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Today was the 2010 Tree Farm Relay, a quite-nice relay race in Novi’s Lakeshore Park. I was on a team with Martin, Nick, and Bill, with my lap being the third out of us four (Martin: 1, Nick: 2, Me: 3, Bill: 4). Our team, Heck’s Angles, came in 17^th out of 36 (Sport Men results), a middle of the pack standing.

It had been raining all morning and throughout the start of the race, but with the rain letting up just before my lap the light rainy mud began drying, smearing the entire course with peanut butter-like goo. Prior laps had a much thinner, rain-addled mud left on bikes, and the later laps had denser mud that mostly just packed into people’s tires and made things slick. Mine packed into the entire drivetrain, clogging the chain and filling the bottom bracket, adding a good five pounds to the bike. This slowed everything down, yet despite it the race was still fun.

While riding I didn’t have any real mechanical problems, but my rear wheel was starting to slip a bit in the dropouts, causing my rear tire to just barely begin rubbing a chain stay at the end of the lap. More thankfully last night’s replacement of the fork and brakes didn’t cause any problems and the new brakes performed as hoped (and became bedded in nicely) and the air fork did it’s job. I think the fork may need a bit more air for me, but it was otherwise quite a bit nicer than the super-steep rigid fork.

After the race and at Marty’s suggestion I took a quick dip in Walled Lake to clean myself off, then settled in for a few pints of the Dark Horse, Original Gravity, and Liberty Street (local, tasty, Michigan) beer available on site.

I’m looking forward to seeing some other people’s photos of the race, particularly as someone got one of me going into the crater, blue liquor shot in hand (they are obligatory and handed out mid-course, you know) and I’d like to see how it came out. In the mean time, here’s some select photos that I took today:

· Me standing with my bike right after finishing my lap at the 2010 Tree Farm Relay as part of team “Heck’s Angles”.
· Other Dave and Hodaddy (Joe Foy) immediately after Joe finished his lap.
· Nick’s bike received only a light spray of mud on the second lap.
· My bike caked with mud from the third lap, as the trail was drying out.
· Seat stay bridge and seatpost caked with pudding-like mud.
· Detail of the mud and grass caked bottom bracket before washing it off.
· Detail of my bottom bracket after removing the large chunks of mud.
· Nick hosing off his bike to remove the mud from it.
· While riding the rear dropouts slipped slightly and at the end I was getting some tire rub.
· In Walled Lake some people demonstrate the wrong way to wash a bike. I feel bad for the hubs and bottom bracket.
· Looking through the finish line, including the bamboo gate made by Loren.

A good time was had by all, except for maybe the rider who broke a derailleur (or something similar) and schluffed back to the finish line. He handed off his lei (the batons for this race) to his team mate, then angrily shoved/threw his bike only to have the front wheel dig in and make the bike circle around to hit his team mate right as he was setting out.

Here’s a bottle of Cock ‘n Bull Ginger Beer, purchased at the gas station at the corner of Grange Hall and Mackey Roads after Erik, Kristi, and I rode the East Loop (Gruber’s Grinder) at the Holly-Holdridge Mountain Bike Trails, which are more commonly known just as Holdridge. This was a quite challenging (but fun) trail, which took us 2:20 to complete the 15.5 mile route riding at a quite relaxed pace. It has everything from flowing sections of hard pack through the woods to 6′ high piles of field stones and reasonably high log piles. (Photo of Erik going over the biggest of the log piles.)

After the ride (and purchase of snacks) we headed over to Wildwood Lake in Holly Recreation Area and swam for a while to cool off (photo). Unfortunately while out swimming (and taking underwater photos) my supposedly waterproof to 10′ Olympus Stylus 850 SW sprung a leak. The camera started complaining that the memory card’s contacts needing cleaning, and after I opened the memory card / battery card compartment I found it to have water in it. It’s now sitting in a container of desiccant, so hopefully it’ll start working again soon and I can just put it to use as my standard travel point and shoot / bike jersey pocket camera.

Despite our snack of good soda and potato chips, having just biked for 2:20 and swam for 45 minutes we were getting a bit hungry, so the next stop was Union Woodshop in Clarkston, MI. This offshoot of Clarkston Union, one of my favorite America food restaurants, has a menu of great looking BBQ dishes and is some place I’d been wanting to try for a while.

With $0.87 glasses (mason jars, really) of Badass Beer (yes, the Kid Rock stuff, a passable lager) on special during the final game of the World Cup (which Spain won) we each ordered pulled pork with a variety of side items. I chose mac and cheese (ala Clarkston Union) and sweet potatoes (with roasted jalapeno and a hint of maple), which can be seen here along with some corn bread and sweet butter. Typcial of most midwestern restaurants portions were large enough to ensure leftovers. I’ll definitely want to go back there, but the typical 1.5 hour wait on most weeknights may make this difficult. I guess we’ll just have to plan for mid-afternoon on a Sunday again.

With the weather forecast saying that rain shouldn’t start until after 7pm it seemed like a good weather day for bike riding. Despite having my car back I fitted the pannier setup to my bike, and set out for work. I set out just after 7am, arriving at work just over 1:06 later. As the day wore on and rain got closer, the forecast rapidly changed to having rain arrive sooner, so I left work a bit early, riding quick, hitting rush-hour traffic, and made it home in four minutes less than it took to head to work. After getting home I was then able to finish up work before heading off to the grocery store, then to Sherwood Brewing Company to meet some friends for dinner and beer.

Here’s a couple photos from today, all of them better than the weird, blurry, self-shot photo of me riding on the Clinton River Trail, somewhere between Hamlin and Adams:

· Riding down the Clinton River Trail, heading east, between Hamlin and Adams.
· My bike propped up against a column under Rochester Road along a branch of the Clinton River. I stopped here briefly while riding home from work.
· My bike outside of VGs on the bike rack which they installed after I asked them to fit one. I rode up to buy beer and bagels after riding home from work.

I’m really sleepy tonight so I’m not going to write much about these beers, except to say that I liked each and every one. The Pils was particularly great, as I don’t get to have a proper Pils very often and Mama’s Little Yella from Oskar Blues Brewery definitely was one. Oh, and that Ranger IPA? Quite nice… Very hoppy, almost pine-ish, but quite pleasant to sip.

So, here’s just a few quick photos of new (to me) beers that I’ve had recently:

· New Holland’s Golden Cap Saison Ale.
· Oskar Blues Brewery’s Mama’s Little Yella Pils.
· New Belgium’s Ranger India Pale Ale.

The beer I’m sipping tonight is New Belgium’s Skinny Dip, another one of the beers from Erik and Kristi. I like this. It’s a nice lightly hopped beer with (just barely noticeable) Kaffir lime leaf in it. As suggested by the brewery this would definitely make a nice summer beer. It’s too bad that the mercury is sitting at the 50°F mark with tonight’s forecast threatening frost tonight. Were it a hot summer night I’d sit on the porch with Roxie and this glass.

After a long (but good) day I’m enjoying a can of Silverton Brewing Company‘s Ice Pick Ale, a 6.8% (ABV) IPA that’s fairly mildly hopped. It’s quite nice, and I appreciate the bottle-label-on-can marking technique, showing that they are probably just getting started with canning operations.

This is one of the beers that Erik and Kristi got for me, and is something that I’d definitely buy in the future if given the chance.

While out west on a recent trip Kristi and Erik brought me back some really nifty beers for my birthday. Here they all are: New Belgium‘s 1554, Ranger, and Skinny Dip, Oskar Blues Brewery‘s Mama’s Little Yella Pils and Old Chub Scotch Ale, and Silverton Brewing‘s Ice Pick Ale.

Tonight I am having the eight percent Oskar Blues Old Chub Scotch Ale along with a plate of hastily assembled nachos for a late-night dinner, as most of my evening was spent doing a walk-through of the neighborhood with Dave, one of the other people with whom I sit on the homeowner association for my condo complex.

This beer is quite tasty, and once again reminds me that cans are an outstanding way to package beer, as its lightproof, more airtight, and more compact than a similar volume bottle. They aren’t good to drink out of, but just like a good beer in a bottle it’ll be poured into a glass. Here’s the Old Chub poured into one of the nifty glasses acquired for the New Year’s Eve party.

To deal with my current cold I purchased some NyQuil D a super-hardcore night time cold medicine. Because it contains alcohol (10%) and pseudoephedrine I had to show ID and sign something informing me of the penalties (jailtime and fine) if I sell it to minors. I also purchased some straight 120mg time-release capsules for daytime use.

After taking the NyQuil I ate some Hungry Howie’s Cajun Bread along with a beer. I’m now quite, quite tired and ready for bed. The beer may not have been the best idea as the medication already contained alcohol (which, oddly, is not listed as an active ingredient), but I don’t think that just one will do anything more than contribute to the feelings of sleepyness.

Here’s a second take on a jacket potato, much larger than the previous go 14 months back. This was consumed with a bottle of North Peak Brewing Company’s Majestic Wheat Ale, a not-that-wheaty-but-still-decent almost-pale ale. While eating this Danielle had her own baked potato, with a steak and a small pile of the same mushrooms.

The mushrooms were washed and quartered, then sauteed in olive oil and butter along with garlic, onion, salt, black pepper, and a bit of white wine. It was quite good, but probably would have been better with more butter and less cheese.

The low quality can look and amusing labeling of Peter’s Brand Classics Imported Lager Beer (A Dutch Style Pilsner) prompted me to spend the US$6.99 to try a six-pack of it from Trader Joe’s. It’s not bad, but it’s not really great. This wouldn’t be bad to keep around for summer days and eating with random spicy food and pizza, but it’s nothing great. Still, it’s not bad.