Harmony Hill - September 19

It was a good week - five rides! Three of them were at Harmony Hill. Why, you ask? Well, it's Spencer's favorite place lately... so why not. The trail work here has really paid off... it's a great place to ride. Nothing too technical, but there's enough rocks and roots to challenge us here and there. So on this day, Kelly joined Spence and I for a great ride - temp was probably in the low 70s and the trails were in good shape. The summer's rains have slacked off a bit, finally giving us a shot at some mud-free pedaling.

Gettin' ready to ride.

Kelly's full-squish 29er on left, my no-squish 29er on right. HH is a great place to ride sans shocks.

Spence is pedaling through the pasture, soon to reach the woods.

A gradual uphill makes for a good warm up, then we enjoy a great downhill stretch... twisty stuff to a straight fast run to some tighter stuff... blast! Here Kelly is coming down the straight downhill, probably shaking her head as I - heaven forbid - take her picture.

Break!

An hour or so later and a few loops under our belts, we head back up the hill to the parking lot. Here Spence is getting set to head back up that straight downhill section... though now of course it's a straight uphill section!

A few minutes and a whole bunch of heavy breathing later, we're back at the lot and the ride is over. Love those cool September days!

Marshburg - September 6, 2009

It might seem like I stopped riding, but a few vacations got in the way of consistent riding this past summer, and indeed I only got a few stray rides in here and there... when I wasn't packing or unpacking. With summer mostly history, here's some pix from a ride in the Allegheny National Forest near my in-law's house in Marshburg, PA.

Kelly following Spence down one of the zillions of dirt roads. This is a good place to have a GPS with you, even if you think you know where you're going.

Fun section! This one turned into a little river, due in part to all the stinkin' rain we've had this summer. I cleared this section, but Kelly and Spence are a little smarter.

Little tiny bit of water leads to slightly bigger bit of water ahead... Kelly contemplates her next move while Spence contemplates drying his feet. Figuring my feet might get wet anyway, I just pedaled thru.

Righteous biking along beautiful forest stream.

Big puddle. Actually, "small pond" might be more appropriate - tadpoles and all. Spence says "heck with walking" and pedals thru...

...and Kelly pedals thru too. To this point it's mostly downhill... and from here, we log several miles of steady climbing along more forest roads, finshing the ride just in time to head off to the family Labor Day picnic!

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!

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.

Blue Marsh - April 18

What a beautiful day - temps in the 70s, blue sky... what a great day for a cruise through the woods.

Started at the Visitor Center and hopped on the trail heading counter-clockwise. Never went this direction before on this segment. The neat thing about doing this is the trail seems totally different.

Tired? Was setting up for a pic up a long uphill (as usual you can't really tell that in 2D) and another rider came gliding downhill. What timing. Surprisingly there weren't too many riders out today.

Nice downhill lakeside sweeper.

An "over the bar" shot.

I think this bridge is new since the last time I was on this stretch (June '08).

Stopped here for a lunch break. Wish every lunch was like this one.

Heading uphill.

This looks steep and is steeper. Just down the hill to the right the trail has been rerouted slightly to bypass an eroded set of roots. Over the last couple years the roots went from fun to challenging to WTF.

Parting shot... getting closer to the end of an awesome 23 mile ride. Luckily the evening's plans include another visit to Victory Brewing with some friends... that's good, as I need some carbs!

Blue Marsh & John's First Ride

Saturday was bike assembly day. John is relatively new to mtbing and he bought a Motobecane Fantom 29er. These require some assembly, which went well. While it's no lightweight, the Motobecane makes for a solid entry level bike. One change we made was purely a visual thing - the stock stem is a 10 pound clump of ugly. I had a Bontrager Sport stem laying around, so I swapped that onto the bike just so I didn't have to look at that stock stem. Yeesh. The one functional change we made was to swap in a new SRAM PG-950 11-34 cassette for the stock 11-32. It's the same quality, but obviously the 34t low gear will help offset the larger diameter wheels on climbs. That was Saturday, so Sunday was Ride Day. We went to Blue Marsh and hit the flat-ish stretch from the Visitor Center to State Hill Boat Ramp. You see, not only is the bike new to John, but so are clipless pedals. We all remember our first day on clipless pedals, so surely John didn't need any additional challenges on Day One. Weather was nice - partly sunny, temps in the 40s when we started, pushing 60 at the end. Trail conditions were muddier than hoped for probably thanks to the sub-freezing temps in the early morning and BM's inherent wetness (oh, that doesn't sound right...).

Here comes newbie John on his new 29er. ...and here comes son-e-boy Spence jra.

3 miles and all smiles!

Closer look at John's Moto 9er.

... here's my new ride, also on its maiden voyage. Rigid, Fisher-framed 29er.

This was the most challenging hill on our brief ride... the water bars at Mile Post 3. I'll let John tell you why he's laughing in the picture!

No wind, warm sun... wow was it nice here. Great place for a nap.

Done! No falls, a little mud. Nothing a cheese steak at the Blue Marsh Canteen couldn't cure!