Archive for the 'Dirt' Category

Weather Changing

Published
by
DT
on April 13, 2007
in Beer, Bikes, Dirt and Life
. 2 Comments

We’ve had a turn in the weather here. Cold 40’s, windy, and just enough rain to keep us (well the “us” that have some respect) off the trails. I was able to get a nice ride in with big Gary the night before the storms rolled in. Good ride, conditions were super nice and the trail was running pretty fast. I even managed to goat Gary into taking the loop portion off the W&OD even when he thought he was done, ha. I also managed to clear a log that has plagued me for some time now. It’s not that the log is very big, but it sits up kind of high off the ground. Colt’s Neck is a pretty popular trail, so it’s not uncommon to end up riding with people you don’t know. Well not riding with, but more that whole back and forth thing. Some guys left the parking lot before us, but we ended up passing them, then them passing us, etc. Anyway, kind of near the end they were back on our tail and probably going to pass again. This time I just sucked it up, pulled hard and gave it what I could and cleared the log. I looked back to see everyone come to halt and climb over the log, ha. A little competition can be healthy for the skills I guess. Felt good to know I still got some skills left…even if in my own head, ha. But lately it’s been no biking and even no brewing.

In fact, I haven’t brewed since before we left for the UK! The IPA and the Strawberry Belgian Wit are in their kegs though and in the fridge. Don’t have enough spots on the CO2 manifold or enough picnic taps to dispense all the beer I have right now. Currently sitting at 6 kegs, but probably close to kicking 3 of those. I haven’t tasted the Strawberry yet, but the IPA is pretty kick ass. I actually can’t get it to drop clear, something I can usually do by sticking it in the fridge for a bit of time. But this beer used enough hops that I think it’s going to remain cloudy. It’s just your run of the mill 6.5% IPA, with a little of the kitchen sink method of choosing some steeping grains. I call it Hoptimus Prime, except it’s more evil than the Decepticons. With the full 7.5 ounces of hoppy goodness in it, I should have called it Energon. The bitterness is only mildly covered up by the punch in the face from the flavor and aroma. This is the first IPA of the year and if this is any indication…it’s going to be a good year for IPAs!

Oh yea, it looks like Fat Boy HQ is moving to New England…

DT

Friday Was A Good Day

Published
by
DT
on April 2, 2007
in Bikes, Dirt and Life
. 2 Comments

So Friday came and went. I rode my bike to work on what would be my last day on my current project. Luckily I was able to work in McLean instead of MD. After work a quick dash out to Colt’s Neck to ride a loop with the Pedalshop boys. They put it down in a fast loop and I hung on to the back of the group, making it back to the parking lot as darkness reigned. A couple of beers and it was back home. The trails were super dry, nice and fast. Managed to clear the concrete water crossing without slipping on the algae, which is always good.

Saturday morning, 7:00 AM, came all too quick. Up early, Kristin and I made the trek into DC to join our friends for the 1st annual 5k Walk for Epilepsy. We donned our special t-shirts they had made up - “Moss Mania: Epilepsy Sucks…We Rock!”, and then we walked. A good time was had by all. After the walk, we wandered over to the Belga Cafe. Not only do they have Rodenbach, they have it on tap! Belgian cuisine and true Belgian beer…very nice!

Sunday was another early start. I helped the new Colt’s Neck liaison (Chris) conduct the first trail work day at the park this year. We had 7 people show up to help with the work. Coffee, donuts, and bagels were consumed. Swag was given away. An amazing amount of work was completed and I think the trail is in much better shape. It’s supposed to be 78 degrees today, so a visit out to the park might be in order, ha.

After all that, I’m back at work, only today I’m on overhead. I’ve got a meeting with some folks on another project today. These particular folks are from the other office outside Boston, MA, where the project is located. More news as it develops…

DT

Camp Hilbert #1 Race Report

Published
by
DT
on March 13, 2007
in Bikes, Dirt and Races
. 3 Comments

First race of the season is in the books. If this was the Single Speed Worlds I’d have a nice DFL tattoo or brand, ha. Quick writeup: I raced in the Single Speed class, which had 12 entries. There were three DNF’s, so I ended up coming in 9th. I may not be the fastest (not by a long shot), but I usually finish, ha.

Longer writeup: I found myself waking up at what would normally be 8:20 AM, which would be plenty of time to pack up the bike stuff and make the two hour drive down to Oilville, VA, about 15 miles north of Richmond. But, due to the government seeing that our economy is in shambles and deciding to move DST up three weeks, my wakeup time was actually 9:20 AM. Just a quick side note, the last time DST was moved ahead, the golf industry pulled in something to the tune of an extra 400 million of income. Anyway, I quickly got up and started pulling my stuff together and packed the car, said goodbye to my wonderful wife who made sure I didn’t walk out the door without a piece of fruit and a cup of coffee. On the road by 10:00 AM, race starts at noon, so I start trucking down there. Got to the park with about 10 minutes to spare, quickly signed in (preregistered a couple days earlier), and changed and starting getting the bike ready. Turns out they must have been a little behind, as my race didn’t end up starting until probably 12:30 PM. Before the race I got a chance to see another DCMTB teammate Lorena (who I think did really well in the Pro/Expert class), who was warming up. Joel was supposed to show, but due to some last minute family stuff had to bow it, thus is the life of a family man playing a mountain biker.

So we roll up to the line, Single Speed class was the last class to get on the course. Not a big deal for me, but for any of the super fast guys, they probably had to pass a few people. The whistle (megaphone) blows and we’re off on some gravel roads to jump into the singletrack. Surprisingly, it wasn’t quite the super fast sprint I was expecting. I was near the back of the pack, but the line was tight and close, close enough I had to step off on one of the dirt mounds the singletrack weaves through in the first couple of minutes. After about 10 minutes we we’re pretty spread out and I didn’t see too many people from then on.

The course was in superb shape. Evidently they missed out on all the snow and rain that we received all week up north. The trail was dry and fast, totally classic east coast singletrack - rooty with tons of flow and a few hills to get the heart rate up. My only problem with the trail is it had a lot of small stubs ranging from the just above the ground to probably 4 inches high. Mid first lap I was railing a slight downhill and leaning into a curve when I clipped a stub, bam! It was a rude awakening and the opposite foot went flying from it’s peddle and swung around and under my frame. Somehow I managed to save it and not run over my foot and pull myself from the bike, but I was definitely dazed in a sort of “what the hell just happened” kind of moment. It didn’t seem to hurt too bad at the moment, so I just kept pushing on. Pulled into the end of the lap where the obviously built a new section of trail just for the race. It was really wet, but it was soft and loamy and just sucked all the power you could throw at it. I ended up jumping off the bike and running up. Back on the bike and through the starting line to start lap number two.

Lap number two was much like lap number one. I saw only a few people, passed a few peeps and only got passed by a few of the Pro/Expert (who technically were lapping me) and Enduro racers (who had been riding since 9:30 AM). No stub incidents this time, which was nice. I walked the same hill again before the end of the lap. Finished in a tad under 1:40. For a sunny 65 degree Sunday, it was a great day on the bike. My first time on real dirt in quite a while and it felt good to get the heart rate up. The course was awesome and I’ll definitely consider racing the rest of the series!

After the race I hung out for a few minutes, saw Lorena finish her race, and then I jumped back in the car and headed home. Got some stuff done around the house and even managed to do a late night racking of my Belgian Wit onto some strawberries. Monday came around and damn, wouldn’t you know it, one stiff and sore ankle, ha. It’s still tight, but I’m going to try and loosen it up tonight…

Bottom line, if you are looking for a well run race and want a trail you can go all out and just rail at top speed as long as you can hold it, then this is the race for you!

DT

Riding, riding, riding…rawhide!

Published
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DT
on March 12, 2007
in Bikes, Dirt, Life and Races
. 0 Comments

Well we’ve had a few weekends of good weather. Not enough to always get out on the dirt, but enough to get outside and enjoy the weather. Kristin and I finally got in our new years ride. We jumped on the W&OD where it crosses Great Falls Rd. and rode out to Vienna, visited the bread shop for some super tasty dense whole wheat bread. The ride back was nicer with a tail wind in full force and the ever so slight incline had turned into an ever so slight decline. Not a bad day to be outside!

The next week we got snow, not enough to shut down the city, although probably close enough. The trails were frozen and MORE got the go ahead to do a Wednesday Night ride if somebody was willing to lead. I took the chance of leading, although I mostly struggled to keep up in the back. After an 1.5 hours of riding I was pretty toasted. Lucky for me my light had started to fade at this point, so we all decided to head back and have some of my tasty Belgian Dark Strong.

Then this week came a flurry of activity. One on the list of good things that happened this week…I found out that my company is no longer needed on the current project I’m working on. Why is that good news, you might ask? Well, this means after the end of March I no longer have to drive to MD everyday for work. My real office is only a mile from my house, so while I have no idea what I’ll be doing at the end of the month, I do know I’ll be local again. This means better eating, less time spent in the car commuting, easier to go for rides after work, and getting to see my dog at lunch time. I’m in terrible shape for this time of year, but at least it’s going to get better.

Then this past weekend, Kristin and I helped Gary and Melinda move into their new house, super exciting! Of course I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much stuff come out of such a small space. Good luck getting through all those boxes! So lot’s of heavy lifting in the afternoon. Woke up early to help Derek out at his shop. He’s been getting slammed on Saturdays and needed an extra hand for a few hours. Sunday had me waking up early again, throwing all my bike stuff in the Subaru and driving down to Oilville, VA, just north of Richmond. I managed to get in my first mountain bike race of the season, race report to come soon. Once back from the race I was pretty tired. Still managed to rack the Belgian Wit into secondary on top of 10 lbs. of Strawberries. Checked it out this morning and there was a nice inch of krausen on the top, so hopefully it’ll be ready to rack to tertiary for clearing at the end of this week. Smelled good going in, hopefully it’s close to that coming out, ha.

DT

2007 Race Schedule

Published
by
DT
on March 7, 2007
in Bikes, Dirt and Races
. 0 Comments

Well here we are again…it’s the beginning of the 2007 mountain biking race season. The first race I know of is this weekend, just outside Richmond, VA at Camp Hilbert. I usually try to put together a list of all the area races, so that at anytime if I have a free day on a weekend I can pull up the races and see what’s happening that day. As an added bonus, I also make it available to all you lazy mofos, whether you want it or not, ha. Last year I did a wiki, great idea, but not a lot of help, oh well. Year before that was a spreadsheet, but it meant emailing out an updated spreadsheet to peeps. So this year we’ve got Google Docs, which allows you to do spreadsheets (among other things) and have people view or collaborate. I’ve done the bulk of the work already, but I’m sure there will be a few more races added, like the W@W series and any cyclocross races that are officially announced, but it’s complete enough to give to the public.

So, I give you a new page on the blog…look in the upper right hand corner…see that link that says “Races“…yea, click that and get the goods.

DT

Quick Update

Published
by
DT
on February 27, 2007
in Bikes, Dirt, Life and Races
. 1 Comment

Just a quick update since it’s been quite a while. We got back from vacation earlier last week and we had a blast. It was good to catch up with our overseas friends, see the sites, and have our fill of beer you can’t get here. Kristin has already quickly processed most of the pics and hopefully this link will take you to view them here.
I also finished working up a spreadsheet of the upcoming mountain bike race season and you should be able to view it here.

Not much else is going on, just recovering from the vacation, physically and financially, ha. Haven’t brewed any beer for more than a month now. I ended up brewing a Belgian Dark Strong and a Scottish 80 Export before leaving for vacation though and they are tasting pretty good. The dark strong is a little hot and I’ll need to age the alcohol taste out of it a little, nothing a little lagering won’t take care of. The Scottish 80 turned out just about what I was looking for. It’s still young, but it managed to take 3rd place in the BURP Scottish Ale competition last weekend. In addition to those two beers, I’ve got a sweet stout and an imperial stout on tap. Next up is the house IPA and a Belgian Strawberry Wit.

I’ll be sure to get back here soon and post a few photos and some stories from vacation.

DT

Slow Start

Published
by
DT
on January 30, 2007
in Beer, Bikes, Dirt, Life, Road and Tech
. 2 Comments

Well it’s been a slow start to the new year on the blog. Some people blog religiously, several times a day, and well, I’m just not one of those people. There’s enough fluffy crap out there that you don’t need to read mine on top of it all…

The weather finally turned cold here. We still get the occasional 65 degree day, but for the most part we are sitting in the 20-30’s lately. We got our first snow a couple of weeks ago. There was about 1.5 inches of snow with 0.5 inches of ice on top. Virgin tracks were laid at Colt’s Neck with Gary, no pictures were taken…we had too much fun riding. The same weekend, our household survived the norovirus and put on a little wine tasting featuring VA wines.

I’ve been hitting the path again with Spearmint. We made a Wednesday night ride with Hatley out to the Brickskeller. There we listened to Rob Tod of Allagash Brewing in Portland, ME and Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River Brewing in Sonoma, CA, talk about Belgian beers, professional brewing, and their travels together. We had the opportunity to taste 10 great Belgians, with a surprise tasting of J.W. Lees on cask at the end, not that anybody needed that by the end, ha. A good time was had by all. It really drove home how much I like the sour Brett character in Belgian beers. Let’s see…if I brew one now I could probably be drinking it by Fall.

I’m enjoying our new Subaru Outback that we bought just before the new year. It’s nice being able to put the whole bike right into the back without having to figure out how I’m going to fit it in. Need to get a hitch mount so I can have the bikes outside and have a little more room inside when traveling, but other than that the wagon is pretty much ready to go from stock. I always though I needed something a little bigger than the Passat, considering how much I do outside, but a big boxy SUV and it’s poor gas mileage and high price of ownership never sounded appealing. The wagon has all the room of an SUV, easily as much clearance as half of the SUVs out there, and still manages about 24-26 mpg - that’s what I’m actually getting, not what comes on the sticker… I’m probably getting about 40 miles or so less per tank than I did with the Passat, so I’m happy about that. Oh, and the dog freakin loves the thing. The wagon is also the first car my wife and I have had that came with leather and all the fancy pants climate control/heat seaters and whatnot…pretty cool. It performed flawlessly in the snow/ice, which is a lot more than I can say for half of the crackheads who were driving. Just a little tip…while your 18 ton 4 wheel drive behemoth will do just fine in the snow, it doesn’t matter how many wheel drive you have when you’re sliding down the ice. In other words, if you’re a crappy driver without 4 wheel drive, don’t think it’s going to make you any better…as evident by the 14 SUV pile ups off the Toll Road.

In the tech dept. we got some fun new stuff. Check out Portable Apps and grab the Firefox portable. They’ve tweaked Firefox to fit on a memory stick. I’m using it on a 128 MB stick and Firefox with all the extensions is only about 30 MB…java on the other hand was almost 60 MB and isn’t exactly portable. The nice thing about portable Firefox is that nothing gets written to the computer…at all. So no logs, cache, cookies, etc. When you pull the stick out of the computer, there’s pretty much zero trace. Not to mention it also makes keeping track of your newsreading super easy, since it can always be with you, no matter what computer you’re on.

Aight, back to paying the bills and dreaming of a brewery with singletrack out the back door…

DT

Finally back on the bike!

Published
by
DT
on November 27, 2006
in Bikes and Dirt
. 3 Comments

So this past Sunday I finally got off the couch and placed my ass on the saddle.  Put in a little under 2 hours of riding over at Lake Accotink Park.  It felt good to be out in 70 degree weather at the end of November!  It’s funny, I definitely ride slower when I’m flying solo, but for some reason I tend to do a lot more uphill than I like to do when I’m riding with others.  I rode all the trails in the park and hit a few of the bigger hills multiple times.  Then I headed back over to Wakefield where I had parked, slipped out of my mountain bike gear and put on my running gear.  I just recently got some new sneaks and wanted to try them out.  Ended up doing the Wakefield race course loop in about 30 mintues.  I think that roughly estimates to 10 minute miles, but who knows.  Either way it felt great to be outside and deep in the trees again.  Also looks like this week is going to be a lot of the same weather, a much needed change from the bleak pouring rain we’ve had lately.  The cold doesn’t bother me, in fact I probably enjoy riding in the cold and snow as much as I do a nice spring day, but the rain I can do without.  I don’t know how those people in Seatle do it…I’d be depressed for 2/3’s of the year!

Lake Accotink Ride Gallery

DT

Bliss is Done

Published
by
DT
on November 7, 2006
in Beer, Bikes and Dirt
. 4 Comments
Artwork by Spearman

The 1st ever Bootleggers Bliss is in the history books. Thanks to the 25 or so people who came out and braved the cool weather and rocky trails at Greenbrier Park. Due to the advance nature of the trails, a slightly late start and the varying degree of rider skill, we did a modified loop and headed back to a pavilion after an hour or so of riding. Once at the pavilion, more people showed up and the smell of chili, sloppy joes, and brats surrounded the lake area. Homebrew came in the form of kegs, bottles, and growlers and varied from Abbey Style Ale to IPA to Lingonberry Fruit Beer to Porters and Stouts. There were even a few bottles of mead and wine. The quality was top notch! There was no official tasting contest, but the Outlaw’s highly sought after Robust Porter was easily one of the top performers and gets the unofficial win. Still wating on photos from the crowd, but Butch has posted a few up already for those who want to check out the action here. Everybody seemed to have a good time, guess we’ll have to do this again, ha.

DT

One More To Go…

Published
by
DT
on October 23, 2006
in Beer, Bikes, Brewing, Dirt and Life
. 0 Comments

So this has been a long wedding season this year.  We have one more to go this coming weekend and thankfully this one is local.  We’ll be playing host to much of the wedding party and it will be nice to see everyone again.  Got the house ready this past weekend to house everyone, just gotta cut the grass and we’re all set to go.  Fully expecting this coming weekend to go by at a furious pace.  I’m hoping we’ll be able to find the time to fit in a game of Drinking Kart on the N64, but it’s not looking good.  We actually decided to board the B-Man for the weekend since it’s just not fair to him to be alone for that much time.  Hopefully they give him a bath, ha.

Kristin spent most of the weekend just playing catch up as she just finished her first week at her new job.  A start-up being run by Steve Case…talk about stressful!  They have her already doing things outside her comfort zone, so there should be a nice learning curve in her position.  She’s going to have one hell of a skills toolbox when she’s done though…

Sunday morning I managed to rack the Damn Devil Double IPA into secondary.  Way too smooth for a 12-13% beer.  I used something like 8 ounces of hops in this batch and racked it onto another ounce of Crystal hops.  The hoppy flavor and aroma is going to kick some ass on this one!  After lunchtime I headed out to MD for October BURP homebrew club meeting.  This month was the Dark Beers competition, basically any beer over 20 SRM qualified.  This is different in that usually the competition is limited to a specific BJCP style, whereas there were multiple styles to compete against.  I entered my Russian Imperial Stout that I brewed back in April.  It’s had time to mature and mellow a bit since I last had it.  Ended up pulling a 2nd place, not bad out of 17 entries.  It was really good about 2 months after I brewed it, but I think some of the mellowing has actually made it more one dimensional and I wish it was a little more complex.  As one judge said, it’s doesn’t quite live up to the aroma…  After the meeting I racked my Imperial Porter into secondary on top of two vanilla beans…this beer smells amazing!  Hope it’s ready for the Bliss.

Speaking of the Bootleggers Bliss, check out Spearmint’s art…not quite enough time to come up with a brand new logo, but hey, Big MEATS…Bootleggers Bliss…it all works out!

Bootleggers Bliss by Spearmint

So we’re pretty much all set to go for the event.  Just finishing up a few last details.  Still time to get in touch and enter, but only a few spots left.

Been trying out a new experiment on the IF, took it 96er style.  Big 29″ wheel up front, with a nice meaty 26″ in the rear.  Rode some Frederick, MD trails and it handled really well.  Didn’t seem as weird as the first time I jumped on a Karate Monkey.  I’m much more comfortable doing logs and getting air with this setup than I was on the KM.  Also gave it a shot out at Wakefield for a quick ride the other day.  Managed to get in all of Wakefields trails in about 45 minutes.  No issues with the bike, so I think I’ll keep this setup for a while.  Might try and find a bigger 29″ meat for the front, but shy of that I think I’m set.  Have to get some pics of the setup soon.

DT