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.