fun ride in the watershed (frederick MD)

Jeff and a couple of his friends made a trip up from DC to ride some more challenging terrain in Frederick... they got the double whammy, more technical and a ton of leaves to make the terrain even more demanding.

it was a fun ride about 3-4 hours long... i had two flats... Colby was kind enough to give me a spare tube... then we all ate at the mountain view diner... great place... large selection, big helpings and great price... The best after ride restaurant in the area (in my opinion)

took a few pics... modeling are self's with a beautiful autumn background.

bullfrog and toad knogs

sorry about the horrible camera job

imba weekend

the imba trail crew came to Frederick this weekend... there was a class on trail maintenance, the actual doing of trail maintenance and a group ride... i skipped out on the trail maintenance because i was still sore from shoving and moving rocks helping my housemate Hillery with her backyard pond business... during which i saw a black widow...
i did go to the group ride... it was a big group... probably 30+.


Joe was the ride leader...

motercycle boot covers

mushrooms

went back and picked mushrooms i found while riding ... most of them were overripe.

processed...

puffball mushrooms

found a field of puffball mushrooms when i was out riding today... at least a hundred of them... all about the size of softballs some bigger some smaller...my housemate Hillery introduced me to these... she saw some along the side of the road a few weeks ago... she brought them home and we grilled and ate them.

i was only able to carry one home... had to carry it in my hand ... it was too big to fit in my jersey pockets.

i think they go bad pretty fast... and dont think they store well... but for the next few weeks anyway i know where i can get all the mushrooms i can eat.

bear creek race 2010 sept 19th

I think about 20 guys showed up for my category (elite)… 65 -75 degrees… ski mountain course so there was a good amount of climbing and descending… there was a few technical section thrown in but not horrible… It all seemed ridable except one tricky switchback with a lot of big rocks … Im sure someone can ride it but not me.

the fist lap decent I found that my front breaks weren’t working… the pivot pin came out… i tried riding with no front breaks for a while… but I ran in to serious issues when trying to ride down the steep switch backs … I would find my self going into corners with too much speed and rear wheel locked up making me unable to steer effectively… I decided to stop and fix it… fixed it using the pin from my chain breaker tool and some electrical tape to hold it in… it worked and I was able to finish… I came in 11th

this was the series finally of the mid Atlantic supper series … I was trying to do well in this series overall but after having a bad string of flats I lost any chance of a respectable ranking… since ive switched to tubeless its been a lot better… I went from getting a flat every week to getting a flat every month (on average)… so hopefully next season will be different with less flats and less excuses.

Might be the end of the season for me… I don’t have any races on my radar but something might come up... i'm sure i will still be doing a lot of riding either way