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Maybury Sanitorium and Broken Plate

Published May 16, 2010

Today while making dinner I screwed up, didn’t latch one of the side tables on the BBQ correctly, and sent a plate and pretzel roll crashing to the ground. It appears that it held briefly, but a slight jostling when I lifted the lid sent the plate on its way to doom. I’m probably going to try and find some more on eBay, but I need to be sure that they are of the Pfaltzgraff USA vintage so that the patterns match exactly. It appears that the brand was sold in 2005 and after that made in China. I’ve found that the new Chinese-made patterns don’t quite match the old designs (less defined geometric shapes, for example, in modern versions of the Midnight Sun pattern that I have) and want to be sure I get the old USA versions. There are a number of these plates on eBay right now, so I’m waiting for a response about the origin of manufacture and if they are the USA versions I’m hoping to buy a four or eight of them.

Earlier today I headed out to Trail’s Edge to check out the Mega Sale and help if I could, but with plenty of help on hand I ended up heading over to Maybury State Park to ride the mountain bike trails there with Carlos (previously pictured here). I’d only been there once before, back on Easter Monday of last year with Bob and Jon, and I was looking forward to checking it out again. This park is on the grounds of the Maybury Sanatorium, an old tuberculosis sanatorium and has this nifty sign over the entrance. Throughout its life it was known first as Detroit Municipal Tuberculosis Sanatorium, Spring Hill Sanatorium, and then Maybury Sanatorium. If you are interested in the history of this place, be sure to check out the Maybury Sanatorium website as it contains a whole bunch of great historical info about the place.

Despite the nice area today’s ride didn’t go quite as well as it could have. After really pushing myself on the three laps of yesterday’s race my legs were quite wobbly and telling me that I should take it easy and head back to the car. So, after one lap Carlos and I bid each other farewell and I headed back to the car while he headed off back on to the trail. Ah well, a day of rest should do me well.

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More Beer Photos: Golden Cap, Mama’s Little Yella Pils, Ranger IPA

Published May 16, 2010

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.

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6 & 12 Hours of Stony Creek

Published May 16, 2010

Today a bunch of the Trail’s Edge Racing folks† and I did the 6 & 12 Hours of Stony Creek race. This was a rather convoluted route through the mountain bike trails at Stony Creek Metropark (warning, PDF) which was ~11 miles in length, with ~1000′ of climbing per lap. There were a couple of new and race-only pieces of trail used, with one of the newest pieces containing a particularly steep, unexpected climb. Even more difficult, the most challenging (long and grueling) climbs were at the end of the route.

Bob and I rode as a team, with me starting at 2:00 PM and us alternating laps relay-style until the cut-off of 7:30 PM. In this time I was able to get in three laps, with each taking right around one hour per lap. Unfortunately I returned from my third just minutes after the cut-off time so Bob didn’t get to go out on (was spared?) a third lap.

This was my first “real” race, and I think it went quite well. Everyone that either I passed (not very many people) or who passed me (a fair number of people) were nice and courteous, with all passing arrangements working out well and no observed conflicts. Then again I was likely riding at a relatively typical pace for those later in the day, with the result being that during my second and third laps I didn’t really encounter anyone else on the trail. During the first lap some confusion at the start resulted in me ending up in the first third group of people heading out, which meant that I then got passed by all the fast people.

Oh, and the Specialized Phenom that I tried out today? I think it’ll work well. I had a little sorness at a few points, but as the saddle is harder than my previous one it’s to be expected. I had absolutely none of the previously experienced numbness, which means that its likely doing its job.

† Bob Costello, Nick & Marty Shue, Erik Silvassy, Kristi Heuvers, Tak Kakiuchi, and Bill Edgerton.

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Trying a Specialized Phenom Saddle

Published May 14, 2010

Back in December I traded the too-narrow saddle that came on my Titus Racer X 29er for a WTB Laser V. This has seemed okay, but I’ve found that I occasionally get numbness problems when on longer rides where I spend more time in the saddle (and less standing). I’d heard good things about the Specialized Phenom and just when I decided to try one someone posted one on the MMBA Forum at a quite-reasonable price as he’d tried it and it didn’t work out right for him.

It arrived today so I fitted it on the Titus Racer X 29er and took a quick mile-ish ride between puddles and over every curb and rough bit of pavement that I could find to try it out. It’s definitely a firmer saddle than my previous one, but it seems to be more supportive where it should be (under my sit bones) and not where it shouldn’t (under the perineum).

On Saturday I’m supposed to do a six hour bike race at Stony Creek with Bob (we’ll ride as a team, each person riding alternate laps) so I think I’ll give it a try there. I’ll bring the previous saddle just in case this one doesn’t work out so well, but thus far I think it’ll be all right. If not there are a few other people from the aforementioned forum will gladly take it off my hands.

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Amsterdam Photos

Published May 12, 2010

A couple days ago I finished captioning the photos of Amsterdam from my recent European trip. The original plan was for Dominic and I to meet up with Sarah and Danielle on the morning of Saturday, April 17th, but due to the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull and subsequent closing of European airspace they didn’t arrive until Tuesday morning. This left us with only roughly 18 hours to spend in Amsterdam together before we went our separate ways. (Dominic and I on to Germany; Sarah and Danielle on to Brussels then France then Spain.) Because of both this and Dominic’s damaged feet† this we ended up not doing that much, instead spending lots of time just hanging out in the apartment that we rented and wandering around the center of the city.

Before you ask, no, we didn’t go to any coffee shops as neither of us were particularly interested. We did have some very good coffee and cake, but that was just in a place called Coffee Connection which we happened by while wandering after visiting the Anne Frank House.

Here’s a few of the more interesting photos:

· Fields of flowers as seen from the train between Brussels and Amsterdam.
· German-style toilet. Yes, the shelf is unpleasant to use.
· Looking out the window of Floor 1 of Bed And Net. It’s very well located with great food and such right near by.
· The second building from the right is Bed And Net, the guesthouse where Dominic, Danielle, Sarah and I stayed.
· This boat on a canal was full of people from the US and/or Canada who were stuck in Amsterdam by the volcano. They were enjoying their time drinking and cheering about wanting to go home.
· It seems that 9/11 Truthers / Alex Jones fans can be found anywhere.
· Jamon Iberico hanging in the window of a pork shop.
· Cheese and tomato sandwich which Dominic picked up for me from Bakkerij v Eijk, across the street from where we stayed.
· Looking down a canal roughly across the street from the Anne Frank House.
· Carrot cake and a latte in a coffee house (Coffee Company) after visiting the Anne Frank House.
· Sarah and Dominic the morning that Sarah and Danielle finally made it to Europe. We were all sitting in a cafe eating breakfast.
· Glasses of La Chouffe with breakfast.
· Danielle’s breakfast was fried eggs, cheese, and ham on toast.
· Very large cone of frites with garlic mayo, which Sarah, Danielle, and I shared.
· FEBO, an automat-like place in the Netherlands which sells food from vending machines.
· Looking down a canal at a bridge around sunset.
· Standing outside of the train station, passing time, as my coffee cup drips on the sidewalk. It was poorly made.

Yes, I do have video of the failings of the German-style toilet, but I have yet to post it. The issue is not so much with the insult being exposed and sitting on a shelf, but that the water frequently fails to wash it off of the shelf, necessitating a brushing. As such its apparently common to have a toilet brush by every toilet.

One nifty thing that I hadn’t expected is that most people in The Netherlands, or at least Amsterdam itself, seem to speak English with a US accent. They also seem to know English very well, so I never had a language problem ordering food or generally going about things there. I definitely would like to go back there, and perhaps Danielle and I will on a better-scheduled trip. Maybe this next time we’ll rent a houseboat as well, staying on a canal somewhere and spending a bunch of time traveling out of the city and possibly over to other countries (Belgium, Germany?) as well.

† Note to the world: Do not wear Chuck Taylor All-Stars when spending a few days walking around London. They are not good shoes for walking long distances in, especially if they don’t fit well and/or are worn with inappropriate socks. Doing this will seriously damage your feet.

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W. C. Wetzel State Recreation Area via Richmond

Published May 9, 2010

Being Mother’s Day I headed over to Richmond to visit my parents. Being a nice day I wanted to get in a bike ride as well, so I combined the two deciding on W. C. Wetzel State Recreation Area as my destination, as I’d never heard anything about it before and it supposedly has trails. I figured that I would ride there, check out the trails, then head back.

Save for the steady, strong winds out of the north/west and the disappointment of the rec area this was a fairly nice ride. It turns out that this is a quite small/flat area consisting mostly of grass and gravel trails surrounding a few ponds in a low-laying piece of typically flat southeast Michigan farmland.

This rec area has odd signs at the trail entrances, some indicating “No Wheeled Vehicles” and others saying “No Motorized Wheeled Vehicles”. I made a point of entering at the ‘motorized’ varient of the sign, did one casual lap of the trails (roughly a mile or two) then headed back to the roads to check out the radio controlled aircraft field further down the road at the park. This ended up being a quite nice place to visit, as it had super-clean portable toilets, nice benches to sit on, and a man to watch as he flew an RC helicopter.

After a brief break to eat a bit (I’d only had two bowls of cereal and two bananas to this point today) I headed back to Richmond, taking a slightly different route due to some dogs that I encountered† on the outbound route. This slightly different route involved 30 Mile Road, one of the many east-west grid roads here in SE Michigan. This one, contrary to what Google has to say, actually is broken in two pieces with a supposedly-out bridge in the middle. It turns out that the bridge (located here) is this one from HistoricBridges.org and is very much passable, but only to foot and bicycle traffic. It’s an old wood surface bridge that I wish I’d spent more time looking at, as it supposedly has quite-rare stone abutments.

Not far beyond the nifty bridge I actually got stopped by a train (CN 8802) at a crossing. With the train traveling particularly slow (~25 MPH) I could have very safely crossed the tracks it if I went around the gates, but I thought it’d be neat to watch the train go by. Unfortunately this train took a bit more than five minutes to pass, so I spent quite a while just standing at a gate watching chemical tankers, wood haulers, car carriers, and steel coil cars pass by with cars stacking up behind me.

The ride after this point was very uneventful, with me taking a quick trip through downtown Richmond then back to my parents house, where I found my mom having brushed and fed Roxie, who I’d brought along with me. We had pizza for dinner, talked a bunch, and then I headed back home right as my dad was laying down to sleep before a midnight shift at work.

† Two Rottweilers who started running towards me and barking. I quickly sped up before they got anywhere close, and didn’t slow down until I could no longer hear them. Having no ready dog defense (OC or ammonia in a squirt gun) I took a different return route to avoid actually meeting the dogs.

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New Belgium’s Skinny Dip

Published May 9, 2010

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.

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2010 Island Lake Bike Demo Day

Published May 9, 2010

Today was the 2010 Island Lake Bike Demo Day out at Michigan’s Island Lake Recreation Area. At this event a number of local shops and bicycle companies showed up with all manner of bikes to try out on a ~2 mile segment of relatively flat single track. Despite the on/off rain and mid-40s weather it ended up being a rather nice day as I was finally able to try out a number of different bikes and components that I’ve been curious about.

Specifically, I tried five bikes today; all 29ers:

· Mike Flack / Trail’s Edge‘s Pivot Mach 429 (Formula brakes, SRAM twist shifters)
· Marty’s Orange Vassago Jabberwocky (32:18 29er steel single speed, White Brothers Magic Fork)
· Niner S.I.R. 9 in A&W Rootbeer Brown (32:18 aluminum fully rigid single speed, Hope hubs)
· All Carbon Fiber Cannondale Flash (Lefty fork)
· Specialized S-Works Stumpjumper Carbon HT 29er (SRAM XX 2×10 drivetrain, Specialized Phenom saddle)

Out of all of these, the only bike I didn’t care for was the Specialized S-Works. Being a super-light race bike I think it was just a bit too stiff for me. Having a not-quite-right drivetrain didn’t help matters either as shifting wasn’t great in half the cassette but I imagine that’s just something that happens on demo bikes, especially towards the end of a demo day, which is when I tried it out.

I liked all of the other bikes that I tried. Each would have needed some minor adjusting to be something that I’d be able to ride frequently, but that’s just part and parcel of any new bike. I would have liked to try some road bikes, but the wet roads, cold weather, and on/off spray kept me away from it. It also would have been nice to try out a cyclocross bike, but there were very few of them present and I just didn’t really get around to it. After all of this I’m thinking that I might like to get a 29er single speed. However, that’ll have to wait for a bit, as I just recently picked up a new bike and I can’t actually justify one. Thankfully I may be able to borrow one from time to time.

This was also a nice day for hanging out with people, both those that I regularly see and others with whom I haven’t crossed paths in a while. I also happened to meet a few new people (including the frequent-replier-to-these-posts Ali B. and some other folks from the MMBA forum, including someone from whom I bought some tires and pedals.

Anyway, here’s two more photos from today:

· Erik on the Pivot Mach 429 as we headed down the pavement to the demo single track section.
· All of the Trail’s Edge demo bikes, tent, and work stand area fit in the back of Mike’s van. He packs very well.

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Silverton Brewery’s Ice Pick Ale

Published May 8, 2010

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.

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