RobbieTunes

Wilson NC, New Year's Day, 10 am.
I don't know them, just showed up.
Nice folks. Beer and cider afterwards.
Nice way to start 2010.

cudak888 

Can't ride today, or I'm liable to be shot by one of the locals.

-Kurt

High Fist Shin

Robbie, which one are you?

-Shin

WNG

Yikes!! ???

Amani576

Sorry I couldn't make it today Robbie. Had to work.
-Gene-

RobbieTunes

Little boy blue.

High Fist Shin

Cool. Glad you had a chance to get out. It's miserable here with a lot of ice and slippery roads. No rides for me for a while.

-Shin

Business810

Went out for NYE dinner to our favorite vegetarian/vegan restaurant last night with my girlfriend - by bicycle. A hair over 5 miles each way and an impressive feat for her considering it was in the low 30's with mist/light snow.

My grand scheme to get her riding more is already working!

jan nikolajsen 

New Years Day Ride: 55 miles/ 4500' gain. More bicyclist than cars today on this particular stretch of pavement. Was chasing a fast rider up the first 2200' and as such got a really good time (but never caught him).

cudak888 

New Years in Miami sometimes involves a few stray bullets around town - and not necessarily the cager + SUV type either.

-Kurt

ohjonnybegoode

Took advantage of a rather mild (compared to what it has been) day and grabbed the Performance M304 I picked up a couple of weeks ago for a little ride. I wanted to do some mild trail riding, (which I've never done before) and headed to a local national wildlife preserve near my house.

On the way, I stopped at the Morton Homestead, which is the home of one of the orginial signers of the Declaration of Independence, John Morton. What's unique about this site is that it's about a 1/4 mile away from I-95...and sits just off a busy road (Rt.420). Judging from the condition of the signage and information on the site...not many people visit here anymore. Anyway, here's the Homestead of Morton Homestead:



I then headed to the John Heinz National Wildlife Preserve, which is right down the street from Morton Homestead. Again, what's unique about this location is that it's literally feet away from I95 and the Philadelphia Airport. But, within it's borders is a thriving ecosystem home to many different types of fish and birds. This is the first time I visited and rode the trails.

Here's a marshy type area where I stopped for a drink...the Darby Creek is in the background, which makes up the waterway through the Preserve



Another pic of the Darby Creek further down the trail



As I was saying, I95 is mere feet from the Preserve in spots, here's an example...I95 South is in the background.



Here's an observatory after I hit a particularly good spot of mud...I felt like a kid again ripping throught it...



A couple of shots of the trail...the Darby Creek is just out of the picture on one side, I95 is just out of the picture on the other.




All in all, it was a great way to spend a couple of hours...it has been far too long since I was on a bike for any length of time...my legs are hurting a little, but it's a good kind of hurt...

RobbieTunes

Or her.

jan nikolajsen 

Yesterday, actually. Back up in the mountains for the 'little GMR loop', 40 miles - 3000'.

Met Ray Kopecky who has logged an impressive 57000 miles on these mountain roads in the past 30 years.

Here's Ray going a modest 50 mph:



And a picture he took of me when we parted:

funrover 

Great report, The Morton house was prestty cool! Glad to see another MTB being used!

jan nikolajsen 

Last day today of my stay with the in-laws in Los Angeles. Did the 'grand finale' ride, as I'm now heading back to snow and frosty temps.

I started in the suburbs of Azusa and slowly worked my way up Highway 39. The goal was Angeles Crest, about 30 miles distant and 6000' higher. With the various ups and downs the total gain is more like 7000'. For me this is rather the mouthful, especially since I've done back to back mountain rides for several days in a row by now.

Most of this road has been closed for decades with various debris strewn across the pavement on the rugged upper reaches. Potholes are numerous, and dropping carelessly into one on the descent gave me a flat.

My ambitious idea was to do the ascent as swift as possible without having to take any breaks. This meant setting a moderate pace from the get go, one that I knew I could maintain, and at all cost avoiding the thrills of cranking out the switch backs as fast as I could. The scenery was amazing and without going 100% all the time I actually enjoyed looking around, a luxury I normally don't allow myself..

As it turned out I had to un-clip once to shuffle my bike under a locked gate, but otherwise just pedaled away without stopping. The climb ended up taking 3hrs 10min, and I felt quite good at the top. Light wind, high 70's at the base, 50's at the crest. It was a pretty lonely ride. No cars, no bikes, no houses. Without cell reception and the road shut down to vehicles I had to be careful not getting in trouble, either mechanically or with the the resident mountain lions.

High Fist Shin

Jan,

Wish I could have been there. Looks like an amazing ride up that mountain. Great pictures too.

-Shin

Kobe 

Jan,

Your pictures are always amazing !

Is Ray Kopecky your long lost brother? I had to look 3 times to make sure I was not looking at the same guy.

JunkYardBike

Good thing you weren't riding the Gazelle! Great pics and ride report.

BrentDev

Nice group ride from Yokosuka to Enoshima this am. Very clear day here today in Japan....great views of Mt Fuji.

Hopefully someone will email me the pic from the turnaround with Fuji in the background.

jan nikolajsen 

First sunny day in weeks here in the North Cascades. I squeezed in 30 miles on the 1978 Champion Mondial during the small window of time, from about noon until 2pm, when the sun is strong enough to melt the black ice on the roads. Hit one small patch of ice, but it was gone before I went down. Scary!! Temps around 30 degrees, light wind.



Good I braved the frigid air on yesterday's ride (above pic), because when I hauled the Merckx out of the shop this morning to meet the buddies at the coffee shop it looked like this:

junkfoodjunkie

It was 60 degrees here today, and I remembered to take my camera with me. 35 mile loop from my home to downtown Tulsa, with a stop at the river for a few pics. 10 mph winds and lots of sun light made for a beautiful ride. I guess everyone else was enjoying there day off also, so traffic was kind of heavy.





Jake

JunkYardBike

So where are the after pics of the Merckx?

A few weeks ago I went riding with a buddy and his friend, who has some cyclocross experience. We planned to ride several miles of hilly but fairly well groomed trail - with about 4 inches of snow on it. I brought my beater MTB with studded tires, my friend brought his fixed gear with knobby cyclocross tires, and his friend brought a road bike with 23mm slicks. She took off and left us in the powder. I was the slowest, and even with studded tires, I was fishtailing all over the place. There were maybe 2 steep climbs where I was able to keep chugging up while they had to walk, but then they blasted me again down the hill. To say the least, I was impressed with her riding. I guess it's all about momentum and balance, neither of which I have much of.

JunkYardBike

Lucky dog. Not because of the weather, because of the flat riding!

retrofit

Hey Jake,

The Giordana looks great with the Fulcrum wheels! How do they ride?

Stan

DiegoFrogs

EDIT: My apologies for the poor quality iPhone photos.

Here are several pictures of my ride today on the MLK day holiday. The photographs are all from Faytteville, Arkansas, and are mostly on the city's fairly extensive trail system. Some include the bicycle, a 1980 Schwinn Traveler fixed gear conversion with Plante Bike fenders, which I love. The ride was just under 15 miles.

On a quarter cloverleaf after the I-540 underpass, which was a tunnel that was about 1/4 mile long, and very wet.
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This is the endpoint turnaround, where they appear to be working on extending the trail.
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Some of the interesting parts of the trail. This section parallels train tracks, where most are on streams.
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The campus of the University of Arkansas, which is near, but not on, the trail system. A year ago this week most of the trees here were destroyed by an ice storm. In some sort of messed up homage, my power was cut for four hours today, whereas it was down for four days last year.
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