I can't get over San-Lee! Donn has truly poured his heart and soul into this trail system.It is super well marked, with some of the gnarliest technical rock garden sections. Calling them rock gardens does not do them justice.The map is very well laid out and color coded. I foolishly thought I was going to be disappointed, but then I came upon sections such as, Bouldergeist, Gauntlet, Free Fall and Rocknest Monster. That is when that evil little grin emerged my face. The camera breaks the video into half hour chunks and even with my short attention span, the second chunk of 30 minute kept me interested enough to watch the whole thing raw. Then before it finishes off you hit Mega Jump. Don Said he remolded them until they flowed well on the ground or in the air. There are a couple in a row that I am sure could be doubled, I would need a long session to work up that nerve though.
Here is a long one that I did not know what to cut!
I will get some more video up, it is a long process!
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Monday, February 25, 2013
Alafia River state park
Warm and humid. I will have to acclimate. Nice people and nice facilities at the trail head!
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Where's Waldo
Some folks have wondered where we are going to be when. I made a tab called Itinerary, with a calendar in it. We do kind of make the trip up as we go, but I will try to keep it up date as much as possible.
Monday, February 18, 2013
My Kingdom for the Video Card I Left in the Motor home
Note to self. Make new check list, add Video card. The camera does not do much good when the video card is still in the PC. Oh well, it was another great ride at Lodi Farm, this time, with Rob Maple of FAMBE. He is a driving force for the local trails and has done a great job at Lodi Farm He was quick to say it could not have been done with out the help of many others. He rode up at Quantico with his Wife and friends and still joined me for a lap. I squeezed in two before dark.
Fredericksburg VA
The FAMBE club members are very hospitable. I mean, they don't know me from Adam and they let me join their Facebook group. I did a little research and saw that Fredericksburg had a few trail systems that looked promising:
Lodi Farm, of 12 of Lodi fame,
Ferry Farm,
The Quarry,
I posted to the group that I was looking for an intermediate to advanced ride.
Rob, then contacted Levi Thornton, who happened to be finishing up a 20 training week with a 6 hour ride that encompassed all three parks, connecting them with road. Levi said he averaged 15mph on the road sections, so I though I could fake that on the SS. Oh no I couldn't, and I think Levi was underestimating his on road average, Ha! This one time, when Levi would start out at 12mph, I am thinking that this was too easy, but wait there's more....the speed started to creep up, soon I am doing 265 Watts (L3 for me) Right before my elastic snapped I was drafting Levi at 18 point something miles per hour at 320ish Watts. I was on a 34/20 gear ratio. Just sayin'.
Levi is a great guy. When we were done with the parks and Levi figured out that I could not keep that pace on the SS, we got to chatting. He has an amazing story.
Levi has only been mountain biking, coming up on two years. He is a computer programmer and had put on some weight from all the desk jockeying. He told me that he was skiing and saw that they had DH Mountain biking and thought that would be fun. He would spend eight hours at a time making runs. Then he took to cross country and, like the rest of us, he struggled at first. He would ride a SS 29er with a 32/14, I would still struggle with that. He got himself a 1 by 10 fully rigid carbon bike now, but still likes to lose the shifters every so often.
Levi is training to take on the nationals in PA this year, in Cat 2. When he told me that, I told him that 20 hours was a lot for a Cat 2. He proceeded to out climb me in the steep greasy hills of the Quarry. I only made one or two things he did not, to the several that he made that I had to walk. But he would wait for me. I tried to tell Levi to just wait at the intersections because I found I could make some of that climbing distance up in the twists and turns and down hills and the berms. But, being a good host, he did not want me to get lost. Like I said a nice guy.
We then took the roads over to Ferry Farm. That took us through Fredericksburg, cool town with a burgeoning bike path and share the road system. Bikes can take an entire lane if there are more that one travel lane.There are huge bike lane markers and the motorists really seem to take the bikers serious, well mostly (there was that one Mustang).
The hills at Ferry Farm were not quite as long and steep and the ground was less greasy, so I kept up a little better and Levi let me catch up on the DH and tech stuff. I was even able to put him through his paces in a few sections. But remember this was his last ride on a 20 hour week! Lots of fun twists and dips and roots.
Then some more road to Lodi Farm. Levi said that Lodi handles wet better than Ferry farm and far better than the Quarry. They have been holding a 12 hour race there for some years now. The race started out as a midnight to noon race to accommodate bike shop employees, but changed it to noon to midnight to attract more riders.
This place is AWESOME! Take a look at the Strava map, see that Squiggle way over on the right that looks like somebody tried to scribble something out, well zoom in and see how the trail turns back and forth inside itself. I managed to make a log that Levi cased and just let her rip. That is where my 20+ years of experience came in handy!
At 35 Levi has never played sports before, he was home schooled and he was physically active helping with his family's flooring business.
Little did he know, two years ago that I would be comparing him to the few other freaks of nature that I have had the pleasure (and the pain) to meet.
I guess he can handle that work load after all.
Levi, rest up and good luck at Monster Cross next week end and at the nationals.
Oh, after I wrote all this I went back to Strava and saw that Levi did a race simulation at the Quarry the day after our 5 hour ride and got a KOM to boot. Go Levi!
Videos are uploading.... Sloowly
Lodi Farm, of 12 of Lodi fame,
Ferry Farm,
The Quarry,
I posted to the group that I was looking for an intermediate to advanced ride.
Rob, then contacted Levi Thornton, who happened to be finishing up a 20 training week with a 6 hour ride that encompassed all three parks, connecting them with road. Levi said he averaged 15mph on the road sections, so I though I could fake that on the SS. Oh no I couldn't, and I think Levi was underestimating his on road average, Ha! This one time, when Levi would start out at 12mph, I am thinking that this was too easy, but wait there's more....the speed started to creep up, soon I am doing 265 Watts (L3 for me) Right before my elastic snapped I was drafting Levi at 18 point something miles per hour at 320ish Watts. I was on a 34/20 gear ratio. Just sayin'.
Levi is a great guy. When we were done with the parks and Levi figured out that I could not keep that pace on the SS, we got to chatting. He has an amazing story.
Levi has only been mountain biking, coming up on two years. He is a computer programmer and had put on some weight from all the desk jockeying. He told me that he was skiing and saw that they had DH Mountain biking and thought that would be fun. He would spend eight hours at a time making runs. Then he took to cross country and, like the rest of us, he struggled at first. He would ride a SS 29er with a 32/14, I would still struggle with that. He got himself a 1 by 10 fully rigid carbon bike now, but still likes to lose the shifters every so often.
Levi is training to take on the nationals in PA this year, in Cat 2. When he told me that, I told him that 20 hours was a lot for a Cat 2. He proceeded to out climb me in the steep greasy hills of the Quarry. I only made one or two things he did not, to the several that he made that I had to walk. But he would wait for me. I tried to tell Levi to just wait at the intersections because I found I could make some of that climbing distance up in the twists and turns and down hills and the berms. But, being a good host, he did not want me to get lost. Like I said a nice guy.
We then took the roads over to Ferry Farm. That took us through Fredericksburg, cool town with a burgeoning bike path and share the road system. Bikes can take an entire lane if there are more that one travel lane.There are huge bike lane markers and the motorists really seem to take the bikers serious, well mostly (there was that one Mustang).
The hills at Ferry Farm were not quite as long and steep and the ground was less greasy, so I kept up a little better and Levi let me catch up on the DH and tech stuff. I was even able to put him through his paces in a few sections. But remember this was his last ride on a 20 hour week! Lots of fun twists and dips and roots.
Then some more road to Lodi Farm. Levi said that Lodi handles wet better than Ferry farm and far better than the Quarry. They have been holding a 12 hour race there for some years now. The race started out as a midnight to noon race to accommodate bike shop employees, but changed it to noon to midnight to attract more riders.
This place is AWESOME! Take a look at the Strava map, see that Squiggle way over on the right that looks like somebody tried to scribble something out, well zoom in and see how the trail turns back and forth inside itself. I managed to make a log that Levi cased and just let her rip. That is where my 20+ years of experience came in handy!
At 35 Levi has never played sports before, he was home schooled and he was physically active helping with his family's flooring business.
Little did he know, two years ago that I would be comparing him to the few other freaks of nature that I have had the pleasure (and the pain) to meet.
I guess he can handle that work load after all.
Levi, rest up and good luck at Monster Cross next week end and at the nationals.
Oh, after I wrote all this I went back to Strava and saw that Levi did a race simulation at the Quarry the day after our 5 hour ride and got a KOM to boot. Go Levi!
Videos are uploading.... Sloowly
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Monday, February 11, 2013
Stephan's Blizard ride
I was itching to get out as I was was needed elsewhere the last few days and the storm may even make fat biking tough.
I was able to ride most things until the main climb I road the vast majority, but had to dab or walk many steep parts. I got extra rest cleaning out my cleats, pretty much every time a foot hit the ground.
This time I tried VGA @ 60 frames per second.
Sorry for the spotty lenze but it was blowing snow :-)
Friday, February 8, 2013
Thursday, February 7, 2013
More LewMo Vids
While these are not IMBA epics (yet!) snow rides are ague-ably epic!
For now I Will post videos as I fine tune my skills. This and the last post were recorded in 1080x720
Monday, February 4, 2013
Lewis/Morris Snow Ride
We took Patriots path from Chester to LewMo and did a lap of the race course.
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Nature strikes back
Almost forgot about that tree branch that had a little more spring than I expected while clearing a path around a couple big blow downs from Sandy.
Stephen's w/flurries
The snow melted and Uncovered so I was catching all kinds of sticks in my spokes and managed to break one in the rear I was still finished the ride.
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