Stopping For a Drink

It's been a great week of riding and looking at this past week's worth of ToT pics, it's pretty clear to me I've just about gone over to the dark side. Looks like the only time I ride on the road, mostly, is to get across it to the next patch of singletrack. I'm not complaining. Mountain biking gets into your soul, oozes on in there. You get past a threshold point with it and it changes your outlook on what riding a bike can be. Don't get me wrong - road is cool, road is the high priest of riding style, riding a bike in all its stripped down purity. MTB though is like the biking Lollapalooza with 10 stages playing at once, there's so much too it, so many different fun things going on within it at once. I'll show you what I mean.

I started the week with a nice ride with Trevormatic. Lately, he's been riding a difficult set of rocks near the Cascade Falls at Patapsco, going further than anybody else in the group. It's a pretty aggro bike trials-like move to cross these rocks up to where the water starts, and I caught him missing it last Friday.

ToT 73: None Shall Pass

Then on Saturday, we had the Family Bike Shop shop ride on dirt, doing a nice tour of Patapsco, with a couple and a half hours of solid riding time. We were out there nearly 3.5 hours though... because a brother's gotta stop when he sees a 25yard long patch of raspberries. Here's The Human Lung snorting raspberries by the handful.

ToT 74: Numnumnummnumnummmm....

Tim - an accomplished marathoner - later confessed that he plans his runs around berry patches too.

Then there was the family ride on Sunday. It was Wife of Rouleur's first trip to Patapsco, Son of's second trip. Son of tore it the hell up, learning how to cross logs and breaking his plastic bash guard in the process. Wife of had a good time too, going up the hills fine, getting over some of the smaller logs, and basically toasting the brakes a bit and stepping off the bike (gracefully) once or twice. We rode all of Rockburn Park's trails, then hit the Log/Lewis & Clarke/Cascade/Morning Choice / Old Track / Log loop, thence back through Rockburn Park. Nearing the pavilion where the cross race starts, she bonked, and could barely turn the pedals over as we limped back to the truck. Later on that night I confessed my pride in how well she'd ridden, and she expressed some embarassment over her speed. I told her not to worry, she was tired, and it takes time. "It's not that my legs were tired. It's that there's so much to process. I had to think through so much." I explained that's right, the beauty of mountain biking is it's very cerebral. If you ride a lot certain terrain features become part of a schema and the brain can process them very quickly. But until you've ridden logs, or particular root or rock configurations, thinking out a line is hard work. Then today, I was discussing that ride with Sven and he said when he first used to go to Patapsco, he and his buddies would ride for 45 minutes or an hour and think their ride was so epic, they'd be destroyed by it... So let me reiterate my pride in how my wife handled her first trip up there.

ToT 75: All This Thinking Is Making Me Sweat

Then it was a couple days off, and I did a Wednesday AM ride with YDT. We rode here and there and everywhere, mainly looping around the Howard County side of the park I think. Cleaned some things I hadn't cleaned before, kept it conversational but bombed the downhills and I tried to stay within sight of YDT - a remarkable climber - on the uphills. He cleaned Waterbars on the singlespeed despite the dampness and looseness of the soil. Dang. This view of a field, looking out from Connector, pretty much captures our mood on the day. Fabulous, relaxing ride (except for those dang little steep hills).

ToT 76: PVSP is a Clean and Well Lit Place

Then today I did the big loop with Sven and KR. Sven advertised it as a ZMC ride - zippy, mellow, casual - which means there's some efforts involved here and there. He's obviously super strong and KR is a superb climber, so I had my work cut out for me. They were charitable on the big ups but I managed to hold my own for the most part and we managed to do the big loop in just a couple minutes over two hours, and that included my stopping for a drink on Charcoal. After endoing into a creek and landing on my face in the rocks... Fun anyhow, real fun, and our average speed was 9 MPH, which isn't that fast but for a long loop w/t the Baltimore County side included was pretty solid. There's a few holes in my game - climbing real rocky hills is one - but it's coming around and it's good enough that I'm feeling less uncomfortable about being one of the slower guys in my group. Hey, when all your friends are super strong, you either cope, or find new friends. They're cool, so I don't want new friends, and my coping mechanism is to understand my job is to let them rest for a half minute at the top of the real big climbs, and then pedal straight through when I get there so's not to hinder the group. Hurts some but the progress is evident and it's more rewarding to ride with better riders than it is to ride alone, or to pick out a slower group to ride with and to serve as ego balm.

ToT 77: Sven's Zen

Bonus shot: first dirt on the replacement Monocog frame. Rides great, but it's definitely a more nippy (twitchy?) ride than the Monocog Flight.

New Bike: Redline Stands Behind its Products. Which is Nice.

So there you have it. The rides ranged from aggro, to Zen. They were all learning experiences, every one of them felt very different and memorable and unique. Yeah, I still love my road bike. But it's really difficult to walk away from the mountain bike in good weather. The road bike is a nice little gourmet treat. But the mountain bike is a moveable feast.

Now we dance.

How 'bout a little mountain music. Steve Martin steps in with bluegrass great Earl Scruggs and plays the classic Foggy Mountain Breakdown. And Paul Schaeffer damn near melts down on the keyboard. Sweetness.



Scruggs was a lot better known as one half of Bluegrass legend Flatt & Scruggs. Here he is playing another classic, Cripple Creek, with Lester Flatt.



The banjo is really an underestimated instrument. It's capable of really beautiful lyricism in the right hands. Here's one of my most favorite pieces of music. I can hear something like this in my head when I'm riding my bike and get onto a long country road, or get really flowing out in the woods alone. Yeah, I got some pretty weird earworms.



And of course Fleck's version of Copeland's Hoedown is just off the hook. Crazy. Hoedown - Copland's whole Rodeo suite - was composed for a ballet but stands on its own as great neo-classical music.



Yeah, that's the Beef it's What's For Dinner song. Figures I'd like that.



Sorry there's no nifty video with that. Damn, you could make a good rodeo vid with it... but the music is strong enough to stand on its own. No, I don't hear that music in my head when I'm riding. I'm not good enough musically to imagine something like that.

If you're not familiar with Copland, you'd probably recognize him from this piece, Fanfare for the Common Man.



Okay, and that's enough. Bluegrass to jazz to neo-classical... my brain hurts as bad as if I'd been mountain biking all week. Ride safe and have fun this weekend.

Solid Week

No ride photos for this week, but suffice to say I rode Saturday at Wakefield for the Aaron Ryan memorial ride, Sunday in the woods, took a break monday, hit the commute reasonable hard on Tuesday, Patapsco after work yesterday, and nothing today. Yep, two rest days in one week... I'm takin' 'er easy for all those slackers out there. I was due a week with a couple days off so that's what I'm doing, hoping to hit it hard on the weekend.

It's been a solid week because my LBS and Redline did me a major solid. My Monocog Flight - which admittedly got rode hard and put up wet all fall and winter - has a crooked rear wheel. There's no way to get it into the dropouts, Paragon slider knockoffs, such that the tire is equidistant from the chainstays and simultaneously equidistant from the seat stays. It turns out that the sliders - the dropout portion - are shot. Instead of being nice, flat little slots through which a couple allen bolts secure the sliders, they are a couple little metallic smiles, curving up on the near and far ends.

So I've been looking for a replacement frame. A replacement for this replacement - it's already a warranty replacement bike since the first generation Monocog Flight was infamous for blowing the dropouts, and that's just what mine did. Evidently the problem isn't completely solved. Movie Star JPoz has been looking for a Kona Unit for me, I pinged Bikeman to see if they had any recommendations, and was just about prepared to spring for a remaindered bike to tide me over until I could get a really solid frame custom built (in a year or two) when my buddy Seibold, proprietor of the fine Family Bike shop, suggested we ask Redline about a warranty claim. What's the worst that could happen, they say no?

That sounded smart, so his man Tyler took some photos, spent some time running down answers with Redline, and got me to a good, excellent solution.

Turns that the slider problem is something the Flights still have, even with the redesigned sliders. So Redline is willing to warranty it for me. Only problem is, they don't have any 2011 Flight frames in stock in 19". So they thought about stripping a complete bike... but then negotiated it out with FBS and agreed to just give me a 2012 frame which will have a completely redesigned dropout. Sweet! But they won't be in until sometime in the fall. Not Sweet! But wait - they offered to send me a regular old Monocog frame, the entry level, heavy steel sucker (probably rides sweet though) to use until the new Flight frame comes in and I think they might actually let me keep the loaner. SRSLY? I don't know if it's new or a remainder or a return or whatever but that is amazingly cool of them, and yep, it makes me want to do more business with Redline in the future. Very sweet! I think Tyler or Jon likely did a lot of negotiating on my behalf, but it's mighty generous of them to stand behind their product that solidly and give a brother who is a riding junkie a hookup. My Flight has been ridden harder and more often than Kim Kardashian, and although I haven't exactly been dirt jumping or riding urban stunts on it, they would be within their rights to tell me to go get another bike and I wouldn't have complained.

The moral of the story is pretty simple. Good folks deserve your business because they stand behind the products they make and sell. This includes topnotch local bike shops and manufacturers that bend over backwards to make sure you're happy with their product. They earn your loyalty. Now it's not in the cards for me to always stick with the same brand, but Redline is going to stay in the mix for me after this. My kid will probably need a 26" bike within a year or three, my wife may want an upgraded 29'er, my friends may want to get MTBs or cross bikes. I'll be compelled to say good things.

How is the Monocog Flight to ride? Pretty damn good. It's a singlespeed, you know, point and shoot. It ups and goes pretty well, the Avid BB5s are pretty good as mechanical disc brakes go. The stock wheelset is a little heavy but the bike retails for around $900, you can't expect awesome wheels at that price. It's smooth; it eats up the bumps really well for a rigid, and it works real nice with an 80 or 100mm suspension fork if you choose to put one on. It does most things really well, maximizes the strengths of the 29'er wheel (stability, smoothness, ability to flow over obstacles) and it's hard to beat at the pricepoint. The Monocog doesn't do racy stuff - it's not a short framed racing 29'er with a 3 pound frame and super nippy, nervous handling. But it does everything else pretty well, and it's capable of being raced better than I'm capable of racing it. Yeah, I'm faster on it in most places than I am on my geared full suspension bike. Go figure. A nice, solid 29'er. Seeing how Redline stands behind it, just burnishes my impression of it.

Now for some tunes...

First, a little Scott Miller. This guy is just a damn good song writer and singer. Haven't a clue why he's not more popular. Oh wait a minute, yes I do. He writes more or less grownup music. I been drunk all around this town...



I guess it's possible for guys like that to really make it in show business. There aren't many of them though. We tend to think about Lady Gaga or Madonna as music stars. But there's a lot of people out there making a good living at playing and writing music, but they aren't the first name that comes to mind when you think of music and they certainly aren't on the playlists of any pop stations. Come to think of it, most high quality people in life aren't famous. They're just doing their local gig. And often they're far superior to people who are famous for doing the same thing. Case in point:



And some people are famous in a limited sphere, but then gone before you get a chance to really know who they are.



Some are just interesting too, in addition to being talented. Charlie Mingus negotiated some difficult questions of race when he was coming up. Tiger Woods makes a thing out of it but Mingus - in addition to maybe being the greatest bassist of all time - was the original Cablinasian. Not that it mattered; people only saw his music.



And a lot of times in stuff that's a little more obscure, you catch some stuff that's got a slice of life in it. "All you chirrets - get off the cars."



See you all on the flipside.

Week as Hell

It's been a long week filled with some good riding. It's had its share of horror too.

First off, if you're an MTB'er and not a total dick, and you'd like to give a little back, hie yourself to the tennis courts at Wakefield this Saturday AM and be ready to roll at 10:30. Washington Underground Singlespeed Society (WUSS) stalwart Aaron Ryan died a few weeks back, leaving behind a lovely wife, young daughter, and another unborn child. He expired a few days after a run-in with a car, though it's not clear that the car was the cause; Aaron just dropped dead after experiencing some minor symptoms that might not have been anything. I wasn't close to him; we raced at the same place at the same time a bunch, and we had a lot of friends in common. What I did remember, after Mrs. Outlaw mentioned it, was that he had ridden in this utterly brutal day long mountain bike decathlon on a 98 degree day a couple summers ago, and while we all cooled off in Liberty Reservoir afterwards (catatonic) he decided to go for a swim across the reservoir and back, maybe a mile round trip. We were sure he'd die but he just knocked it out and came back laughing and smiling. Good guy, strong rider. The ride Saturday asks for a $40 donation to go to a scholarship fund for Aaron's kids. It's a good cause.

Second thing is I found out a friend from rugby days died last weekend. The circumstances are not clear; he apparently parked his car on Route 50 near Annapolis, and then walked in front of a semi. The cops said very quickly it was a suicide, and that got me to thinking. You know, suicide is never a smart way out. The permanent solution to temporary problems, it may be an attack on the self but it also functions as a huge "fuck you" to all your friends and family. I've been a member in a bunch of different tribes in my life - some military crews, some rugby clubs, bike racing crews - and the thing is if somebody in my crew was down and out they could take over the man-cave (which rivals a lot of Capitol Hill basement apartments), eat my food, yell at my dog, and piece it back together. I'd be there for them. And I'm not alone. My friends are solid folks, and I know they'd be a safety net for others in our little tribe. If you're down, you're out, lean on friends. You've got 'em. Don't ever even seriously consider throwing your life away. The other real problem with suicide is that killing yourself is one thing, but suicides occur in clusters. A person will sort of infect others with that mentality - so you often see suicides running in families, or in a school, or in a little community. Don't be a link in the chain that causes deaths like that. Yeah, it ends your damn problems but it heaps heartbreak on all your friends and family. Seek help. Please.

Last thing - would folks making the Lance Armstrong prison ass rape jokes give it a freaking rest for a while? Seriously. I've been on the cop side, the prosecution side, and the defense side, and I clerked for a judge for a while. I've interviewed inmates in prison, post-conviction. I get the criminal justice system. I sense that most of the people making the dumbest and most offensive cracks don't. This is like the "war geek" bloggers critiquing our troops tactics. When some lardass who has never gotten closer to the Army than playing with his GI Joe action figure thinks he knows something about what the guys in the mud are about, he's generally wrong and generally making an ass out of himself in front of people who have actual knowledge of the matters in question. Second, it's undignified. Lance may have some smarts but at heart he's just a dumb ass cheating jock - like almost all the other guys who were top 10 TdF riders in the 90's and 00's; are you willing to sell out that hard just to insult a guy that doesn't give a shit about you? It's a little disproportionate too. There's a million worse criminals than him that are going to go on to rape, murder, rob and create mayhem in their communities. Why doesn't anybody give a crap about that? This is important enough to you that you're willing to toss away your dignity in order to indulge yourself? Really?

Enough heavy shit. I feel like I just removed your finger warts with a shotgun. The week wasn't *that* bad. It was a good riding week. As usual my friends were an emotional and spiritual life buoy for me. There were some rides...

Saturday was a Dawn Patrol at Patapsco. Great ride, except I ate shit about 2 minutes into it on the wet grass in the field heading onto Nacho from Landing Road. The lower (worn in) track was real damp and I was closing a gap up to Svenstrom and BB, so I decided to hop up into the less worn grassy track, which is smooth. I was going full steam when the front end slipped out and went down hard. I thought I'd broken my leg, did a quick break check, then got back on the bike and started chasing like hell. I was a little shook up and later on my back started cramping. I also got a twinge in the lower back on a hill - I dinged up one of those muscles around the disc that bothered me last year and my back is still a bit stiff & sore. I rode okay though - managed to clean a couple obstacles I've never even attempted before. It was tough though and the full extent of the bruising wasn't clear until I was riding road on Sunday and Monday, with achy cramps in my legs and back where the worst of the bruising was. Adding insult to injury, I broke out with a Poison Ivy reaction on Tuesday. When Momma Patapsco wants to hit you, she frickin' unloads.

TOT 63: I thought a bone was broken...

TOT 64: What does a road cyclist look like?
90 minutes L2/L3

Then again, there are some days you ride, and you see God's face about you, and realize that you are created to feel joy.

TOT 65: Finding Beauty Even On A Bike Trail Commute

It's funny how you can be riding along and not thinking about the biking / picture taking project, and all of a sudden something grabs your eyes and goes, "this is it, take a picture NOW!"

It wouldn't be a good week, of course, without a couple hot laps of Rosaryville prior to work. So check this out, the Redline frame is breaking, so I rode the geared boinger. I took it real easy, just cruised. You know what my time was? 51 minutes / lap, same as if I'm going moderately hard. It's like 51 is my time at Rosey, unless I'm working very hard. But all effort levels seem to end in a 51 for me, unless I'm fixed.

TOT 66: My Favorite Stream Crossing

And speaking of fixing things... BB fixes it. Great ride at Patapsco, two flats, one near crash by Svenstrom, a near-cleaning of Ridge by Moi, and a nice time overall.

TOT 67: The 1x1 Wasn't Broke
But BB Fixed it Anyhow

TOT 68: The Fog is Getting Thicker
But Leon is *Not* Getting Laaaaaarger

Okay, I'm going to go light on the tunes here because I'm all tired out.

First off, some Dropkick Murphys, for the Broons. They earned it, and god bless 'em, they do have the best team song in the NHL.



Then this - nice soul song, hella video:



And this, which reminds me of Bullitt:



And finally, because it's tick & flea season, and you need a Kafkaesque reminder to check yourself after riding in the woods:




See you guys on the flipside.

Another Weak in the Books

It's been a great week. I discovered a new kind of saddlesore. You know where your butt-tocks sort of hang over the back edge of the seat? Yeah? Well, I've got two baseball-sized raw spots there. My ass is chapped, and I'm not saying that metaphorically. The Brave Soldier didn't help so I whipped out the diaper cream tonight and that seems to be helping a bit.

Why do I have flaming red Twin Piques on my ass? I don't know. I have theories though. Many theories. First, maybe it's the fat seat on my mountain bike. Three out of every four rides for me now are on the mountain bike and maybe that fatass seat is too much, and I need a FiZik Gobi, or some hard narrow little thing like I have on the road bike. A little ass wedge that fits my pre-existing butt callouses. Maybe it's the hot weather - after 10 minutes in the woods, my ass is soaking wet, and maybe this is making everything soft and easily abraded. Could be my ass is just huger than usual, and rubbing on the sides of the seat. Or maybe, just possibly, I have some new rare form of ass fungus, a weaponized form created by Al Qaida specifically to chap my ass.

Either way it's back onto the cheap cloth-covered saddle for the weekend, (for the weak end?) and it's going to be diaper cream for a few days too. I'm also taking tomorrow (Friday) off; I've ridden for 9 out of the last 10 days and my legs need a break. I was cooking off at Rosaryville, cramping up this morning, really suffering. I realized later that it was just hunger pains and maybe some lingering suffering from last night's 100+ degree ride, but still. Even cooking off, and taking the last 1/2 of the perimeter trail real easy I managed a 51 minute lap so maybe the mountain biking thing is coming along for me. So what went down this week?

Well... I started off with a little of this:

TOT 59: A Couple Brisk Sunrise Laps of Rosaryville
Nice Way to Start The Week

Then I ran into this guy on the NY Ave Metro bridge, while waiting for Fast as Schidt Sean to come along and beat my ass on the homebound commute. He told me that he takes pictures of cyclists around town and that he got the idea from Joel Gwadz.

TOT 60: Bearded Guy With A Trailer in D.C.
Who is Not Cargo Mike

TOT 61: Happy Hour Ride w/t Ms. Svenstrom and Crew
On the Hottest Day of the Year (104 by some accounts)


Not to be confused with

TOT 10: Ride in 2 Degrees in January
Coldest Day of the Year

Wrapped it up with a ride this morning at Rosaryville, the afforementioned cramped, legs falling off general failure ride.

TOT 62: Moving at a Turtle's Pace
After I Cramped

So it's been a pretty damn good week riding wise. I'm taking tomorrow off, trying to rest the legs up a little for a big day at Patapsco on Saturday early AM, and to let the weird saddle sores heal up. Things are coming together nicely on the MTB; it's getting so that I can clean a lot of stuff I didn't used to be able to touch. The weight, it's coming off alright too, been getting the diet tuned up and trying to stick to it. I will admit to breaking down and munching a big bowl of popcorn tonight... a brief break in an otherwise pretty solid streak.

The only bad news is the Redline Monocog Flight is dying. It's the second one I've killed, and it's going down the same way - either the sliders are opening up, or the rear sub-frame is twisting. If I line the wheel up so it's straight with respect to the chain stays, it's darn near rubbing the top right seat stay. If I get it straight between the seat stays, it's darn near rubbing the left chain stay. Bummer. I've been hunting around, and have the Posse and assorted friends hunting for a Kona Unit 29 Frame in Steeeeel, 19", but if you have something cheap and wicked strong and around 19" readily at hand, let me know. The 19" Konas are in a bit of a short supply, and I'm looking for a frame to tide me over until I can afford to get a nice Moots or some similar high end supertanker built for myself.

Have a good weekend, all y'all.

What's In a Week?

It all started here on TOT 53

Then on TOT 54, Toaster McBabyhead Said,
"Two Hard Laps of Rosaryville Before Work, Fatboy!"

Didn't get a picture of TOT 55. There were a few efforts.

But on TOT 56, with the first 2x20 L3 intervals of the year... Something there is, that doesn't love a wall. It's called "a mountain biker."

Someday, I'll Probably Break The Law and Ride
This Powerline Easement

Got some nice flow going on TOT 57
Still got dropped eventually. Fast boys.

Trevor took pity on me on TOT 58. Sore legs, slow guy. Still, managed to clean some stuff I've never cleaned before. We decided I'm getting to the end of the low hanging fruit on mountain biking. The gains are going to come harder from here on in.

I ride with giants... Clydesdales anyhow.

TOT 59: Son of Rouleur Cleans a Difficult Hill,
with only 1 good line on it