other side of the world so it was today, yesterday....  so I randomly woke up at 4:30 and texted him then - which is 4:30 pm today....  But yeah, now we are all on the same day - so happy birthday Andrew!!

We've got the boxes piling up over here.... getting closer to exiting Boston by the minute.  Soon enough new adventures will start with new dirt under the tires.  So never fear, things will get back to being bike-centric soon.  Until then, enter my world of all things boxed.

sunshine to this

Will I get a trip to Kingdom Trails in before the move??

Thea weather channel would say no....

Those percentages are not favorable when considering a 3hour drive to ride....

Heat Wave

I remember when it would be mid 90s+ for a week straight and THEN they would consider calling it a heat wave... what is this 2 day heat wave crap?

That aside, who else rode yesterday?  I swear the forest was MELTING!!  Thank god I found a water fountain as I cut through a summer camp!!  Sat there and drank a bottle and a half before continuing, which did reenergize things and let me squeeze out at least a decent ride.

Last day of school... it will be sad.  Then off to Martha's Vineyard!!  I was contemplating bringing a bike (not sure which one) but I've resigned to going the "easy" route and just enjoying some beach time.

I owe a high 5 and a donut to...

Lewis & Clark... because sometimes exploring just blows!!

See that, yeah we can't get by there, so we'll prolly have to double back
and figure out another route... again

Sunday I did a little exploration.  I hit up Nobscot in Sudbury Ma.  Depending who you ask these trails are legal/illegal.  The deal is, they are legal.  BUT, the Boy Scout area is private and off limits.  What slowed things down for me (other then the insane amount of blowdown) was trying my best not to access trails on the Boy Scout land.  So I often stopped to refer to my smarty phone's GPS feature.  Utilizing up to the minute technologies I was able to "best guess" where I was and what direction my little blue dot was facing in order to avoid (as best I could) the off limit trails.

It all came down to basics.... and lack of signage confused things.  It would be most helpful to mark off each and every trail entering the Boy Scout land - if you've got private land you don't want people entering then do something about all the trails leading in and out of said exclusive land...  A couple of times I rode up to/into a camp site... with no prior warning posted on the trails that I was on, or entering, private land.  Blah.

Although, if you checked out my data it would look like I did a good job of staying away from the no-no areas...

Well, maybe... that area on the bottom is unclear as to what it belongs to... there is a stretch separating it from the Boy Scout Reservation....  so..... fair game?

What I did ride was sweet singletrack!

Get some more traffic in there, better signage, and this place might be sweet.  I've heard read tail of there being a way to link up with nearby Callahan... now that would be sweet!!  Bottom line, the downhill here is intense, and the climbs are crazy steep.  

Come on people, don't let sweet singletrack go neglected!!

For just pennies a day                                 For just a ride a week YOU can help keep these trails open!!

(Got the HiFi back.... bars slammed, nubbin chopped = PRO)

Fresh

On my ride into work last week and my ride on Saturday I came to one glorious conclusion.... there is NOTHING better than nice, fresh, buttery smooth asphalt!!

On my ride into work I was going along at about 16mph and all of a sudden I hit it.  Fresh asphalt.  I swear nothing changed - cadence, power, nothing.  BUT, my speed went up at least 2 mph.  For real!!  It was amazing.  It felt sooooooo good... but of course it was a short stint and then back to the cracked vibration laden road surface.

I hit the same phenomenon this Saturday as I was cranking out nearly 50 miles.  This time the freshness was on an incline.  The smooth black-gold seemed to pull me up hill, and I took full advantage!  I just opened it up and flew up hill.  It was nothing short of glorious!! 

I picked up Georgia from the LBS yesterday after getting the complimentary tune up (had some miss-shifting and ghost shifting going on) and got the steer tube chopped so now I'm all "pro."  As I picked up Georgia I dropped off the HiFi to get the steer tube chopped on it - again, I'll be all "pro" with the stem slammed.  The guy at the shop complimented me on, what he considered "a nice stable going on there."  I thanked him and mentioned how lucky I was to have such a great and understanding wife.  And then I mentioned the next addition would be a singlespeed.  To which he replied he had just built one up for himself, so he brought it out to show me. 

A thing of beauty it was.  He built up a Sawyer with belt drive.  I got to take it for a spin around the parking lot, smooth!  The frame was a little heavy, but he put on all super light components to help combat the initial weight.  But man, that thing is sexy, looks like a piece of art!!

It's the last Friday of the (school) year!!

Media Fridays

We'll posts videos or photos that will hopefully inspire trail shredding weekends.

Gorgeous shots, gorgeous trails, gorgeous all around... go get some this weekend!

Chuckanut from Ryan Hasert on Vimeo.

I'm too old for this....

The baseball game was fun.  We had "official" umps.  We DESTROYED the kids.

I'm old.



Seriously, I had to ice my shoulder Tuesday night.
And now my hip flexors are feeling it - how is that even possible??





But, I already left clothes and whatnot at work, so soreness or not I AM riding to work this morning.
And the projected weather, prefect(ish).  Temperature at 6am - 61 degrees.  SWEET!!

Not sweet - the humidity!!  90%!!  Great, so sweaty balls to start the day.  No, not really.... well yeah, but I'll hit up the showers first thing to get so fresh and so clean (clean).  Outkast, anyone?  Outkast?

Uh, a week left in the school year... craziness.

Will I hit up Kingdom Trails this weekend?  Maybe.  We'll see how fast I can get the nubbin chopped on the HiFi... if I can get it in and out real quick like, maybe I'll be good to go this weekend.  And by real quick I'm talking getting it chopped when I drop Georgia off.  Dunno.

The Bachelor

I don't make a very good bachelor... I squander my time, I generally don't feed myself, and the place goes to hell.  Since Thursday Annie has been away visiting her sister.  I've been wifeless, puppyless, and rideless.

This weekend did entail a "goodbye" sendoff for me after work on Friday and a chaperoning gig to Six Flags with some of the kids on Saturday.  Of course Friday evening involved some "southern" inspired words of advice and "gifts."

Will the John Deere hat give me instant street cred in Charlotte?

Saturday the weather was a bit overcast to start... but overall a very nice day.  All the craze is the new roller coaster Goliath... yeah I skipped that one.  Check it out, it consists of two towers...

Legs dangling, staring at the ground

It pulls you up one to start and then drops you, you fly through some dips, turns, corkscrews, loop, and then up the other tower to be dropped again to do it all in reverse... here's a view below the second tower.

Riders facing the sky.... cellphone in the grass below - suckers!!

While waiting for some of the chaperones to complete their ride on Bizzaro (which was Superman, but a quick application of purple over the previously red tracks transformed things....) we actually witnessed someone lose their cellphone on the ride.  It was a thing of beauty.  No lie.  The coaster came speeding up and over a whoop-dee and as it hit the apex a small, black, rectangular item floated away as the coaster dipped down the other side.  It flipped up at least 20 feet in the air before disappearing... it was AWESOME!!

The slow action of the iphone just missed our friends towards the front

Luckily, Annie returns from Florida today!!  I also have a staff vs. student baseball game after school.  I haven't played baseball since 1997.  No joke, I haven't played ball since high school.  Thank god our kids make better "farmers" than athletes.

I didn't get a ride into work last week due to weather.  This week looks good.  I've forgone today as an option due to the game.  Tomorrow looks like rain, but Thursday and Friday are wide open.  After that commute I'll likely drop Georgia in for a tune up and steer tube chop.

With pre-move weekends dwindling I may have to sneak in an impromptu trip to Kingdom Trails this weekend.

Wait a second... maybe not.  School ends the 21st.  I'll likely work another day or two after to get some things straight for next year (I'm not just gonna bail!) but that leaves some midweek opportunities to sneak in a less crowded ride up at Kingdom Trails...  the head scratching starts as "plans" will be mulled over.

I love it when I realize there is more time to do fun stuff!!

if it's not one thing,

it's another....

Every single time I go to run tubeless on the HiFi something has to go wrong.

Part of it just has to be the tire/rim compatibility.  Some tires set up quickly and "cleanly."  Others are a bit of a struggle and a mess.  But it's never just an easy job.  Never.

Yesterday was no different.  I got a package with a new tire (Ignitor) and some tape to seal up the rims.  I already had plenty of sealant.  So I got to work on the front wheel.  I throw the tape on the rim, work the tire on and fill it with air.  The tire sets up pretty fast (checking without sealant first) but has some air leakage.  Throw in the sealant, add some air....  and that's as far as we get.  Can't get the sealant to do it's thing - especially around the valve.  Which reminds me, the LBS threw out my other valve because it was "faulty" and then charged me for a Stan's rim strip.  So I can't even set up the rear wheel!

Don't get me wrong, the rim strips work - but I'd rather the lighter, and quicker to convert to a tube in the field, method of tape and stem.  Faulty stem again?  I dunno... but it's just not sealing up around the base, so sealant just keep spilling bubbling out.

I've now entered frustration station....  end up taping up the rear to just throw a tube back into it.  BLAH!

So I turned to this.

Dunno if new stems will do... or cutting up old tubes and using those stems.. or maybe just resign to the fact that I'll be running tubes for now so I can get out and ride - IF the weather ever cooperates.

Graduation tonight.  That is, of course, unless it's postponed until tomorrow.

Race Season

Thanks to Strava I realized Sunday evening that Domnarski was held earlier that day.  I had no idea.  My mind is so out of the race schedule since I've resigned to not race the last month or so up here.

I've been reading various updates/blogs about the TSE but I'm so far from being in the racing mindset that it was a fun adventure to follow from a distance.  Yesterday's realization snapped me back to the reality (to some degree) that there are races going on that I would have been (should be) partaking in.  Not only was Domnarski this weekend, but Coyote Hill was on the 27th of May.  That brings the count up to 4 races skipped.  That is insane.

But, I am happy with my riding and my fitness(ish).  I'm riding when weather, and plans, allow.  This time of year is getting busy with end of year preparations for school, Annie's departure from her job, and of course all the cookouts and picnics that come with nice weather.  With all of this I am riding when I can, my weight is down (partly due to the increase in riding), and my legs generally feel good (minus the poison ivy that is plaguing them at the moment).

I'm excited to get down to NC and start riding and exploring what they have to offer in terms of trails and roads.  I just hope that my positive fitness matches my buddy Sean's lack of meaningful ride time, thus increasing my chances to hang with him on the trails (or roads).

3 weeks of school left.  Seniors graduate on Wednesday (Thursday if the rain continues).  It's coming fast, yet it doesn't seem real.

Last Thursday my post went up late due to the AMAZING network we have at school - serves me right for slacking and trying to post at school.... so if you missed it (and you've got the time/are just plain bored) feel free to check it out - there are pictures!

Weekend Fun 

Seriously Awesome

Media Fridays

We'll posts videos or photos that will hopefully inspire trail shredding weekends.

Bikes... we all love them, that's why you are reading this!

Dogs... we here at We don't just bike you. We bike-bike you love them, and I hope you do too!

If you don't enjoy this I have just one question to ask you:

where is your soul?

ps.  Happy first day of no work (until Charlotte) to Annie!!