Steve B.

kaos joe

With me, sizing is easy........in almost any conceivable scenario, I'm getting on a small.

I do notice the wide bars help with big unexpected hits. I have not clipped any trees yet at 675mm.

I'm watching the snow fall and just freaking dying to shoulder my pack & get up into the hills in Harriman for an overnight, but I can't tighten up a hip belt until this damned incision stops oozing blood and the lump gets gone. I'm seeing the doc tomorrow, maybe he'll sew me up again like an old pair of pants.

Steve B.

Well, good week to do nothing and heal. And they use staples now ?, like that red stapler in Office Space ?.

Feel better.

kaos joe

In my case I have 3 layers of self-dissolving sutures, 20 in the top layer. They apparently are doing just that and the sludge from the ginormous hematoma is oozing out. It's gross but probably a good thing. This whole experience could have gone more smoothly.

rumrunn6

very cool! good pic of the base too! I concur! ___ & yeah winter/snow riding can be a workout! lots of drag depending on conditions!

kaos joe

GreenBelt north of Bethpage.
Trail report; in a word, no. Either grind through this in lowest gear at 4mph, or mud. Sure was pretty, though.
Not wanting to make ruts I bailed onto the paved MUP for a few miles. Back to boots for a while.

kaos joe

Road ride!

6 of us, 33 miles, roads absolutely dry and not too messy with sand etc. Up through Oyster Bay, Brookville area. Lots more snow up there than South Shore. Gorgeous day.

Steve B.

3 of us at 9 from BP on Sat. Nice day, moderate pace as nobody has legs yet.

My computer tells me I did 20, my legs told me I did 40, which to believe.....

kaos joe

We rolled out at 9:05, too bad I didn't see ya.......my pals waited for me, I was a few minutes late as I did a last minute dressing change on this damned incision site. Good news is, it stopped bleeding Saturday. Only took a month. We did better than we thought we would. Felt good.

Steve B.

Finally, finally got out on the new Specialized (2019 Chisel Com X1). It's been ridden in my backyard, the street, off a few curbs, but the local conditions for mt. biking have so bad, so no chance to ride it on dirt.

Today at Bethpage for a lap on the frozen. Conditions decent, still some frozen ruts from numbnuts riding in cold mud, but today and tomorrow will be OK as things continue to dry out.

First time on a 29'er. Didn't feel as big as I expected, was a good ride. The larger wheel are like everybody says, they roll over roots, stumps and logs much easier than a 26" wheel. That lets you not worry as much as to what line you take thru stuff. Aluminum HT also accelerates really well, but I was actually surprised at well it climbed the short stuff we deal with. X1 shifting as well had gearing that works, I was using pretty much the entire range of the cassette, excepting the 2 small and 2 large gears. Handlebars are huge at 750mm, which I got used to and there were no tree's on the BP loop that seemed too tight. I may cut down to 700 eventually, wil ride a few more times. Reach to bars seems a bit tight, may end up with a slightly longer stem.

All good though, this was my test ride on tight and twisty ST and it handled really well. Nobby Nic tires were seemingly pretty good, but with less than perfect conditions due to ruts, hard to tell when the speed goes up. That's for another day.

So a fun but cold day, 23 deg. in the park and nobody out. And thanks to oldnslw2 and kaos I'm remembering to take a picture !.

Steve B.

Did another mt. bike ride today, 2 actually.

Wanting to learn a new trial system I headed out to Edgewood Preserve on Commack Rd. The CLIMB map shows a ton of stuff, so I printed that, printed my DEC forms and headed out. Almost right away found that Edgewood is a somewhat flat expanse of property that doesn't drain well, so much mud discovered on the primary trails. I headed into the Yellow and Blue stuff and promptly got a bit lost. Then hit more muck and got lost some more, so decided to bag it. Oddly, my GPS trace did almost follow the hand drawn CLIMB map, but not really, so I'm not sure what trails I was on.

Headed back west towards Bethpage, where the trails were soft but dry and 98% mud free. Got a good loop in.

As I was getting gear back into the car I noticed 2 riders on what at first glance might have been full blown motorized dirt bikes, but then I noticed the pedals, so Class-1 or Class-2 e-bikes. Big batteries and motors. They had stopped at the Port-A-Sans in the picnic area lot. One rider had a mess of mud up his back jacket and all I could think was the mess of the trail as they motored up some hills. They took off down the red trail before I even thought to tell them "Hey Guys, these things are 1) Illegal in NY State to ride on a road, 2) Illegal in NY State Parks and 3) Illegal on trails in NY State Parks". Other than that good to go. Had they ridden the paved bike path I wouldn't be annoyed, but they took off down the Red blazed hiking and mt. bike trail (I could see them in the woods) at a clip that wasn't pedal power.

Sigh. And so the war begins.

GlennR

FYI......

Steve B.

GlennR

10 years ago my son and friend rode there and were watching from the trees. A state trooper came and told them to leave. They argued that they were in a state park. The trooper said "don't make me tell you again". They decided it was a argument they would not win.

I'm sure they'll also close Round Swamp Road, I just hope it's only during play and not for the entire time.

Steve B.

kaos joe

Had a couple of very nice rides, marred by a seeming one-in-a-million bummer yesterday when a group of us went out to Manorville Hills for what's going to be one of our last MTB outings of this winter season. One of the guys has a brand new carbon Specialized Fuse. At the end of the ride, literally a second after remarking what a great ride it was, he looked down to find a thumb sized chunk of tree branch impaling his down tube like some sort of projectile. It made a hole the size of a quarter.

OldNSlow, who did the repair on your Emonda? Don't know yet whether Specialized will help him out.

On a happy note, we did our first tandem ride in quite a while this afternoon. Even better it was her idea and she got me out of bed (worked last night). Only 23 miles but we did OK.

Steve B.

Please don't tell me this is Jeff C's bike ?. It's a month and change old ?. He just got over a hard fall on that bike if I recall.

kaos joe

Unfortunately, you guessed correctly. He was riding really strongly, too, after putting a crack into one of his spinal vertebrae a few weeks back. He went straight to Bike Junkie with the bike and the fatal piece of wood. Doug was going to lean on Specialized for a replacement frame.

kaos joe

I got high today, or at least as high as is possible on this here island (401 entire feet).



"sweet brooks....healthy air and soil".....I'm not so sure......




I may have posted this before, the line following the Biblical verse amuses me.

GlennR

Just finished a 35 mile ride. 16mph head wind made the ride home... looooong.

Steve B.

GlennR

Love your signature line.

GlennR

Another windy day, but couldn't resist being out in just bibs and a jersey.

kaos joe

Cross-training.......NOT!

I've concluded that at least for me, hiking does NOTHING for my cycling legs, and visa-versa. I spent yesterday and today humping a pack over lots o' rocks, and tonight, I'm a bit sore. 2 beautiful days solo, saw 5 other humans, all in the last 30 minutes. Windy night.
Back to bikes for a while now.


Rough terrain




Granite counter top



Home away from home


Neighbors were quiet

kaos joe

I see you have an eye for the classic stuff! I bought that at about age 12 with paper route money. Not the most powerful of stoves but reliable as it gets. However, it was a bit below freezing yesterday morning and I found that the mini-pump O-ring no longer seals when it's that cold. Stove still worked fine, just took a bit to reach full output.

The mess kit is courtesy of the former Czechoslovak Peoples Army.

I'm going to head out (on bike, in shorts!) to get a replacement O-ring.