Big Time At Bigelow

So the rain has finally given it a rest which allowed me to finally get out to a new ride location. The day was long at work and not very welcomed but the after work ride was extremely welcomed! It was set I was out of work before 4:30 and headed home to retrieve some gear and my loyal riding companion. I arrived home and slid his bell and tags around his neck and the coward went right into his crate, he clearly stated that he wasn't interested in going anywhere with me. I took a little offense to it but I knew sunday he had a long day in my parents yard with a tennis ball so I found it in my heart to forgive him. So off to this unknown place called Bigelow I went, it was a 30 minute ride up 84 and I arrived at a good time of 5:30. This gave me plenty of time to explore the area and figure my way around the joint. I headed down the 170 road which I drove in on and a few hundred feet later I was on the blue trail cruising through the woods. I was really enjoying the trail things were pretty smooth and the woods were open and welcomed. Through the pines I went at a pretty fast pace, allowing for occasional stop to take pictures, got quite picture happy in the first hour of the ride. I got to give people something to look at, soon I will bring the tripod to the trail and really get some action shots. The trail was a little soft form not seeing too much traffic since it's a pretty quiet area after all. I made my way from the blue trail onto the white trail which at first was a mess, a lot of downed trees and I lost the trail twice, it wasn't long before I got to meet some local wildlife, this consisted of a eagle screeching his head off and then as I happily walked under him it decided to buzz a foot above my head sending me into a question if this things going to try to rip my head off. It persisted to fly around me and screech it's head off for a few more minutes and then the jerk flew even closer to me, I could see the talons on this thing and surely if he wanted to he could put me in a world of hurt so I decided it was best to move on quickly. The White started to open up and was quite a fun ride and then shot me down very steeply into Breakneck Pond. I pedaled down the dirt road into massachusetts which was kind of cool crossing state lines on the ride. I then climbed up a short hill onto the blue orange trail which started off cool until it got to some swamps and then climbed through some giant boulders which was cool and adventurous but the mosquitos were feasting on me. It went all over the place and then climbed steeply up to the ridge and finally some long awaited pedaling began on the ridge which was very welcomed. The ridge was really fun, it had some rocks and flow sections, even had a great view overlooking some hills. Headed down he ridge and eventually hit a wide fire road where I began to make up some miles, somewhere along that road I missed a turn for blue orange but it wasn't a big deal, I wasn't about to backtrack. I took a right turn at a intersection and it landed me into an intersection of the blue orange which was great so I hopped on and enjoyed the ride, lots of open woods and some remaining sunlight, lots of flowers and some real fun single track. I finally made it close to the car which gave me three options, ride around Bigelow pond, ride up the overlook trail or shoot to the road and be at the car in 2 minutes, I chose the in between route which was Bigelow pond since daylight was short and I was still feeling strong. It was the yellow trail and it wasn't a very good mountain bike trail, it was skinny, it was rocky and just not a good mellow trail to end the ride. But I persisted and sure enough was at the car. Was a great ride and can't wait until my day off tomorrow, I am thinking day pond or ragged, we will see where I end up

Big time at bigelow

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Sunline V1 is good stuff

So I have spent a little over 2 months on this post and it is a great post. I have to be honest, in the last 6 years or so I have been riding I have never touched a seat post or really adjusted angles on one. I always left things as is because things were fine, but that changed one day when my Easton 30 junk post bent under me when I had got caught off balance and bumped me onto my seat. I noticed something felt funny as I continued to ride and soon enough I got off the bike to see what the heck happened. Sure enough to my amazement I saw the post was bent. I then got online and began to shop around and check reviews and it lead me to the Sun Line V1 post. With the post being discounted to a mere 35$ on chainlove.com where I frequent every 30 minutes, I did not hesitate to pull the trigger. It was a funky grey color which I wasn't crazy about but as long as it performed well at it's job I was happy. The post arrived and I was excited, it had many adjustments for seat angles, since traditional posts only offer adjustment through the seat rails, on this one you don't even need to touch it. There is one allen bolt to crack loose and then another that adjusts tilt. Once I got it where I wanted it I have been more than happy with it and has performed flawlessly and I would highly recommend to any rider, especially when some knuckleheads spend well over 100$ on snazzy posts that I can't afford.

Never Too Much of a Good Thing

So the rain had hit hard and fast friday morning, it was gone by 11:00 and left some partly sunny skies which was not good enough for a ride so the plan was to hit Case after work saturday. Yes I was forced once again to ride good old case due to the weather. I sped out of work and grabbed my loyal pooch was on the trail by 2:30. The air was humid and warm but it didn't really phase me, the bugs were bad once again...hate those little buggers, I find them cruising with me on my ride if i am not going fast enough, today I spotted 3 or 4 of them off my right shoulder while I was riding and probably stuck with me a couple hundred feet, it was a little creepy and desperate of them but I was glad to get rid of them once I got some downhill. Not long after I was on the trail I spotted a familiar rider Derek. He was fiddling with his ride and I rode up to him to see how he was doing and if he wanted some company. So off we went down case mountain, I was swerving rocks while he launched off them on his cushy big rig, made me wish I was on my suspension but I was happy to be on the raleigh. We took yellow black over to blue and a mile or so later disaster happened to his drivetrain. He uprooted a rock that decided to kamikaze into his derailleur sending him off the trail and into a lenghy fix. He insisted I go ahead and I was on a little bit of a hurry so I shot off down to the river and up to the power lines, down them, around the lake and back up Case Mountain. The trails were great despite the bugs and some mushy spots, also some kind of Deer like creature was stalking me, it had on some bandana and a bell, perhaps I was hallucinating from the heat. It was a pleasure to have bentley by my side and he got to meet some people and doggies which is always his trail favorite. Great ride and look forward to riding monday hopefully.

Never gets old

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Good Morning Mr. Case

So I thought after the beating I took at Mesh that I would not be so ambitious 9 hours later but it did happen and I was very happy it did. I fell asleep wednesday night unsure of how I was going to awake at 4:30 am, before I could awake to the alarm I was rudely awoken by the throbbing painful holes in my shin. The night before I took a spill that left with me with a pretty beat up shin and it was bad enough that it woke me up in quite a bit of discomfort. I tried to ignore it for 30 minutes but it eventually forced me out of bed and I removed the band aids to take a look and give the holes and scraped a clean. I was having a very hard time walking and it was very painful so I figured since I was up I was going to watch TV out in the living room and maybe sleep or waste some time. I had my leg propped up and sat on the couch realizing that a morning ride was out of the question. An hour later and some 800 mg of ibuprofen I was actually able to put some weight on it and but I still thought it was a bad idea. 4:30 came around and I wondered if I could actually pull off a ride, I could see myself mad if I chose not to ride and regretted it later so I gave it a shot. I got to case and it was a nice cool 55 degrees, which felt soooo good. I hopped on the bike and began the gravel path up Case and I was definitely feeling some hurt on my shins and my shoulder and my thumb and my elbow but it seemed to quickly fade away as I climbed further up the mountain. I was flying my way up on the 29er SS since I had spent the last week on the heavy all mountain Kona Dawg. Nothing against the Dawg but my raleigh XXIX just feels soooo good! Over on blue and back up another climb to the power lines and the sun began to hit the trail. This is always my favorite part of the ride, it feels like the sun is rising just for me and the way it looks and feels I appreciate every day that it rises every morning for me. Some great feel good vibes and smiling happily alone in the woods I continued down the power lines to the reservoir where I caught some more great views. Back up Case mountain and enjoyed an outlook over the landscape which happened to be hartford and behind it lay a fog which looked pretty cool. I am sure my camera phone failed to capture most the beauty of the moments of my ride but I remember them like it was a minute ago. I lost my track I was recording due to not fully uploading the trip and then updating my everytrail software, no biggy...... Rain is on the way so I am not sure when the next ride is to be but I imagine saturday after work and sunday if all goes well. Next week I will be absolutely making sure I get to new locations. Now get out there and pedal!

Meshy Mess

Wow is all I have to say, tonight was a great ride with the guys at Meshomasic State Forest. I arrived 30 minutes early to start pedaling off a rough day at work and Mike Hartford was already there waiting for the action. I was anxious to hit the trail so I headed up what I thought was the jump trail but ended up being just some double track that led up to the jump trail. Made my way down the jump trail and admired the work that was put in to them, while I was heading down I came across Mike which gave me a little surprise and was good to have some company. We then finished the trail off and hit the parking lot to meet up with the rest of the guys. Got a good 6:00 start up some nice smooth gravel road and then onto a trail that went up and up and never seemed to have stopped, it was down right grueling for me and those guys put me to shame as they tore up it with ease. We got to the top and I was feeling 100% of the trail through my legs and lungs and it was good to get the beating but we were probably 20 minutes into the ride! The trail then got downhill for not very long and then very very rocky and once again my balance and control was tested too hard, but I like to think I am getting better. Back to the gravel road and back up some hills we went and rode some more stuff and eventually found some more jumps and enjoyed hitting a few of them. It was really fun enjoying some of the trail features other than rocks and roots. We pedaled on and rode lots more and surprisingly the legs held up but by the time I got to the car I was definitely spent. Not many pictures since I never get a chance to and it would surely put me far behind them but none the less I got a few for viewing pleasure. Great ride with those fellas I am glad they let me tag along.

Meshy mess

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