Ride Disclaimers

I've been leading rides for almost 20 years now and have come to realize a few things in that time. People are basically stupid and inconsiderate beings. They will show up late and expect everyone to wait for them, they will do stupid things on the ride, they will treat a ride like a race, they will wildly overestimate their abilities and level. The list simply goes on and on.

To compensate for this over the years, I've basically pared my ride list down to exactly those that act as expected, in what to me is an acceptable fashion. Needless to say that is a small list. I also love to employ "ride list jail", which is simply that if you do something I disapprove of, I remove your name from my ride list for a certain period of time. This of course is at my discretion as the ride leader.

Here is a list of the types of things that could land you in list jail;

• Showing up late (not a big issue as I won't wait)
• Showing up on time with a broken bike that makes you late
• Coming to a ride with a bike in known disrepair (slow leak for instance)
• Not showing up at all
• Inviting others to a closed ride
• Riding in the middle of the road
• Intentionally slowing the pace to chat it up
• Riding off the front and past intersections when unaware of the route
• Generally acting stupid or inconsiderate

I also have typical reactions for a number of these irritants, beyond removal from "the list". If I hear chatting behind me I assume the pace is too low, so if at all possible, I up the pace. If someone goes off the front without knowing the route and continues past an intersection without questioning directions of the ride leader, I take exception and will typically turn if at all possible forcing said individual to chase back on. This is also a good time to attack.

Below is a message that I sent out to the club about a potential road training ride that I'm thinking about organizing. If any of the 4 people that are reading this have any ride organization and leading experience, you will know what a chore something as simple as coordinating a bicycle ride can be. Too strong?

Anyone up for some training rides this spring? I'm thinking about getting a Tuesday night ride going from the end of the MinuteMan Bikeway in Bedford starting at 5:30PM. These would be solid 2 - 3 hour rides with no stops and solid race level pace. A couple of us did the first of these types of ride this past Tuesday and went out to Harvard and back through Stow.

I would see this as a difficult Cat3/4 level ride. I'm sure that there are strong Cat5's out there who can hang as well. Pace will be hard and breaks will be few. Attacks and sprints will prompt a regroup but falling off the back at tempo would not necessarily. This means left for dead would be the rule. I know that sounds scary and awful but the point is for everyone to get their workout in. Let's just call it tough love, but we have all been there.

As with all of my rides, start time would be prompt, as in we leave when we say we are leaving, period. I realize that things come up and there is traffic or whatever but frankly, that's your problem, not the group's, and they will not be made to suffer from it. Besides, a late start will give you excellent practice in bridging a gap and chasing back on. Also, I'm very mindful of traffic laws, especially riding two abreast in traffic. If you want to ride all over the road and be inconsiderate of others, or ride next to a buddy chatting, this would be a bad ride for you to attend, once. Chatting behind me when I'm at the front makes me think we're not going hard enough. I also don't want to get hit by your flying dead corpse and bike debris when you get clocked by a UPS truck while riding left of the yellow line on a blind corner.

With that disclaimer, anyone interested?

Let me know.

First local MTB ride of the season yesterday in the PR.

Just Helping

Looks like a pair of someones are in need of some attention this morning. Fortunately I've got them doing reviews of some changes that I'm working on.

"Wow, your job sucks."

First Tandem Ride of the Season

Despite a forecast that claimed partial sun, yesterday morning started out rainy, cold and overcast. Fortunately the wind was fairy calm and we were graciously granted an extra hour of daylight at the end of the day, albeit at the expense of an hour of sleep to start the day. What better way to celebrate than on the tandem.

In spite of the actual weather, Cathy and I rode over to PK's and met up with he and a motley crew of folks for a short but sweet tandem jaunt. They suffered for about an hour and half before heading back to PK's for some snacks.

We were in search of another hour of misery to bookend the hour block of pain we had on the way to the ride. This worked well and we finished out the day with just shy of 3.5 hours in the saddle and about 61 miles. Of course as we were almost home, the cloud cover broke and the sun poked it's head out. I can live with that though and did not feel the need to head back out into the new found sun for more. The early season Saturday-Sunday one-two put a mighty smack on my legs and I was left reeling. Good times for sure and an indicator that lots of pain is yet to be had in the upcoming weeks.

Is this thing working?

Friday Vacation at Jackson XC

This winter has been a truly great winter if you like to participate in winter activities that require snow. Although we were on early track to break records, it was not a record year, at least, not so far. The early winter was brutal with multiple storms weekly, multiple weeks in a row. This pushed the snow-pack to points that we had not seen in years. Even after the snow tapered last month, there was enough to keep the conditions relatively consistent. Up north they rebounded from a slow early season start to get a spectacular year. The conditions for XC skiing and snowmobiling have been superb.

Last weekend we took Friday off, made the break, and headed north to get in one more weekend of snow fun. We were not disappointed. Despite a cool start with -12F Friday morning, there was a promise of daily highs in the 20's so we packed up and headed to Jackson Touring Center for some skate skiing. By the time we arrived the temp was in the high teens and the sun was bright. The battle plan was to try something different and do the east side first. It had been years since we had skied that area and memory didn't hold it too highly.

Conditions were about as good as you could ask for.

What we didn't realize, but were told by the ticket agent, was that a great deal of development had been done on that side. The map showed numerous small loop trails and lots of up and down as well as a bunch of flat field runs. To get to the trails, which link together the Wentworth golf course and resort as well as a number of other Inn's, you cross the road, ski through a field and then start up.

The initial climb is a good one and a shock as well, given that you are not fully warmed up and in fact, barely started skiing. At the top you cross another road and then you are on the trail system. There are loops in the fields and a number of loop trails off the main trail, the Wave. These trails are side hill, up and down, roller-coaster rides and were a ton of fun. We hit those trails as well as making a number of loops on the trails in the various fields and golf greens, basically linking up almost everything on that side. Back down to the visitor center and we grabbed some lunch at the J-Town Deli, logging 15 miles and one and half hours moving.

That's enough given that I can barely move.

After lunch we were tired but opted for another crack at the Ellis River trail out and back. This meant nice gradual up on the way out and downhill on the way back. The plan was to go as far as we felt comfortable and turn back. I decided that I was going for the Rocky Branch parking lot off RT16, which is the end of the Ellis River Trail. Cathy opted for a little less. The final push to the lot was torture and the last few miles on the way back I was on fumes. Finished up for the day nearly crippled but with 30 miles in 3:03 moving time in the pain bank. My longest XC ski day ever.

It never ceases to amaze me what can be done with the right equipment in the hands of seasoned professionals. From trail design to grooming, to the facilities and staff, Jackson rocks. We changed up, visited with our friend Mark who was manning the ski shop at the Jackson Touring Center did some shopping as well. I'm a sucker for a sale, especially when it's on good quality ski gear that is really tough to find. From there it was back to J-Town for some coffee for the trip back through Pinkham Notch and home to Bethel. What a great day.

In Search of Dirt

This has been a long winter. A real winter, as any hearty old Yankee would delight in telling you. We are now into our 3rd complete month of having snow cover for the entire month here in New England. This doesn't happen all that often. We typically get a break at some point or in the case of last year, we have very little snow at all.

I remember back to December when we were waiting for the snow to come, and it seemed as though it would never get here. The week before Christmas we finally got a taste, a small taste though which still left it possible to ride bikes off-road. We took full advantage of this and got in some great rides. After Christmas we got a good solid dumping of snow, which allowed us to break out into the woods on the skinny skis for some new found adventure and fun. Just before New Years the weather changed again and we got nailed with a whole lot of warm and rain, which decimated the snow. This once again allowed us back on the trails, albeit with studded tires this time, for some good old fashioned rutted misery.



It wasn't long though a winter took hold for good. January was marked by weekly double shot snowstorms, perpetual shoveling and battling ice dam(n)s. Looking back, it is literally a blur of moving snow from one place to another, and possibly to yet another as area 2 was only an intermediate staging area for the snow to finally lay. In a word, crazy. February was much much lighter on the snow and we got glimpses of spring weather but it did little to make headway into the snow-pack. Worse yet, the snow was frequent enough to the snow at a solid level and never let the trails really pack in enough with foot traffic to make them rideable, at least not locally. This made for some excellent skiing but not a whole lot of riding. In fact, I am currently 800 miles below where I was at this point last season. That said, I have gotten 289 miles in cross-country skiing so far this year and it doesn't look like we are quite done yet.

This past Saturday, after receiving some more snow here in the latter part of the week, we were torn as to what to do. We could do a day trip north for some XC ski in fresh powder, which isn't actually all that much fun, stay local on cold wet roads for a road ride, or make a break for the Cape and see what we got. I'd seen recent intel from Hill Junkie, JB and the NEMBA forum as to conditions so was confident that we should be OK. With that, we printed some maps, packed up the single-speeds and headed for Nickerson State Park in Brewster/Orleans. I had never ridden at that area before so didn't know the trails at all.



It occurred to us as we were driving, and driving, and driving, that Orleans is a really long ways away. I'd forgotten as it had been years since I'd spent time in that part, or any part for that matter, of Cape Cod. This was the general area of the first mountain bike race I ever did, way back in 1992, the Surf 'n Dirt race. The race was just the other side of town but was on very similar trails to those at Nickerson, and ToT and Otis; primarily old moto trails.

We arrived, parked at the main entrance lot and quickly scouted out a bush. Once that was set, we suited and hit the trails to begin our quest. Luckily there had been a dusting of snow overnight and there were some tire tracks on many of the trails. We followed them and pieced together what we could, taking opportunities to explore side trails and basically just meander. This isn't fast and you never end up covering as much ground as you would like but you do get to see new things and it is a great way to learn an area. It also has the effect of making a relatively small area seem very vast. Of course, this is the Cape where thorns are plentiful. Less than an hour in and I got a flat, a great big thorn through the tire puncturing the tube. This left us with only one spare between us. Hopefully it would suffice else we would have to cut the exploration short.

About 2 hours into the ride we ran into another biker, who offered to lead us around a bit. This was a welcome change and although many of the trails that we hit were repeats of stuff we had done in reverse, we did find some new to us trail as well. All in all, a great ride and we were both whupped at the end. Something about the Cape, which is never flat, and a single-speed making for a taxing ride. The total was 3.5 hours and a little under 23 miles. No records here and we never made it to the stretch of trail along RT6 that was visible from the highway but good for an initial explore and great to be out on the bike on actual dirt. The trip was finished off by a visit to the Land Ho, an old sponsor of the Surf 'n Dirt race, for some food and a drink before the long trip home. A good day for sure.