To the Parade and Back

Sunday was a true day of rest after the roofing project.  I lost 8 pounds in the last couple days, certainly all from sweat.  Thankfully today is Memorial Day and a day off work.

So... there's a little race called the Mohican 100 coming up.  Am I going to do it for the fist time this year?  I think so but I have not registered yet,  Thursday is my deadline.

With the roofing project behind me, I headed out

for a little road ride.

The event of the day is the Memorial Day parade in Shreve.  We have taken Daniel to this parade the past several years and this year would be Ellen's first.  I decided to ride down to Shreve and meet the family for the parade.

Onward... to the Mohican 100?

With my chosen route it took me a little over and hour to get to Shreve.  I found everyone and took up a nice shaded spot along Main Street.  It was the start to another hot and humid day but the crowd was still out for the parade.

Front row seats.

After the parade I took another one hour route to get back home.  It felt good to be pedaling after all the bending over and roof walking.

Roof Complete

Saturday morning brought some more helping hands, Dave and Zeb joined in on the project.  While the rest of the guys got to it on the roof, I worked from below.  As project KT and I wanted to install a new bathroom fan as the old one was weak.  I cut a hole in the roof to access the attic space and made what seemed like 15 trips between the roof and bathroom to install the new fan.

Bathroom exhaust upgrade in progress.

Meanwhile, the shingles were being laid.

By lunch time we had worked our way most of the way up the back of the house.  The only valley on the roof was flashed and complete, we were past the roof penetrations, and it was hot, really hot.  The shingles were soft and easily damaged if walked on too roughly.  They were sticking immediately upon being laid.  After lunch we finished up the last several rows of shingles and got off the roof before inflicting any more damage.

Once again, having so many helping hands was a blessing.  We were nearly done and decided to finish up installing cap shingles and ridge vent later in the day.  About 5pm we headed back up for the final touches.  Wow, it was a lot of work but we got it all done in two days and an evening, and the new roof looks great!

Capping the hips.

Nailing caps onto the ridge vent.  Ten minutes after

this picture the roofing project was done!

Laying the New Roof

Jim, Ryan, Dad, and I began work right away Friday morning.  We finished installing the underlayment and cleaned up the flashing around the chimney.  Within ten minutes of being done and ready for the shingles, the delivery truck showed up.  Good timing.

Sure beats carrying them to the roof!

 38 square of shingles for our "little" roof.

 Next up was replacing the roof boots, including the one on the incoming power mast, and laying down the starter shingles.  With measurements made and chalk lines snapped, we began laying shingles.

 Nice to have a licensed electrician on the job site.

Keeping them straight.

 

Covering it up.

It was hot work.  The temperatures were close to 90 and it was challenging to stay hydrated.  Every time I thought I was thirsty I'd chug a bottled water.  We went through a lot of bottled water.

By the end of the day we had covered the north and south hips as well as the entire front side of the house.  The job was over 50% done by my estimation.  Falling asleep tonight will not be hard.

Raise the Roof

Our roofing project began tonight with the arduous work of stripping off the existing shingles and felt paper.  The dumpster was delivered yesterday to the driveway.  After work my crew arrived to get down to business.

Filling it up.

Ever seen a wheel barrow used on a roof?

The goal was to have the whole roof stripped before the sun went down.  Thanks to the nine of us working away, we got 'er done.  For peace of mind I really wanted to have underlayment on the whole roof before calling it day.  We had the underlayment down on all sides but the front when we ran out of light.  It was about 9:45 when we called it a day.  Many thanks to the all the helping hands!  It would not have been possible to get as far as we did without them.

Nice, sunny skies to work beneath.

 Daniel came up to check out the work.

The desired outcome, a full dumpster.

Mohican: my first double

While I have not registered for the Mohican 100 it's still in my mind to tackle it this year.  Last night some motivation kicked in and I planned a long mountain bike ride for this morning.  The thought was I better prove to myself I can ride a mountain bike for a longer distance without breaking.

At 6:05 this morning my alarm sounded and I set my plan into action.  Start the coffee maker, put on clothes I set out last night, grab food from fridge, pour coffee, and out the door at 6:20.  My bike and gear were already in the car.

Morning light in the parking lot at Mohican.

The plan was a loop at Mohican followed by... more.  How much more?  That was the question.  I wanted to ride two loops but was not sure if that was doable, having never ridden more than a single loop.  After eating two eggs, a banana, and finishing my coffee I hit the trail at 7:02.

I love riding in the woods in the morning.  The low angle light and damp forest have a great effect.  It was 45 degrees when I left the car with arm warmers installed.  I eased into the ride thinking this was the first of two opening climbs today.

At the first road crossing I stopped for an Espresso Love Gu.  I continued to drink regularly as I rode onward.  At the covered bridge I stopped for some almond and cranberry trail mix I had packed along and it was then time to climb.  I rode steady up Mount Doom and soon reached trailhead 2 where it was time to lose the arm warmers.   In about 2:50 I finished the first loop feeling a bit fresher than usual.  Conserving where needed, attention to food and drink, and back stretching seemed to work well.

Throughout the ride I snapped quick pics for time

markers, none of them particularly interesting.

At this point I knew I was headed out for some more.  Back to the car for a Cliff bar and refill of my hydration pack.  And here was a mistake, I only had water for the refill and not enough to fill my hydration pack.  I drank 70oz of diluted Gatoraide on the first lap.  I'm guessing I only had 40oz on my back as I started the second lap.

A met a couple other guys who were out riding laps in prep for the 100 miler.  Chris and I started our second laps about the same time.  While I was hoping to ride at least through Mount Doom, Christ was planning to ride "3 or 4" laps today.  That's tough.

The second lap was off to a good start.  I stopped again at the first road crossing for another Gu and seemed to be slowing in pace.  Chris caught up to me shortly after this and gave me some good hollerin' to keep working.  It helped as I picked up the speed until the covered bridge where I realized I was about out of water.  Uh-oh.

I hung back on the climb wondering how this would play out.  The temperature had risen, a good climb was coming, and I had no water.  I decided to ride very conservatively up the climb and either bail out at the next road crossing or hope to find someone else with water to spare.

At the first road crossing I was doing okay, though the temperature was noticeably warmer.  I continued on and reached the second trailhead.  Fortunately I found water and decided at this point to continue on, at least to the road crossing at mile 19.  I ate a hanful of dried apricots and clipped in.

By mile 19 I was feeling rough.  My legs were starting to cramp, probably from the prior dry stretch.  I made the choice to ride it out and complete the lap even if pedaling in low gear, and this I did frequently.

 My legs were far from fresh the last five miles,

but thankfully not this far gone.

Back to car I was a little ragged but not broken.  The car indicated 86 degrees outside, that's 41 degrees warmer than it was 6 hours and 15 minutes ago when I first left the car.  Full blast A/C, a chocolate shake, and foot long sub cooled me off and put me on a good path to recovery.  I came home and ran through the sprinkler with Daniel.  Well, he did the running and I just stood in front of it.

I was pretty satisfied with the effort.  Of course I wish I would have planned better with fluids on the second lap.  It was a good learning experience and memorable first 50 mile mountain bike ride.  I'm curious to see how the next couple weeks go.

C-dale Demo

While eating breakfast this morning I received an email reminding today is the Cannondale demo day at Mohican.  A demo ride sounded fun but a ride was not in the plans for the day... until two kiddos nap crashed in the afternoon and I headed south to Mohican.

Cannondale demo day, Mohican MTB parking lot.

Having never ridden a bike sporting a Lefty fork I was excited to see what it was all about.  The Cannondale guy eyed me up and pulled a carbon Flash 29er from the line of bikes for me to demo ride.  After a quick setup to fit the bike to me I headed out to ride the short loop.

Test ride #1: Flash carbon 29er 2.  $5000 of fun.

Link to Cannondale's web site.

I immediately noticed the bike was light and stiff.  Pedal strokes resulted in propulsion, no wasted flex detectable anywhere.  Most interesting to me was the feel of the Lefty fork.  Somehow it had attributes of both my Paragon's Fox fork and my Karate Monkey's rigid fork.  Like the rigid fork on the KM, it felt really efficient with no wasted compliance, and like the Fox fork it gave plenty of cushion as needed.

Fairly obvious why they called it a Lefty.

Coming down the last mile of the course I was having a lot of fun on this bike.  In addition to being stiff the carbon frame was soaking up the trail.  It was a softer feeling hard tail than I'm used to.  I arrived bike at the parking lot with a big smile.  I'd say that was the fastest mountain bike I've ever ridden.

Now the Cannondale guy wanted me to do a loop on the full suspension Scalpel 29er.  I mentioned not being too interested in rear suspension for the riding we do around here but was more than willing to take another expensive bike for a ride.

Test ride #2: Scalpel Carbon 29er 1.  $7600 of fun.

Link to Cannondale's web site.

Once again I tore out of the parking lot for a run of the short loop.  This time I kept my rear on the saddle as I bounced through the potholes on the way out the drive.  Yep, there's some squish back there.  At some point, after the opening climb was done, I realized I was riding it like a hard tail and focused on staying seated more often.  No doubt the extra suspension would have you feeling less fatigued after a long ride.

Full suspension, full of fun.

Back to the climbing, I tried to pay attention to how the Scalpel climbed.  It was also very efficient but I did feel some pedal bob from rear end a couple times.  It's just a different game on a full suspension bike.

Two short loops and $12.6k worth of demo bike later I headed home.  It was a good time riding bikes I cannot afford.

Disco Forest parking

This afternoon Ryan and I went down to Mohican for a ride.  To mix it up a little we parked at the Discovery Forest parking lot and started the ride from there.  There was no question what to wear, it was shorts and short sleeves weather.

 Food stop.

We caught up to a couple riders on the way down to the Covered bridge and passed a couple guys on break at the top of Mount Doom.  At trailhead 2 we stopped for some food.

Thankfully Ryan's head cold didn't

slow him down too much. 

To save some time we took the short loop connector and rode back to the Discovery Forest.  A young couple pulled in asking where to ride.  I was not too sure of their experience / skill level, so I directed them to the second trailhead and suggested they ride to the first road crossing and loop back on the road.  Hopefully they found their way and had a good ride.  It was a good day to be out.

Heading for the short loop connector.

Bike Boy

While I have been out for rides in the past couple weeks the bigger news is Daniel and his pedal bike.  He has made great progress in a short time.  The Strider bike seems to have set the stage well for independently riding his pedal bike, training wheels never  installed.

 Cruising up and down the street.

Earlier this week KT and friends went to Fredericksburg for a walk on the trail.  Well, the babies and ladies walked on the trial while Daniel rode his bike.  I was not too sure if this was a good idea because he has only been pedaling several times over the past couple weeks.   No issues for Daniel, he rode 1.1 miles before they turned around and he rode 1.1 miles back.  2.2 miles for his real bike ride at 3 years of age!  Wow, I'm impressed.

Dropping mommy and Ellen.

Today had a several laps up and down the street.  Daniel was literally riding circles around me in the cul-de-sac as I took some pictures.  All was good until we tried to have him use the brakes.  KT told him to "ride towards the mailbox then put on your brakes."  Well, he rode straight at the mailbox and crashed into without any braking.  Fortunately all was okay after some tears, enough bike riding for today.

Round and round is fun.

gray on grey

It feels like winter again.  Temperature in the mid 40's and 15 to 25mph wind will do that I guess.  The neighbor helped removed some unwanted plants easier with the aid of his mini-excavator.  I felt cold standing in the wind as the machine did the work.

The highlight of Daniel's year so far.

I decided to defy the lethargic mood of the day's weather and headed down to Mohican for a short ride.  The skies were no less gray and overcast down there.  I took the road up to the second trail head and rode the singletrack back.  It made for a nice ride and I had not ridden the Karate Monkey on this section of trail yet.  It made the twisty sections fun.

Gray... or grey?

North and Back

With wind coming from the NNW I aimed myself at the Overton Valley.  I made the right decision turning back to the house before reaching the end of the road, arm and knee warmers were needed.  The skies were clear but it was 59 and a bit windy when I left.

I had to stop and take this picture for Daniel.

"A grader!" he said when I showed it to him.

Several times I made the decision to ride further north before choosing a couple lefts and turning south.  I road 539 for a long time with the wind at my back and the smooth pavement carrying me along.  Second largest cog, down in the drops, I felt like I was flying.

A mile around the corner from home.

Just before sunset I was back home and hungry.   A fine after work ride.

Dodged the weather at the Knob

It seems everyone else head back to work after the Easter weekend, but I seized the opportunity to extend the weekend another day.  This morning we went for a family hike at Wooster Memorial beneath sunny skies.  The Trillium were on display.

After lunch I decided to head to the Knob.  Driving north the clouds on the horizon had me wondering if I should call KT and ask for a lookup on the weather forecast and radar status.  I declined to do so and pulled into the parking lot, the only car there on a Monday afternoon.

Two days ago I got in a lap and found the rearranged beginning a bit of a surprise.  Ryan had told me about it, but it took me a little bit of head turning to understand what had been done.  I think I liked it better before but I'm sure the old route will be forgotten before long.

The overpass is now in play.

A couple days ago I felt really good and thought I was handling the bike well.  It seems I had a slower start today but I got the feel back.  I'm still liking the new tire on the rear, though I did had one chain drop with the new Jump Stop today.

They don't call it Junk Hill for nothin'.

I came out of the woods into the Furnace and was greeted by some threatening skies.  Back to the car?  No, I'll ride until it rains.  I finished out the lap dry.  Try for another?  Oh yeah.  The second time around I was feeling good and the view up the Furnace was starkly calmer.  Nice day for a ride.

Lap 1... not looking good.

 Lap 2... no worries.

On the way home I called KT.  "How wet are you?" was her first question.  Apparently there was a torrential downpour or two at home.  She had looked at the radar map and was certain I was drenched.  Thankfully not!  At least not this time.

Daniel rolls his own!

Mr. Daniel is now self-propelled!  After great success on his Strider balance bike we have debated on whether or not to put training wheels on his little pedal bike.  I really didn't want to.  He could coast along with his feet up, balancing on the Strider.  Pedaling was all that was missing.

Today after work I took him out into the cul-de-sac with his pedal bike.  It seemed I was constantly holding him up as we attempted to ride in a loop.  After ten minutes I was tired of being hunched over, keeping him upright.  We went in the house for dinner.

After dinner Daniel said he wanted to ride some more.  Reluctantly I agreed to take him out into the street again.  After a couple minutes of supporting him I decided to give him a chance on his own... and he took off!

Katie came out with the camera for a couple short clips.  Of course after the camera was gone he was doing even better, riding circles and figure 8's "all by myself"!

 A still from the vid.  He's doing it!

We were super impressed.  Three and half and riding on his own.  Daniel has already asked about going on a bike ride with us.  It won't be long!

Thumbs up!

Monkey Share

Ryan and I went down to Mohican for a short ride.  We had a deadline to be back home, so we rode out until half our time was used up and then turned around.  I took the Karate Monkey for some singlespeed fun.

I still cannot say for sure... is it the tires, the geometry, or something else... I feel more confident on the Monkey.  I was having fun keeping speed and momentum while trusting the bike in corners.  At the turn around point we swapped bikes.

 He'll be coming around the corner on a Monkey.

Ryan said we could swap back in a couple miles, thinking I would be uncomfortable on his smaller frame bike.  Somehow I managed to become one with the bike two sizes smaller than my own and enjoyed the full ride back.  Ryan seemed to be enjoying the Karate Monkey calling it "agile".  Good times.

Heading back to the parking lot.

Mohican During the Week

To celebrate Ryan's spring break I took the afternoon off work and we headed to Mohican for a lap.  The weather was very agreeable, around 50 and sunny.  I expected good trail conditions based on recent weather.

We were greeted by a new kiosk sign with map

in the main MTB parking lot.  It looks nice.

Let's just say my Paragon has been neglected of late, mostly due to the Karate Monkey getting all the attention.  I dropped my chain twice in the first several miles before using a chunk of wood to smack my inner chain guide into proper position.  Ryan said, "Wow, I'm suprised to see you beating on your bike."  At least it worked, no more chain drops.

Maybe a couple miles later I realized I'd ridden the first three or four miles with my fork locked out.  Nice.  All I can say is my previous Mohican ride was on the rigid Monkey and, by comparison, my locked out fork felt plusher as it does have some compliance when locked.

Headin' up.

We enjoyed pretty much perfect trail conditions with only the occasional grease spot.  Ryan put his new front tire to good use and was ripping up the trail.  All was good until we reached the covered bridge and expected to do some climbing.  "Trail Closed."  The sign said something about forest clearing for a gas pipeline installation.  So we resigned ourselves to the road which was also a good climb, but less entertaining.

Thankful it's just temporary.

We stopped for some food at the second trailhead.  I had made some rice cakes with egg and bacon in them, so we gave them a try.  Pretty good, I'd make them again.

Victim, i mean recipient, of my cooking.

The next couple miles were okay but somewhere around mile 22 I stood to pedal up a rise and was shut down with cramps in both my quads.  Perfect, first the bike then me.  I was reduced to spinning cadence for the remainder of the trail, but still enjoyed the ride.

The last incident of the day was a mud splash Ryan took to the eye in the last quarter mile of trail.  One removed and subsequently lost contact later, we were on our way back home satisfied with our spring break ride.  It didn't feel like Tuesday on the drive home... I wonder if tomorrow will feel like Monday at work?  Whoo-hoo, short week!

Maiden Monkey Voyage

It was long overdue, but I finally had the Karate Monkey out on a proper ride.  And... this is one zippy chimp!

It loves to corner, fast.

By the time I reached the "mile 1" marker at Mohican I had already made up my mind; this is going to be a very fun bike.  The next 15 miles confirmed my thoughts.  The Karate Monkey is a cornering machine, I was surprised at how easily it was to make the bike turn.  On several corners I entered on my usual line only to fall into the corner much sooner.  I'd say the short wheelbase makes a big difference.  The Maxxis Ardent tires played into the cornering confidence of the bike as they hooked up very well.

The wood peckers have been doing trail work.

Next thought is the single speed setup; I like it.  I'm going to thank my gym work the past several months as I didn't feel too burdened with just one gear on the uphills.  I look forward to building more leg and core strength on the Monkey.  What I've been told is true, there may be more grunting and grinding on uphills but there's also plenty of time to carry momentum and roll without pedaling.  It will be fun to play this game more.

Back to the car just before rain.

Last, but not least, is the rigid front end.  I was sort of surprised for the first handful of miles at not feeling too beat up.  Choice of a smooth line was rewarded, as was weight shifting and soaking up bumps, roots, etc.  I soon learned the downhills would deliver a beat down.  With no compliance up front and faster speed, bumpy downhill sections were rough but tolerable.  I need to play some more with tire pressure and probably get serious about going tubeless on this bike.

It was a fun first ride on the Karate Monkey at Mohican.  There's a lot more to come to get to know this bike.

Out of the rain, in the car, having a post ride snack.