Annual Memorial Day Old Fart Tour de Blue Marsh

Saturday, May 23, 2009 - the Second Annual Old Fart Tour de Blue Marsh! Luckily the weather forecast a week out was for rain. That actually meant the weather would be beautiful... and it was. What a great day for a ride! Sonny-boy Spence, bro Roger (aka Crud), great friend George and I departed my house by 8 AM. A stop to tank up the old bod at Pattie's Place got our bellies off to a good start!

State Hill Boat Ramp. Crud on the left, Spence on the right, George hiding.

By 10 AM we were dropping Uncle Crud and Spence off at the State Hill Boat Ramp. They were going to ride from there and head counterclockwise to the Church Road parking lot. This would reverse the shorter route from last year (which ran from Church Road to the Visitor Center) as well as add 3 easy miles, making their total distance about 11 miles. They took off at about 10:15.

Church Road parking lot - George is ready to roll.

After dropping them off, George and I drove to Church Road. By the time we drove over and got ready, it was 10:45 AM. Our plan was to ride the entire 23 mile loop, ending up where we started at Church Road. I was hoping to catch up to Crud and Spence, but hmmm... we got twice the miles or more and are starting a half hour behind? Right...

Pretty sure this is near mile marker (MM) 12, 2.5 miles into our ride.

George was riding a nice Gary Fisher Cake 1. Sweet 26" XC bike with plenty of carbon fiber, right from the factory. And it has a funky, pricey XTR derailleur which we had to fiddle with the night before. George had some brand new Bontrager ACX tires as well. Both he and I have been thru other tires and we still list the ACXs as our favorite all-around tires.

George's VholdR helmet cam and a real sweet floral accent.

My GF rigid resting.

For this year's tour I'm riding my new (to me) rigid. 29" wheels and carbon fiber in the fork, stem, and bar all help to smooth the ride, but the 40 psi in the tires don't. I could've dropped the pressure but the trail is dry and fast... no desire to slow myself down with fewer psi.

George on break 'tween MMs 9 and 10 circa Justa Rd.

George descending from the rocky overlook between MMs 8 and 9 at Sterner's Hill Road (west). Note the new side trail bypassing the root mess.

Somewhere between MMs 5 and 8.

Chillin' at the Stillin' Basin... watching the perch jerkers...

George climbing near MM 28, about 16 miles into our ride. "It's all downhill from here, George!" OK, so I lied.

Crud gives a two thumbs up. Hmmm - he's suspiciously far off the trail... wonder how he got there...

Spence took some pictures of his ride with Uncle Crud, so thank you Spence for the pictures above and below. Crud got a lot of video of his ride... using a handheld cam! Crud's video is priceless... maybe I can get it on here someday, or at least a link. My favorite scene from Crud's Vid: picture a bouncy descent, screeching brakes, a lot of "whoa - whoa - WHOA!" and then green leaves fill the screen. Crud says, in a matter-of-fact tone: "I'm down."

Crud trying to convince his leg muscles to carry on...

Done! Spence, Crud, and George resting "apres ride" at Church Road. Great ride guys!

Crud and Spence got back to Church Road about an hour ahead of me. We never did catch them... maybe next year we'll go opposite directions so we're sure to meet up during the ride!

On the way home, a stop at Rita's was mandated. Wow... a large mango/vanilla gelati never tasted so good!

Middleburn to the Rescue!

Yep, you're looking at a new 30 tooth middle ring and 40 tooth big ring. They are Middleburn rings of the Slick Shift / Hard Coat variety, meaning they are ramped and pinned (hence the "Slick Shift") and coated for durability ("Hard Coat"). The coating is weird in that grease sorta stains the stuff, but BFD... the gears do the trick! Current cranksets were born in the 26" tire era and are typically 22-32-44 as far as tooth count goes. 29ers have taller tires (duh) and to compensate for the 10% extra diameter, a theoretically ideal crankset would have 10% fewer teeth on each ring. The crankset on this bike now sports a 20-30-40 set of rings. I'll admit it - if I grew bigger muscles I could've stuck with the 26er rings. But the 20-30-40 sure feels nice when you're climbing the steeps. And - an added bonus - additional clearance under the big ring. So there's less chance of boogering up a rather pricey ring on a rock or log - a good thing.

I couldn't resist making this octane sticker for the bike... you see, I have access to these stickers, and if you cut a 2 off a 112 octane sticker and a 9 off of a 98 octane sticker, you can make your own special sticker. How cute.

Later.

Nottingham County Park - May 16, 2009

(sorry for the cell phone camera pix...)

Wanted to try a new place, so I drive 45 minutes to southern Chester County to Nottingham County Park. I'd never seen this park before and I gotta say I was impressed - real nice place. For some reason - forest fire or just strange soil - the woods looked more like woods I've seen out west - lotsa scrawny pines, not too much hardwood like we're used to seeing here in southeast PA. Sort of cool - made me feel like I was riding somewhere far from home! Not knowing what to expect, I brought my cushy full-suspension bike for the ride today. Man, after riding the rigid for awhile, riding this is like cruising in a '72 Caddy - real smooth. The official trails are all doubletrack, and you couldn't find a technical element here if you're life depended on it. That could make for a boring place, but there's plenty of elevation change and fast downhills to spice things up. Tough place? Nah, not that tough! Found this unlucky critter at one end of the Buck Trail. My take on mountain biking in this park - it's a good x-country ride. You can keep your speed up both uphill and downhill. Then, if the doubletrack gets old, hop on a fire break trail for some fun. The one shown in the pic above was a blast. There's a few stream crossings in the park and this one above was the most fun of the bunch. What you see is a small "crick" on the right merging into another small crick on the left. Here's an unusual (for Nottingham) section of woods - deciduous with a bright green fern carpet. Way more inviting than the dense thorny bushes which occupied almost all of the areas where pines were found. Those thorn bushes looked purty from a distance, but an up close look revealed one stout tire puncturing 1/4" needle after another. After another. And another. Millions of pickers. There's no way you wanna fall into those bushes... not sure you'd make it out in one piece! Well, that's enough for now. Next time I'll bring the rigid and maybe the rest of the family.