Making, baking, and (un-)breaking things in Southeast Michigan.
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Having today off and feeling like rejecting a few more British conventions I decided to make some sun tea. Four tea bags, water, and sitting in the sun for a couple hours mostly did the trick, but I probably should have left it for longer. Oh well, I’ll just have to make another batch tomorrow or Wednesday.
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One of the few things (besides “free” music and movies) that will elicit civil disobedience in white, middle class families is the chance to use 1.4G (formerly Class C) explosives on the Fourth of July. I really enjoy seeing all the explosions around the area, so around dusk I set off on my bike to wander the local neighborhoods and watch people set off various glittering fires.
This ride ended up being roughly 12.3 miles, which was a nice cap on the day. Earlier Josh (my brother in law) and I had ridden Bald Mountain and Addison Oaks, but after a nice pile of picnic-type foods at my parents house and an unexpected nap I felt like getting back out and riding some more. A desire to watch people play with pyrotechnics provided the perfect reason to do so.
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Today after getting Danielle fit on her bike by Ernie up at Cycletherepy (which went very well and is highly recommended) we swung by REI to pick up some stuff and check out the remains of the Garage Sale†. While there I picked up a returned Cateye Velo 5 computer labeled “Computer is not working” for $1.93, marked down from the original $20. Looking it over, the only thing wrong with it was that the original buyer had pushed the rubber MODE switch on the back in so far that it was jammed, causing the computer to not function. A few quick pokes with a pin to move the rubber switch back to the hole and everything was back to normal.
I also grabbed a jacket for $29-ish which had been returned because part of the collar was beginning to pill. Marked down from $100, nice looking, and something that I’d considered purchasing at full price last winter I couldn’t pass it up. It should make a very nice early winter / springtime jacket, and maybe something nice for XC skiing.
† In case you haven’t been to one, garage sales at REI are periodic clearance sales where non-new returned items are sold at huge discounts as non-returnable. Everything is tagged with the reason for return and the age of the item, and prices are typically an order of magnitude below the original price.
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Today while out riding my bike at Addison Oaks I fell and scraped up my arm. I think I also banged my shin and hip a little bit, all while packing dirt into various parts of the handle bar. That’s part of the excitement of riding a bike in the woods, eh? Good thing the weather was perfect and there were far fewer bugs out than there have been in past days. The rest of the ride, which started at the Clarkston Road crossing of the Paint Creek Trail and went through Bald Mountain, was nice, fun, and generally uneventful.
Here is a photo of the place where I fell. For those of you that know the trail, it was on one of the curves right before the small bridge/boardwalk which has the sharp uphill, banked, right-hand turn after it. Yes, it’s a very basic spot. I just wasn’t paying enough attention and either washed out the tire or got too close to the edge of the trail and slipped into the soft/shrubby stuff.
Thinking back, it’s now been a bit (two weeks?) over a year since the last time I fell at Addison Oaks. The last time was when I washed out the front wheel and left a plug of skin on a screw hole of my other bike’s stem.
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Those of you who regularly read what I write and pay attention to biking stuff will know that I will frequently ride at Shelby Township’s River Bends Park, located a scant four miles from my house. In the past few months the MMBA, with me providing representation for this project, has been working with Shelby Township to develop new multi-use single track trails in the park. While the MMBA is a mountain biking organization, the trails we build are perfect for biking, hiking, trail running, and numerous other activities, so we’re an ideal organization to build new trails in a park.
Yesterday we had our first full trail day at River Bends, an event which brought out 15-ish people to help finish off Phase 1 of the trail. A few of us had started work prior to the Trail Day, but yesterday did the bulk of the work. We now have just over a mile of new single track winding its way along a ridge between some existing two-track and the Clinton River floodplane. If you’d like to see a KMZ of the route that we completed yesterday it can be found here.
Now, time to polish up any little quirks in the current trail and move on to thinking about Phase Two.
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On the way home from work today a bird evidently got in a very lucky (for me) shot. This bit of bird dropping fell, just barely missing me, and ending up right on the joint between the seat tube and the top tube.
If you’d like to see the route I took home from work (same as the route to work, but mostly downhill), you can find it here: 25-Jun-2010_Work_To_Home.kmz.
I’ve also got two more photos from biking today if you’d like to see them: my bike parked outside work this morning, and my shadow on the Clinton River Trail while riding along somewhere in Rochester.
Now, time for bed. Tomorrow’s lined up to be lots of manual labor, hopefully wrapping up the first phase of some new, park-approved single track trail at River Bends Park.
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Riding to work along the Clinton River Trail this morning I happened upon a squirrel, which is not unusual at all, until I ran over it. Typically animals see you coming and do their best to dash off to hide in the woods, but this squirrel, laying in the middle of the 12′ wide gravel path, ducked down, waited until I got within 15 of it, dashed off into the brush, then immediately back out in front of me, running in a small circle twice directly in front of my tire before I hit it. Thankfully only my front tire hit it†, and when I looked back I caught only a brief glimpse of it ducking back into the brush.
While squishing the squirrel (and throughout the ride) I was apparently also squishing my post-ride banana. While the skin didn’t rupture, a fair part of it was mashed into a nice banana gel which tasted surprisingly sweet and good. It was a bit of a hassle to eat, but the taste made it worthwhile. I think that a bowl of well-mashed banana, topped with (real) whipped cream, and some nice oaty biscuits (HobNobs?) could make for quite a treat.
UPDATE: Now that I think about it, hitting the squirrel felt not unlike the time I hit a discarded banana in the road. A little slick, a slight sliding/rolling feeling, and an ever so slight bump.
† Front wheels generally have less weight on them, and while I definitely hit a squishy part of the squirrel, there wasn’t a noticeable thump or bump as I went over it, so hopefully I hit a less-essential part and its still alive.
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Despite not feeling up for riding to work I still went to a Felt Bicycles demo over at Stony Creek after work. I’d wanted to try out some of their 29er hard tails and maybe a road bike, and thankfully I had no problem doing either.
I ended up trying out four bikes, a 26″ full suspension, 29″ carbon fiber hard tail, super-light (and expensive) road racing bike, and a single speed coaster brake cruiser, as follows:
· Felt VIRTUE 1: Five inch travel full suspension mountain bike. I didn’t care for this very much as it was far squishier than I would like, but there’s a good chance it simply wasn’t set up right. This was my least favorite bike of the demo.
· Felt NINE Elite: Hard tail carbon fiber 29er with Reba Race fork. This bike fit very well, and I enjoyed riding it quite a bit. It almost makes me want a 29er hard tail; a new bike that I probably couldn’t justify.
· Felt F1 SL: I asked for a 56cm road bike to try, and this $6999 professional racing level bike was the only one available. Being the first drop bar bike that I’ve taken a proper ride on made this quite an interesting experience. No matter how hard I pushed it felt like the bike could go faster, and I frequently found myself zipping down the road quite quickly with surprisingly little effort.
· Felt SLANT: Very comfortable, great looking coaster brake cruiser. This is not a bike to ride far, but just something to poke around a park on and enjoy yourself.
After the demo I took a few minutes to throw a leg over the Felt F75X which Erik had taken for a ride, but as I didn’t really take it anywhere I couldn’t form much of an opinion on it. It seemed really nice, though.
Now it’s time to get some sleep so I can (hopefully) ride to work tomorrow. Hopefully the weather will stick to the forecast and remain relatively nice and rain free.
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As of last night I’d wholly intended to ride my bike to work today, packing it and getting everything ready to go. Unfortunately, when I woke up this morning I realized that I simply couldn’t. My throat is hurting a bit, I feel physically run down, and I’ve got a constant, groggy / spacey feeling. Either I’m getting sick, or I just need a good, long sleep. I’m hoping that instead of being sick the cumulative lack of sleep from the past week, and a whole weekend of not sleeping well has done me in and I just need some proper night’s rest to feel better, but as I’m rather accustomed to working on little sleep I fear it’s actually illness. If I’m not feeling any better soon I may have to call off my plans for the rest of the day.
I just hope that I’m feeling better for Saturday morning for the River Bends Park Trail Day with the MMBA where we will likely be finishing the first segment of new single track trail. Along with some other folks I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the past couple months planning it, marking the route, working with the township, and doing initial cutting and clearing of the trail, so I’m really looking forward to seeing this first piece finished.
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This has been a good weekend. After my sister’s wedding (to a nice guy who I think is all right and will be good for her) I ended up back home on Sunday with some time to work on my bike and go for a ride.
So, after cleaning up the drivetrain (it’s been almost six months since I got the Titus Racer X 29er) I took a quick ride from Rochester Mills (Beer Co.) up the Paint Creek Trail (and via some back routes) to Bald Mountain Recreation Area (North Unit) and back. After getting back to Rochester I took a quick spin through the two-track at Bloomer, located the hole-in-the-fence access out the back side of the park, then headed back to my car.
As seen above and in this photo, riding the Paint Creek Trail leaves quite a bit of limestone dust on one’s bike and parts. I’ve had people warn me that such grit will ruin bearings quite quickly, but I tend to think that the grease on such parts will do its job and keep the grit out of the important areas.
Riding through Bald Mountain itself left me covered in both bug bites and irritations from plants. Some of the trail (in particular the connectors) is becoming quite overgrown, and riding through them means a few minutes of continuous rubbing up against all the local foliage; Some of it even reaches out and grabs your bike, as happened today when the metal cap on the rear derailleur cable went missing.
Worse than the botanical irritation is the flies and mosquitoes in Bald Mountain, which fly fast enough to land on you at 10 MPH, and swarm behind you (waiting for you to slow or stop) at 12 MPH. The occasional downhills are the only savior, as one can then lose the flies. Still, despite all of this, I ended up with a horse fly in my helmet. Thankfully it didn’t bite and just allowed the mosquitoes to do their thing.
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