The Who!

Last night I took my son to see The Who at Mohegan Sun Arena.
It was truly awesome!
When I was his age (16) they were my favor my favorite. At the time they were too big to play in Connecticut, but there was no way my parents were going to let me go to New York to see them.
In the nineties, I was pretty soured to arena shows so I had no interest in seeing them then. I realized later, and especially after the death of John Entwistle that this probably a mistake. If any band could make a stadium show worthwhile it was The Who.
Fast forward to 2008 and they kicked ass. All the power and energy(well almost) of the live recordings from the 60's and 70's, but at a non-ringing volume.
Zack Starkey, and Pino Palladino filled in quite nicely for the deceased, and Simon Townshend help out big brother Pete on guitar. Rabbit Bundrick(?) was on keys, and Pete was gushing all over him.
Great show.
Best part: Afterwards my son says "That was amazing!".
So what does this have to do with bikes?
Well Charlie won't be riding a bike today, he's beat from being up past his bedtime.

A Calmness Has Come To The Force

In May Charlie broke his hip riding Case MT.
5 months later he's back rockin' the Singlespeed.


Somehow the world seems a better place with Charlie on two wheels.

You Say Tomato, I Say Oh DoShut Up!

I live in a house divided. Lets just say it's now a shade of purple. Doesn't matter who's "Blue" and who's "Red", sometimes it's tense. No matter, because I had a man-date with my pal Kerry. Nothing better to scrub the election sludge out of your head like a little Eastcoast singletrack.



Kerry clearing logs so fast he's a blur!


Either that or my camera sucks

I finally get a clear shot when he dabs. Credit where credit is due, he did clean it a half dozen times while I fumbled with my camera.



Kerry dropping off a ledge


Log-walk


log pile



A couple of Kerry looking all racer like and determined


Unfortunately this wasn't the only time Kerry had his pump out. Not a good day for Kerry and flats.

Now my mind is all minty fresh. Hopefully this tranquility will radiate throughout my household!

Oops! I Did it again!

What's missing from this picture?

Mini-tool? Check.
Pump? Check.
Tube? Check.
Your "A game"? Oh get a life it's an after work ride in West Hartford. If you need to bring your "A Game" you should be racing the 'cross race at Winding Trails. Loser.
Water Bottle. Son of a bitch! I did it again!
Got up to "Little Moab", reached down, and it's not there.
In the rush to get moving and warmed up, it was below 45 degrees F, I left my bottle in the truck. Again.
At least I know I can ride for an hour without water in ideal conditions.
I can do it, but I don't like it!
Funny thing, in a month 45 degrees F will seem like t-shirt weather.

Doh!

That bottle's not supposed to be in the cup holder. It was supposed to be in my bottle cage.
Through out the day I watched clouds roll through, occasionally letting loose a little precipitation. Nothing that was going to stop me, but enough to determine what kind of ride I was going on.

As the work day neared it's end, it was starting to look pretty good; the sky was clearing, and what little rain had fallen was drying nicely. Still, I hadn't finished work as early as I wanted so the evenings ride would have to be kept to a shorter one.

Driving to the res. the sky was split; fair to the East , gloom to the West. The res would be the center of this. But things were looking pretty dry, so all was still good.

In the rush to get out on the trail, I left my water in the truck. No problem I thought, I'd drank plenty during work, and on the ride here, and if I keep it to the Old Skool Loop, I'll be back to the truck in about an hour.

I was keeping a sub-hour pace, yet I didn't feel I was really pushing it. Relaxed and smooth. I think that's really the key to speed; keep it smooth. Violent efforts are only good for a final sprint. Or maybe the pace was due to my bike being 20 oz's lighter.

Every time I stopped to clear some dead-fall though, my hand would instinctively reach for my bottle. Doh!
After the levee, things started getting dark. I thought It still a little early for night fall, but the gloom to the West had over taken the geography. I thought I heard the wind pick up. Nope, raining.

I only had the "Antler Trail", and the final Eastern Fence-line to descend, so any discomfort would be short lived, and was still ahead of schedule for a sub-hour lap.

I'm trying a new front tire up front, a WTB Prowler. On Sunday it performed flawlessly, but conditions were ideal. Last night it was challenged. Fresh rain on fallen leaves. In the dark. Lets just say my descent wasn't as smooth, graceful, or flowing as I would have liked it to be. I'm going to reserve judgement on the tire for now, but my tried and true Ignitors are still looking pretty good.

Back at the truck, my sub-hour time had been lost, all on one dark and slippy descent.

Leaf Peeping

Looking at the foliage maps on the morning news, it seemed imperative that I should take the camera with me on a couple of rides this weekend.

A couple of problems with that:
My trail shots are usually pretty lame. This might be the nature of our trails is hard to capture. We don't have very long stretches before the trail turns, and dips, so you only see about 50' at a time. Or I just suck at photography.
Mostly it's more fun to just ride.

Friday I rode alone @ Pennwood in Simsbury. What a hoot. One of my favorite places to ride in the state.












Saturday and Sunday was at the W. Htfd Reservoir. Saturday I rode w/ Kerry, but it was the early bird special, so I didn't have any light until the end of the ride. Sunday was an unexpected afternoon ride. Some how I sold the idea to the Lovely Ms. Kim; I think after Ian's birthday party she was more susceptible to suggestion.

New Blog!

I didn't feel my blog at mtbr was badass enough, so I decided to start over again here.
Now with superbadass black background!
Linky link to my old blog.
Old blog was definitely lacking badassitude being all white and all.
Now it goes to 11!