Spring (or is it allergy) season

Spring has finally arrived.  The dogwood is blooming, the turkeys are gobbling, the carpenter bees are licking their lips at the sight of our log home, and the allergies are hitting hard.  A year ago, I took a day off work to go turkey hunting and proceeded to break my foot riding the old dual sport afterwards.  This year I planned to not repeat that series of events.  Last Thursday I got the day off and harvested my first turkey since 2003 (IIRC).  It was a great cool morning and an exciting hunt.  The tom was too busy strutting his stuff for an uninterested hen to notice me crawling up the hill and popping up on him.  The 870 with a 3" #6 load did its job.  Not the biggest bird ever, 7/8" spurs and 8-1/2" beard, most likely a 2 year old.  Beautiful bird.

I followed the hunting trip up with a dual sport ride on the old Honda XL500S.  Great day exploring some of the low maintenance township roads in the area.

Saturday I got a call to help a friend move.  One of the blessings of having a giant truck!  Sunday, following church and dinner with my folks, I got out for a dirt road ride of the pedaling kind.  Had to spin the legs when I can, hoping to race next weekend.  Happy Spring.

Oh, that's what the dead end sign meant.

Spring flowers.

2 hours of roads like this.

Spring race season is here

Spring race season is here, in full force. However, my fitness isn't. This past weekend there were a total of 4 races that one could plan to attend. OSRS Zanesfield, Mining Country Road Race (Wilkesville), OMBC at the Wilds, and WVMBA at Mountwood. I didn't even consider the Zanesfield road race. The Wilkesville race popped up late in the planning, plus it was on a Saturday, so I penciled it in. The OMBC race is also on Saturday, but an 80 mile drive to get there. The WVMBA race is on Sunday which makes it tough to get to. So, going in to this weekend, I loosely planned to race Wilkesville.

Friday night, Ethan had a invitational track meet. The weather wasn't great with thunderstorms in the area and a pretty steady wind up to 30 mph at times. Oh, and it got colder. The high winds messed with the timing equipment at the track and made the meet go SLOW. Ethan ran 110 hurdles (the first event), the 400 (in the middle), and the last leg of the 4x400. We were out, with an active 3 year old, in the cold wind for 4 hours. I finally got home at 10:30 and didn't have any of my racing stuff or the bike ready. And I was beat. Got up Saturday morning late and tired. I decided not to race and instead, just drove down to the start and then watched the race as it came by the house on 689. It was a windy and cold race, but a very good showing for Team Athens.

Sunday afternoon I managed to get out for a hard effort ride.  Only about 18 miles, but I was beat when I was done.  Hopefully I can get feeling good in time for the Wayne Ultra in May.

Roadies are uptight

The Ohio Spring Race Series event hosted by Team Athens at Lake Hope was this past Sunday.  As is typical for volunteer based events, there were not enough volunteers.  I skipped racing to drive lead out for the morning and the afternoon sessions.  I was up early and to the lake by 8:45 to get instructions for the races to start at 10.  However, snow had different plans.  At 9:30, they delayed the start an hour to give some snow a chance to melt off the road.  In the morning I lead out the men's masters class, a 2 lap (40 mile) race.  After the climb and down hill on Mine Hollow Road, the pack was down to 2 riders.  Before we could get back to 278, it was down to 1.  And that was my view for the remaining 30 miles, a single rider out in front, flat cranking it.  It was at this moment that I realized I would be old enough to race masters next year.  So much for old and slow!  In the afternoon session I lead out the women's 1/2/3 race for 3 laps.  Started with a total of 7 riders, 3 of them sticking it out to the end with a 2 women sprint for the finish.  I stuck around to watch the end of the men's 1/2/3 group.  At the finish sprint, with a full two lane wide road, one of the riders was complaining to another about "his line" then yelled at the officials that the rider should be disqualified.  Honestly, it just looked like riders sprinting, as the officials thought so too.  Roadies are so uptight.

All in, I drove 100 miles in my truck at about a 20 mph average speed.  I am sure that I was more sore from driving for 5 hours than I would have been if I had raced.

A view of the lake from the registration shelter.

Snow sliding off the roof of my truck, curling on the cab lights.

It was at least pretty!

My view for 5 hours.

On the home front, I finished building the counter for Shelly's office.  Turned out pretty decent and Shelly and very happy to have the space.  I also ordered some "specials" from Revelate Designs.  Specifically, a used Tangle frame bag and a demo bar harness for my upcoming (soon to be planned) bike packing trip.  I will say that the Tangle was described as having "heavy use".  I cleaned it in some hot water and fitted it to my d440.  If this has seen heavy use, they must last forever!  Very impressed with the quality of the pack.

The Wolfman - Rousing the Gravel

The 2014 edition of the famed Gravel Rouser is in the books.  I missed most of this last year since it was the same weekend as the Team Athens OSRS road race at Lake Hope, but not this year.  To make up for my absences in the past, I committed to attempt the wolfman and do all four events.

Event #1: Moto Enduro
Not the new, MTB fad, downhill enduro, this one was a motorcycle style.  A good warm up to the weekend with almost 8 miles of trail.  It was fun and I did not burn any checkpoints.

Event #2: Jim's TT
Jim has a very nice set of private trails at his home on the hill.  This evening event was a timed TT over about 2.2 miles.  To make it better, Ethan came along and was the youngest competitor.  After pre-riding so he could get a good feel for the trails, we were off, in 2 minute increments.  Again, I did well, not on the podium well, but fun time none the less.  Ethan was happy too exclaiming "that was fun" after finishing.

Event #3: the Classic
Huge turnout for the classic (I heard 96 riders, about double what was expected), a 54 mile loop of back roads and trails out and back to Lake Hope.  We took a short detour this year and went down a section of a rail trail and through a tunnel.  At the lake we did a short trail "race" during which I dropped the chain on my Redline d440 four times!  Must be why I usually ride singlespeed on trails.  A quick lunch of whatever snack foods your stomach could handle, and back on the roads, past Moonville and to Eclipse where Kiser's had some good BBQ waiting for us. By the end, I can say my legs were roasted.

not my bike BTW

Event #4: City Grab-n-Git
I was honestly a little tired of pushing fat tires and steel frames around so I brought my Masi road bike for this one.  A little scavenger hunt in the city of Athens.  One of the more entertaining stops was a shopping trip in Walmart.  Good beat to the checkout by an older man with a cart full and an um-amused checkout worker.  Dashed around town to the other 4 stops and finished with coffee and donuts.  Again, not on the podium but I did get my Wolfman award.  Only 361 days until next year.

Four days and 73+ miles, I am eating everything I see.  Was this close to fixing breakfast at 3am Monday.

More information and photos are available from Athens Bicycle here: http://www.athensbicycle.com/about/2014-gravel-rouser-classic-recap-pg185.htm

42

Eric would have been 42 yesterday.  I had planned to ride out to St. Johns Cemetery at lunch, but we had another winter storm over the weekend and temps were still only 19 degrees.  Hopefully I will still make the ride out but later in the week when temperatures moderate a bit.

Backing up a bit, I made stuffed cinnamon french toast for us on Valentine's day.  We don't get into the whole "holiday", maybe because our anniversary is so close, or maybe not.

The following week we had some excitement at work as a helicopter outfitted to trim power line right of ways was using the vacant parking lot next door as a staging area.  Well, they had to leave behind the saw a couple days so I had to check it out.  Impressive but also insane to think about dragging it around under a helicopter while flying within feet of a high voltage line.  Interesting that it has its own power system, a twin Kohler, and a belt drive to the blades.

I mentioned that we had another winter storm.  This was the lion of March (hopefully).  While it was forecast to bring up to a quarter inch of ice and then top it with seven inches of snow, the storm track took a slightly more southern track.  We only had around a tenth of an inch of ice as it started as mostly rain for several hours before turning into about 3 inches of snow.  I had picked up a Generac inverter generator (iX2000) earlier in the week. Been toying with the idea ever since my old Tecumseh powered Sears hand-me-down, loud, and heavy one threw a rod several years ago.  I didn't want a big unit, just enough to run a fridge and our propane water heater.  This one is quiet and light weight.  Figure I can use it as backup power, "farm" use and for camping trips.  (If you are looking, Athens Sport Cycles is now a Generac dealer, one of the compelling reasons for me to pick this unit up).  We however did not loose power.  While I did not get to use the generator, I did get to clear the driveway, by hand, again.

Slow progress is being made on the basement finishing.  Part of the ceiling is up and a few light fixtures.

Riding?  Oh, that is what I have been doing in the basement on rollers.  Smashed last two years numbers on trainer time.

Ready for the Gravel Rouser!

Winter, still

It was -8 °F at the house this morning.  Most of the folks I know are tired of winter.  I enjoy it, mostly.  I don't get to play in it as much as I would like and at temperatures that cold, I shouldn't be.  Sure makes for some pretty sunrises though.

19 years

How can January seem like so long ago, but 19 years like yesterday?

This has been a tough winter.  Temperatures have been cold, I mean really cold, like Ohio University closed due to dangerous lows and wind chills cold.  Oh, and propane is scarce due to distribution issues (actually, because of the boon in natural gas, the resulting low domestic prices, the subsequent exporting due to favorable prices, the trucks have been recommissioned to natural gas hauling rather than propane hauling).  Propane residential prices have increased from $2.34 in October to $3.91 (average Ohio) per gallon!  That is, if you can even get it delivered.  We are low, but trying to cut back on how warm we keep the house until we get through this.  And now that February is here, we are set up for repeated southern track winter storms, meaning, heavy snows and ice.  We ended up with 8" of snow Sunday night, followed last night by freezing rain.  Kids are missing lots of school.  I have missed some work.  I usually like winter.  But this has been like a college aged drinking binge.  Overdone then recovering just in time for the next round.  Riding? Well, the rollers are getting some use.

On a high note, we celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary.