winter is here!

It's snowing here and in Athens GA , so winter is officially here. Luckily I got in one last ride around the reservoir before the snow started yesterday.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

nil.

No much riding going on here with the arrival of Billy-boy last month, though I dId get out for a cold (24 deg) road ride this morning, just to make sure that I can still do it.

worm-tamer

No much happening here right now. Fortunately, there's rock:

HUBonWHEELS

All 4 of us got up bright and early yesterday to head over to Boston to do the Hub on Wheels ride. Except for having to abandon my bandana in a porta-john, it was a great ride.

The organizers had arranged for cheap parking ($3 vs. $10 - $35) in the massive Government Center parking deck, so naturally everyone (including us) drove in instead of using the generally OK public transit. This made for a traffic jam that would have been funny if it weren't so frustrating. Hundreds of pissed of would-be cyclists sitting in traffic waiting for their turn to get into the deck. But we got there in time to sneak in after the first wave of the start.

The ride itself was pretty great. The first 7 miles or so were an out and back on Storrow drive along the Charles River. If I remember right, the road is part of the property that some rich old-time dude gave to the city way back to create the Esplanade with the idea of preserving all of this land inside the city. Somewhere along the way, this original intent was ignored and what was supposed to be part of the parkland is now a honking big expressway. So it was nice to have the road turned over to cyclists for at least this brief time.

The rest of the ride was on open city streets, through several parks, a big cemetery, and finally a few miles along the Harborwalk before heading back into downtown. This was all great, though the Harborwalk part was a little too much sidewalk riding to feel legit. It's a great place to stroll or take a leisurely ride with kids, but not a route for a big-ass bike ride like this. Still, though, I liked seeing triathletes on their tricked out Cervelos have to pick their way along between the dog-walkers and fishermen.

There's also something about these huge rides that always sets me on edge. It's great to get out and ride through city with a feeling that there is some safety in numbers, but I'm always surprised how many clueless cyclists there are. I don't know who's more naive - (1) ME for not realizing that a ride with 5,000 people won't have a good population of riders who don't know how to ride in a group and/or who think this is the place to prove how fast they are or (2) THEM, the people who come out to an urban ride with 5,000 others thinking that they can treat this like their Tuesday nite hammerfest out in the suburbs ("On your right!", "What's our pace, Fred?")

OK - enough bitchin' - riding bikes is fun. Next year we take the train.

Someone please advance the nerd index 2 points.

(1) I turned my folding 1 speed bike into a folding 2 speed bike today by building a new wheel with the new Sturmey-Archer S2C hub resurrection of the old style kick-back hub. After one short ride, I like it. A low gear for getting started and climbing and a high gear for the flats.

and

(2) I played disc golf today. By myself. With my 2 speed coaster brake bike.

A slow summer....

My entire output for the summer is here.

But I did get in a cool long ride last Friday through the middle of nowhere, mass along the old stagecoach route across the state.

And there's also this:

DDRR

The Deerfield Dirt Road ride was swell. Probably the 3rd hardest day of riding I've had in the past few years (1st and 2nd were that stupid ride to Clayton with JP and the wack 1st day of the sprang tour last year when we rode up that mountain in the dark). D2R2 was a very cool 100K + of riding mostly on dirt roads from Deerfield, MA up into Vermont and back. The hills never stopped coming at us, but the climbs were mostly manageable - nothing worse that the stuff we get out of Bobby's back door. But that's not to say that it totally kicked my ass - the longest ride I've done in a long time.

I've lost interest in most pay-to-ride rides, but this one was worth it, especially for the food - giant sandmiches beside the Green river (and a covered bridge) at lunch and BBQ and beer at ride's end.

The roads were rough and loose - most folks rode cross or mountain bikes or some other rig that could handle fat tires. But there were plenty of hardasses out there on road bikes pounding up the nasty gravel climbs on skinny tires.

Bike geekery abounded. It was actully kinda funny with several examples of conspicuous Grant-Peterson-following. Gag me with a banana bag. I only saw a couple of "normal" bikes like the usual Treks and Canyonsnails. Most folks were on either some kinda of uber-fancy bike (Hampsten, Riv, Bilenky, Sachs, Sylvan, Geekhouse, Iglehart, Rock Lobster, Chris Chance,etc etc etc were all there) or cheap functional stuff like redline, surly, etc. I rode for awhile with s dude who had a cool Rawland fat fat tire road bike.

Another nice day in new england.

Weird Mass

Cool ride up past the big Holden reservoirs, then to Paxton and Leicester, ducking into the woods (air down the tires) at Hot Dog Annie's for some dirt road riding past Spider Gates, the Nazareth Home shrine, and then up and over Airport hill before heading home. Very nice ride that takes in all kinds of different riding, a few creepy spots, and finishes with a nice up and down. And if I had turned right instead of left at the Airport road, I could have cruised back in through the grittier sectors of Worcester or stopped of for killer Bun down on South Main. Maybe next time.

Instant Karma for my Birthday

Just got back from some awesome riding at the Kingdom Trails in VT. I had a great time catching up with my old friend Brian, who invited me along. I hadn't seen the dude in about 14 years, when we were cross-tha-street neighbors in Normaltown. Back then, he showed me Tsali for the first time and we used to ride our rigid Specializedses (huh?) at Chicopee and Chase back when they were in their infancy and spent lots of time at Mitchell Bridge when it was a full blown trail system. I.e., I hadn't seen him since Captain Dondo was a staple (e.g., see the latest Dirt Rag) and Zap was maybe relevant. Since then, the dude hasn't just gotten old and slow while resisting technology like I have, but has gotten better and better and kept upgrading his stable to match. So he showed up on a sweet carbon SC Blur along with his buddy Norm - not like Norm from cheers, but like Norm who does things like race in the Kilimanjaroman. Needless to say, I lagged a little behind, especially on the 2000+ ft climb up Burke Mountain.

But the Kingdom is killer. Search for it on Youtube and you'll hundreds of crappy videos of dudes on bikes. Don't let that deter you. Take about 15 prime minutes of riding at Clemson or Bent Creek. Now multiply that to fill 3 hours and you have an afternoon at Kingdom. Being a yankee is great.

And being a yankee is also great because I can give the finger to whomever I chose (but I rarely (no really - almost never) do.) At least that's what I thought. I was doing my usual walk this morning from the butcher shop to Dunkin Donuts for a 5th cup of crappy coffee when I had to cross the street, which I did in what I thought was a completely acceptable manner - push the button, wait 5 minutes, then when I don't get the little white man, look all 5 ways, wait for the old dude in a fancy restored Bentley (or something) to make his turn, look again, the cross when the coast is clear.

Apparently this wasn't good enough for the a-hole in the fancy Bentley (or something), because he decided to yell at me - "Push the goddamn button why don't you!!"

I was in shock - in this town pedestrians and drivers get away with all kinds of shit with impunity and no one seems to care. Left-turning cars will cut off 3 lanes of traffic for minutes at a time (I kid you not) and no one ever honks. I once saw a guy stop his car (and 300 yards of traffic behind him) to get out walk around his car a half dozen times for a never-determined reason. No one ever honked. Drunks, college students, attorneys, gangbangers, and parents out with their kids walk out in front of oncoming 30 mph traffic in the middle of the block on a 6 lane road and everyone just stops. No one ever honks. It's just the worcester thing - we walk and drive (and sometimes bike - but mostly walk and drive) like assholes and no one seems to care.

So that's why I was so surprised that this guy cared enough to yell a nasty word at me after my minor infraction that didn't inconvenience him or anyone else.

So I did what I thought was acceptable here in the commonwealth - I gave him the finger. Wouldn't you? Actually this was out of character for me. Back in the 90's it was pretty much accepted decorum (at least in Athens) to shoot the bird at anyone who was annoying, but I eventually grew out of it. No sense aggravating an already out of balance redneck who is probably packing heat.

But this dude deserved it. I gave it to him in a long and serious manner from the middle of the (vacant) lane. I did in a studied and (hopefully) indigenous massholish manner. No one, I though, would guess that I was just off the truck from Georgia.

Tit for tat - the matter was taken care of in the appropriate way for southern New England way. But no - Mr. Asshole, who had probably been lovingly restoring his Bentley (or whatever) since the early 80's, wanted another piece of me and my impudent snotty young, turned 44 today, self.

So, he did the logical thing and threw the car in reverse to come back and give me a proper ass-whopping or tongue-lashing (more likely) and immediately backed into the Corolla that was, unlike him, driving in a completely legal and predictable way, thus doing at least a two grand worth of damage to her and ruining the rear half of his lovely restoration. I wonder how he's going to explain to his wife that he has to go spend $5,000 for another vintage quarter panel.

So, I got my coffee and headed home.*

I probably will hesitate before I give someone the finger again even when the deserve it, but I sure hope that he's learned not to go around being a masshole and yelling at folks who are minding their own business. And I'm sure that he won't try to drive in reverse against traffic in his fancy car again.

* OK, ethicists: I did stick around long enough to hear the victim (a nice young worcester lady) yell - "What the fuck ass hole! That was real bright - you git pissed at someone giving you the finger and you go and do this you fucking idiot" and to make sure no one was hurt. No one asked me for my info.

Town Ride

Worm - Ride

Is this normal - I'll tell you in another year. Had a meeting downtown - rode the bike down Chandler:

1. Big Dude in a doorway wearing a "Stop Snitching" T -shirt. Maybe I'm wrong - but isn't that basically an admission that the dude is a bad dude. I later see that this doorway has a hand painted signed in front saying that it's "Dental Laboratory No. 2." What kind of dental office needs a bouncer?

2. A block away - serious full blown faith healing righ, in Spanish, right out there on the sidewalk.

I rode back on Pleasant:

3. Storefront with a dude sitting outside talking on the phone. I look inside as I ride by and all that's in there is one shelf with a dozen bottles of pink colored soda. What kind of store stays open to sell that?

4. A block later, I hear what could be an R.L. Burnside / Jon Spencer rehearsal, except it's in some other language and it's a run down storefront church. I stop and listen for a few minutes like I used to do in front of the 40 watt on the way home, but move on before someone runs out and tries to pray for me like happened that one time with Will in Athens.

5. A block later - another church service, except this time its outside in a parking lot with congas and shit.

6. Home.

No point to all this except to say that every day there's something that drives home that worm-town ain't strip-mall leap-frog sprawl suburbia.

A Swell Ride

Just got back from a great ride up to Mt. Wachusett. The road to the summit is closed so I didn't make it all the way, but this was a great ride to do out the front door. Most of the roads between here and Princeton were very quiet and almost car-free. I cruised by a couple of lakes that I never knew about. After about a mile on busy (ish) hwy 31 and some great ridgetop views, most of the riding for the next few miles was through the forest on dirt roads and a mountain bike would have done a lot better than my skinny 700/23's, but that didn't stop me. The best rides are on done on the wrong bike I still say. I've wanted to do this ride ever since we moved here. I've been to the top of Wachusett on skis, hiking, and on the MTB with Grace, but have never ridden all the way there from home. It only took me a year to do it, but I'm ready to go again and would love to show the route to some other folks.

Since this was also my first long ride in at least a year, it also counts as my sole training for the Deerfield Dirt Road Randonee next month and I have hope that I may be able to finish that ride since managed to pull it off without falling over in a heap on the road or at home afterwards. Like a handful of routes down in GA (e.g., the commerce loop and that stupid ride I did with JP to Clayton), I can't believe how great the riding right outside of town can be. I'm looking forward to one of y'all coming up so I can show you around.....

Things to do on a bike in War-Chester

1. Ride around up north of town and find the site of the school to which mary's little lamb followed her one day. For real.

2. Go on a single speed off-road bicycle ride with Richie Rich and his cute 1-braked bike:

3. Go on a dirt road ride with Grace's mom, Grace, and Grace's cute helmet:

4. Ride down to the "fairgrounds" (a parking lot 5 minutes from home) and check out Anders Osborn at Worcester's answer to Jazzfest. Drink cheap Harpoons, then ride home.

5. Ride the reservoir loop.

6. Ride the reservoir loop again, but this time on the group ride and get schooled by the bike shop dude on a three speed with a big-ass basket. The real roadies didn't know what to do when he passed them. Dude's in a band, The Terribles, too.

And that's purty much it. I'm getting stoked for a few days of riding up in Vermont next month at the Kingdom Trails - check out this write up in Dirt Rag.

I CAUGHT YOU A DELICIOUS BASS

Haven't been on a bike or run in a couple of weeks, but, like JP, I got my own grant to study fish. Mine was just enough to pay for gas to meet Vince B down in Brewster, a big mac, and a big plate of fried clams. It ain't Chile, but I'll take it!

View Larger Map

Some scary n'hoods + dude told me something about a dildo.

Ahhh Wormtown at its finest on this route.

Tonight's Playlist

We have started a tradition here of pre-bedtime little tikes basketball and rockin' out. Tonight featured something old and somthing new. And ended with one of us (won't say who) getting so excited about the Jam that he or she peed on the floor.

The Run Around

Yo - It's record store day - go buy you a record or something. I picked up the new Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings release and it has made my day. Get some for free here. My turntable has died and I do listen to an ipod more than anything else, so it's easy to forget what it's like to go and peruse CDs, or LP's (better), at the local shop. Back when I first moved to Athens, I would go to Wuxtry literally every single weekday during lunch. I would look and maybe one out of every 12 visits buy something. That habit lasted well into my 30's. Nowdays, I hit Newbury Comics maybe once every four months. I guess that's what happens when you get old and have itunes.

I think I'm gonna get one of those all in one record players after we move to the new house so I can sit in the basement and listen to my old vinyl in mono.

I went down to New Orleans last week with my old friends Scratch, Reggie and DooDoo. Except for having to hang out with Reggie after he made the Abita-influenced decision to have his head painted, it was a fine time. Ate some fine boudin, oysters, crawfish, etc, etc etc. and caught some great music (for free) at the French Quarter festival. Best show (at least by a new group for me)- the Tin Men. Big Sam did his thing and the 101 Runners jammed the way I like it. Eventually though the crowds got to me and I had to split. If only I had had my bike with me....

Spring is finally here in NE and I've gotten in a couple of good rides recently. Everywhere else I've ever lived, winter was the time for mountain biking. Not here - we have to wait for all the snow to melt, then for all the flooding to stop, then for all the mud to dry up. Then, around now I gather, it's finally time to ride again. This is going to take some getting used to.

I've been running - supposedly as training for a 1/2 marathon. So far, so slow. I haven't crippled myself yet. This morning I ran(?) 6 miles, which I am sure is furthest I've ever gone on foot without stopping. I've complained for years about hating running, but maybe I've been wrong.

[untilted.]

Is Vermont part of the US? I'm still not sure after my trip up there last week to see my old friend Steve-O, who was a riding, hiking, sometimes fishing buddy back in the 1900's when we lived in north FLA but now lives up in the hills of Vermont. Ostensibly, I was there to get in a little early spring backcountry skiing, and we did cover at least 2 miles of the 300 mile Catamount trail, but it was mostly about checking out VT beer and food: Long Trail (of course); McNeil's; Switchback; Bacon and cheese from down the road; and eggs from the back yard. Fresh, local, organic, artisanal, etc, etc, is the rule not the exception up there to such an extent that it would be annoying if it weren't all so damn good. Here are the backyard chickens and chickendog:

And here's Steve:

Back here in Masss, there's finally some local brew:

And winter has broken enough to allow a few nice road rides and for the whole family to get out for some rocky riding up in Leominster State Forest. Grace still fits in her iBert seat and cheers me on to take her over bigger and bigger rocks and over the "whoop-dos."

It was about a year ago that we did the Spring Tour. Here's some more inspiration to get back out on the rough roads again some day:

We ain't drunk - we're just dodging potholes

Yo - what's up TLY, VC, Puk, and BB? We've been busy buying a house.

Spring is mostly here, but it was washed in by huge rains this past weekend that took big chunks of pavement downstream. I've never seen anything like this - out on Belmont street there are places where you can see the old cobblestones that must be at least 100 years old or so. Not that I'm complaining it's 60 and sunny here and I got out for a nice ride to the east. We are fortunate that Boston's sprawl dwellers still find Worcester repulsive enough that there is a nice buffer of open spaces and quiet roads (if you know where to look) between here and where the big city's westernmost ex-urbs begin. This includes a nice quiet area over where the Tufts Vet School is.

Beyond that, there are plenty of good places to ride north and west of here. Last week, Kris and I got out for a short ride around Mt. Wachusett - only 12 miles, but some nice ups and downs plus a little dirt road ridin' and a nice view of the big wind turbines.

We checked out the White Mtns. last week and came away pleased - damn - real mountains:, big time skiin' etc:

Check out this ride: DDRR

And this too: The Watt from Pedro Show.

Lake Ridin'

Got no mountains, got no trails, got no problems as long as the ice holds.

Ride Bikes

Skiing is nice and everything, but it's not bike ridin'. After a few hikes in nearby parks, I started to yearn for the MTB again. The problem is, everything is ice and snow. So I bit the bullet and bought some Nokians. There are two ways to get Nokian studded tires. Apparently the first option is to deserve them. I opted for the second, which is to pay a shit load of money. Bikeman sent them down from Maine pretty quickly and I was able to get out and ride Friday. A quick 10 miles in town started with a sustained 750 foot climb in town up to Boyton/Cascades park. That's a huge piece of public property managed by the city and the local land trust. As far as I can tell it's even bike-legal, but dominated by dog walkers and hikers. A few pugsley tracks let me know I wasn't alone. There was a total of maybe 100' of trail that wasn't covered by snow or ice, so I knew that the decision to go with winter tires was a good idea. After that, a quick cruise back to town included a nice ride up the big hill in Elm Park (Olmstead designed - first public park in US??) on old carriage road, then a few laps on the frozen pond there. A nice ride - don't let anybody talk smack about the WormTown.

Ohhhh - Bicycling likes Athens

Well you Georgians must be awfully proud that Bicycling Mag wrote up Athens (again). Don't get so comfy down there with your tasty pastries, quiet roads and over-hopped beer. I just heard that Athens was written up just because the planned story on the Worm-town missed deadline, so they pulled out the weary old "soulfoodrockmusicawesomeridingcollegetown" schtick. Fortunately I think I can get a copy of the planned story on Worcester and will put it up here when I can. I think you will be amazed.

Word of Warning - Turns out Oswalt is Right

I got nothin' either.

JP is complaining about the lack of action down south and the same is pretty much the case here. I did get out and do a road ride on Tuesday though, which was day 2 of our 2 day January thaw. Of course, it did snow on me most of the way home. I felt kinda like a very weak old version of Hampsten on the Gavia. Finished up with a stop at Bancroft Tower before heading the the coffee shop for a canollo - yes that's friggin correct Italian grammar - I only had one not a fist full like I wanted.

The Anti-Pugsley

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Yesterday

First, I checked out Bell Pond here in the city. Yep, walkable:

Then, I skied up to the top of Mt. Wachusett on the car road (closed for winter), confusing a few downhill skiers as I scraped along under the lifts. Going up was no problem - a lot like walking, only slower. There's a great view to the south where you can see the wind turbines that power some of the ski area. Down - well I still don't know how to turn or stop, so that was interesting, but somehow got down in just a few minutes (vs. the hour to get up.)

Pondspotting.

Having spent 40+ years down south, I had come to believe that things like skating on ponds and white Christmases were myths. Well, by the holidays this year we had had at least three snows (including one in October) and there was enough on the ground to get out and sled on Xmas morning. Within a week or so later, the lakes and ponds 'round here had begun to ice over and I realized that maybe you really can just go out and skate, ride, whatever in places that had been open water not long ago. It seems stupid, maybe, but the idea of walking across a lake seems really cool to me. So that's what I've been doing. Jordan pond is set and has a hockey rink on it. Cook Pond - same. I saw some dudes way out in the middle of Indian Lake last week despite the open water on the edges - I guess they know what they're doing. Elm pond, check - kids were biking on the pond when we stopped by a couple of days ago. Lake Quinsigamond - the biggest around - has snowmobile and (I think) tire tracks all over it. So now I have a mission - to bike, ski, shuffle or skate on as many formerly navigable waterbodies as possible before the spring thaw.

15* outside this morning, so I went for the first trail ride of the season down at the rayburn trails. For once, I was grateful for 4 wheelers, which had been in there (I guess the rules don't matter there as with most everywhere else in Mass) and packed down enough snow to make a lot of the doubletrack passable. Except for the first few minutes, the cold wasn't an issue at all, so I think I'm almost acclimated. I got back in time to fry up some felafel (which Grace calls "muffins") for lunch and go skating down the street at the fancy indoor. Our attempt at skating Jordan pond (above) yesterday didn't last too long, but we'll go back soon I hope.

I guess there's no point to this except that I now realize that if I'm such a simpleton that I get excited about walking around on ice, then I should be OK for at least the first couple of winters up here.

"If the Scotch didn't work, I doubt ibuprofen is going to do much good." - Anonymous professor on treating skiing injuries.

Down from the sky.

The temperature drops, the snow starts and it's as if a new template has been dropped across the city. Open water where we paddled will soon be a place to skid and skate across. Woods, parks, and fields fill the gaps between factories and triple deckers of the worm town. I haven't gotten around to biking most of them, but am more excited now about skiing or post-holing or snowshoeing through them as best I can. Today, I grabbed a micro-adventure by skiing around green hills park. I skimmed around between a couple of monster sledding hills before heading into the woods. Up the hills and around the old coal mine, discovering that rocks stop skis faster than a stick in the spokes. It was a lot of stopping and starting, falling down and beating up the sticks, but another nice day.

I guess these were my 2 steps back after having made one small step forward skiing down the Mass Central Rail trail up in Rutland State Forest. I spent a couple of hours there on New Year's Day and felt like I actually had the kick and glide thing mostly figured out. Here are a few pix from that outing.... Somewhere up there is supposed to be the ruins of a civil war prison - probably haunted by a bunch of ex-Georgians.