New Experiences

It's been over two months since my last blog post.  It seems to me that I'm getting to the point where I'm going over the same ground, writing about rides in the same places, and posting pictures that aren't much different than what I've posted before.  That lack of fresh experiences to talk about has made me feel as if I don't really need to re-write the same stories over and over again, and as a result the blog posts get farther and farther apart.

This seems to be the way that life goes though - as you get older the range of things that you are comfortable doing gets more well defined, and your choices get made from a smaller set of options.  This doesn't have to be totally a bad thing, as the lessons you've learned from past experiences let you rule out re-trying things that didn't live up to your expectations, or even turned out to be truly unpleasant.  But there is a negative aspect as well, since it seems that your 'field of vision' when considering your options becomes narrower and narrower, and truly new experiences become further and further apart.

But sometimes new experiences kind of sneak up on you, and without making an actual decision to try something different you can find yourself in a situation that was totally unexpected - sometimes for the better, and sometimes not.

After a week at work I always look forward to getting out for my customary Friday night bike ride on the Little Beaver Creek Greenway.  It isn't my local trail, but with a 40 minute drive I can be at the Leetonia trail head, and unlike most of the other trails in our area they allow night riding.  The trail only gets light use, and has a few mild grades and curves along the old railroad grade above the creek for 10 miles, so it's perfect for getting in an easy after work ride in an uncrowded wooded & rural setting.  I've been riding here almost every week for a couple of years, and have come to know the trail and it's surroundings pretty well.

Little Beaver Creek Greenway, Ohio

In June there was a full moon on the summer solstice, but I was too busy to get out to see it. However the next evening I was free, so I headed out to the Leetonia trail head in the evening for a night ride under the full moon.  I've been on many full moon rides, including mountain bike rides, and really enjoy being able to ride at night with only the moonlight illuminating the way.  It's amazing how well you can see as your eyes adjust to the lower light levels.

I got to the trail head not long after sunset, as the light was starting to fade from the sky. By the time I was ready to ride the evening dark was setting in, and I mounted my bike light on the handlebars.  I looked around for the moon before setting off, but it wasn't visible.  The sky was still showing enough light that as I rode off there was no problem seeing the trail.  As I rode slowly on down the trail my eyes further adapted to the low light level and I was able to easily move down the empty trail as it left the active rail corridor and headed across a mile of swamp.  I continued along the trail as night fully fell, but the sky still had a soft glow of light illuminating the surroundings.  This is something I've experienced before, but I've always enjoyed being outdoors at night and I was having a great time slowly riding into the developing dark.

The lightning bugs took their cue from the setting of the sun, and as I rode out of the swamp they started to flash, their pale green lights calling out to the others of their kind, sending messages of early summer firefly romance.  What started as a few widely separated flickers started to intensify as more and more joined in.

Coming out of the trailside treeline at a corn field I coasted to a stop.  The treeline and ground around me were now pitch black, with the softer grey of the sky filled with stars above.  And now their were lightning bugs everywhere.  They filled the air with soft flares of light, and clung to the tall grass growing along the edge of the corn field.  Thousands upon thousands of fireflies moved quietly over the corn, sending out their individual patterns of light.  The dark treeline along the edge of the trail was a glittering fabric of pure black and pale green.  Looking further back, along the far edge of the field, I realized that the whole woods as far as I could see was softly glowing with these momentary bursts of light.  In all directions I was surrounded by a pale cloud of flashing light.  Everywhere I looked there were lightning bugs flickering, with hundreds and hundreds lighting up every second.

I stood there astride my bike with my jaw hanging open.  Even though I'd spent a large portion of my life out in the woods and fields, this was something new to me.  I felt total amazement at what I was seeing, and then the realization that it had been a long, long time since I'd seen something new and unexpected enough to give me that feeling. Sweeping my gaze around the surreal landscape I tried to soak it all in, to commit the scene to memory, to try and capture that feeling of stunned surprise.  It was almost overwhelming.

Finally I managed to get my feet back on the pedals and slowly resumed my ride.  Not far ahead the pale grey of the trail disappeared into the dark of the treeline as the trail entered the woods again.  Here the trees blocked out the soft glow of the sky and the view was almost totally black.

But tonight the darkness wasn't quite total.  There were thousands of lightning bugs along the trail, slowly pulsing with light.  And the ones that were within a couple of inches of the ground actually gave off enough light that I could see the trail in brief flashes as I slowly rode along.  It was mesmerizing, watching for the tiny flash and the vague illumination on the trail. My entire field of vision now was black - with a continuous wash of dim green lights sparkling in every direction.

After about a half hour I noticed that there were less and less lightning bugs in the area.  Either they had begun to disperse, or I'd ridden out of the area where they were the densest.  I switched on my light, picked up my speed to normal cruising, and headed on down the trail for the remainder of the ride.  And it turned out that the only time I saw the moon that night was at the area near the parking lot, where the hills to my southeast weren't obscuring it.

Over the next couple of days I thought quite a bit about the experience, and how it felt so unusual to have something new and unexpected like that happen.  When my wife said that she had four days off over the weekend in a couple of weeks to help friends with a big graduation party out of town, I thought that it was time to get out of my comfort zone and try something else new.

Last year I made a pair of bicycle panniers to fit over the racks on the back of my and my son's bikes.  We'd planned on a bike trip in West Virginia last August, but a car accident two days before forced my to cancel the whole trip.  So the gear was packed away, waiting for another opportunity.  And rather than wait for some perfect time I decided it was time to do it now.

So my 15 year old son, Ken, and I decided to take off for a 4 day bike tour along the paved trails of the Allegheny River and surrounding areas.  We'd done a couple of overnighters on the bike before, but this was the first real test of the pannier system and the first multi-day trip where we'd actually travel more than 5 miles.

Ken ready to take off for our first overnighter with the new gear last summer.

Back country camp 1 mile from the trailhead at Kennerdell Tract, Pennsylvania.

As the weekend approached and the weather forecast started to come into focus, there was reason for some concern.  Temps for the trip were forecast to be well above 90 during the day.  That heat would make it a challenge for anyone, with the effort required to pedal a 90 pound loaded bike and to keep hydrated.  But for me it would be an even tougher problem. When I get my metabolism fired up in hot temperatures I 'perspire freely' - that is I sweat like a lawn sprinkler.  I've learned how to deal with it for the most part, but for an extended period in the heat with limited amounts of fluids and limited resupply points I was fairly concerned.  But nothing is without risks, so we decided to deal with it as well as we could and headed out.

Fully loaded bikes resting along the Allegheny River Trail, Pennsylvania.

Our trip was along the Allegheny River Trail in western Pennsylvania, with a side trip planned on Sandy Creek Trail.  With the temperatures peaking above 95 degrees on Saturday and Sunday we didn't try to push for big miles, but instead rode slowly for short distances between breaks in the shade to rehydrate.

Ken resting alongside the trail, waiting for Dad to stop taking pictures.

We had to pass through 2 old tunnels, each over a half mile long.  Feeling the temperatures drop from the mid-90's to the lower 60's in the matter of a few seconds was almost a shock to the system, but once we were inside it was such a treat that we hardly wanted to leave.  We even talked about getting our seats off the bikes and taking a little break inside, but figured we might scare other riders if we started hanging around in the dark.

Ken waits outside the Kennerdell Tunnel.

I'm glad to say that the equipment all worked well, and there were no surprises in that part of the trip.  The racks and panniers worked great for the most part, though there may be a few possible tweaks that would make things a bit easier.  The scenery was great, the trail was mostly in fantastic condition, and we were able to deal with the few unexpected occurrences with no problems.

Old RR culvert visible from the trail.

But the problem that did require some adjustment was the heat.  We ended up riding shorter miles than we had planned, which was just fine with both of us. And we changed from a four day trip to a three day trip as the heat, combined with dehydration, took it's toll on me.  But the good thing was that we were able to recognize the problem and deal with it in a well thought out manner.  Even so I spent the day after we got home laid out, drinking prodigious amounts of water as I recovered from what was guessed to be borderline heat exhaustion.  Ken was fine of course, having the stamina and strength of a young bull.

We both had a good time, and learned quite a bit on how to make it easier next time.  And there will definitely be a next time, when it will be cooler and we can enjoy the riding more.  It was great to try something new, to get out of my comfort zone, and take a few chances.  That is something that I need to keep in mind, and try to bring back to my life in a bigger way.  I may be getting older, but it turns out that isn't a good reason to stop trying new things.

It makes me wonder what it would take to ride across the country.

The Roller Coaster Ride

Wow, it's been almost TWO months since my last post.  It's not for lack of things going on, but mostly just a lack of time!  But I'll try to hit on a couple of the high points of what's been happening lately.

My good looking kid on the night of the 8th grade dance.

Re-reading the last blog entry I see it was the high water weekend, when I kayaked Bear Creek, and was planning on hitting Deer Creek the next day.  Interesting story there...

I did head over to Deer Creek, and was elated to find that it was at absolutely prime water level for a run.  So I left the boat stashed at the put-in by the hump-back bridge, left the bike at the top of the hill, and headed back to the take-out to park the car. Then it was just a matter of hiking 3/4 mile up the 300 foot tall ridge, getting the bike at the top, and coasting down the hill to the put-in.

Within a couple of minutes I had the bike hidden in the brush, and geared up for the run.  I was fairly upset to find out that I'd apparently left the GoPro turned on the night before when I double-checked to see if it had a full charge - and now the battery was dead.  But the video was just gravy, the run was the meat of the day - and boy was it good!

Deer Creek is about 3.5 miles of class II read and run whitewater, through an isolated valley.  There are 23 class II rapids on the run, so you're always either in a rapid, just leaving a rapid, or just heading into a rapid.  It's a really great run that hardly anyone ever paddles because it's remote, rain dependent and doesn't have a decent USGS gauge correlation.  But it's one of my favorites in the area, and I always keep it in mind when there's a bunch of rain.

My run was pretty much perfect.  I managed to read and run everything, which wasn't too hard because there was barely any wood in the creek.  The creek has a bunch of islands, and I managed to pick the good side every time, and had a blast on all the little rock gardens and pour-overs.  Even though I was fairly conservative at times, I managed to have a good time and even got in a little bit of surfing down on the tasty double surf wave near the end.  I finished the run without incident, packed up the boat, retrieved the bike and headed home, tired but happy.

Coffee Run during the high water weekend.

It gets interesting the next day.  I woke up with a headache, feeling lethargic and kind of dizzy.  But Diana had the day off, so we headed out to do some stuff together.  Throughout the day I felt progressively worse - more dizziness, no appetite, and trouble thinking.  I went to bed very early and woke up feeling slightly better the next day, just in time to go see the doctor.  He took blood, did a bunch of tests, and came to the conclusion that I had a low blood sugar incident, complicated by dehydration.  He added that he has to tell most of his patients to get more exercise, but he told me that I need to remember that I'm 52, and can overdo it a lot easier than when I was younger.

The moral of the story I guess is to pay more attention to what your body is trying to tell you.  I know I have dehydration problems, but had no idea that by burning off a bunch of extra calories and then eating light afterwards I could be shortchanging my system that much.  And I'm sure that my diet that mostly excluded processed sugar didn't help.  But I did find out that I'd lost about 8 pounds in 3 months, so that was good.

In the two months since then I've continued on the diet and exercise regimen that I started in February.  I can definitely tell that I've lost more weight, as my clothes fit differently.  And when the trails are dry enough to ride I notice that my mtb skills seem improved - either by adding muscle from weight lifting or carrying less weight around, I don't know which.

In motion shot on Little Beaver Creek Greenway, OH.

I've managed to keep up a pretty good number of bike rides too.  Checking with mapmyride, it looks like I got in 126 miles in April and 172 in May.  Most of that was paved riding, but there were at least 8 mountain bike trail rides, including West Branch State Park, Beaver Creek State Park, Quail Hollow State Park, Rimrock Trail in Allegheny National Forest, and North Road Nature Preserve here in Warren.

Love the colors on this - first night ride of the year at West Branch.

Kenny went camping with the Boy Scouts the last weekend in April, and while he was out with them Diana and I took the opportunity to get a cabin at Cooks Forest State Park and spend the weekend over there.  I really love the Cooks Forest/Clear Creek/Allegheny National Forest area, and we had a great time getting out and having some quiet time.

Diana on the hikers bridge over Tom's Run.

We even headed up to Rimrock Overlook for a while - and I managed to get in a ride on the shortest loop at nearby Rimrock Trail.  Those rough trails over there are a treat to ride.

Kinzua Reservoir from Rimrock Overlook, PA.

The trails at West Branch State Park opened up a couple of weeks early this year, and I headed out that first day after work to get in a night ride.  The local mtb club, CAMBA, did a bunch of work out there again last season and the trail system is better than ever.  Now if it would only stop raining for a while I'd be able to get out there and enjoy them!

The West Branch skinnies are a bit mossy after a long winter.

Memorial Day weekend all three of us managed to get away for the weekend, to go back-country camping at Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania.  We got one of the dispersed campsites up above Loleta, with the East Branch Millstone Creek right beside our tent.

Our Memorial Day campsite.

Saturday we wandered around the area and had a nice lunch up at Marienville before heading back to relax at camp.  We took bikes, so Kenny and I got in a couple of forest road rides through the woods. The scenery is amazing over there, and even on a busy holiday weekend there was almost no traffic.  We had a great time and I hope we get the chance for a couple more long weekends together in the next couple of months.

Ken leads the way on the fat bike.

Here are a couple more photos from the adventures of the past month.

Rainbow on a Little Beaver Creek Greenway ride, on the road section near Lisbon.

Ready to head downhill at Beaver Creek State Park.

Hickory Run, a secret gem of a creek right by the OH/PA line.

And to end this post, here's a little video clip from a ride around town with Kenny.  The cottonwood seeds were blowing through the sunlight at Perking Park, so I whipped out the trusty smartypants phone and shot a little clip.

Only a couple of weeks of spring left.  Hope you all enjoy your summer!!!

Riding A Lot

I keep track of my bicycle exploits on a great website called MapMyRide.  It lets me map my in town bike rides (no surprise there) but it also lets me keep track of my calorie expenditure from those bike rides, and even enter in other forms of exercise (there are other things to do besides ride a bike?!?) and their calorie values.  It also has a feature that lets you keep track of your calories consumed each day, using their calorie numbers or putting in your own.  And then it coordinates it all, so that you can see how much you should eat, how much you do eat, and how much of what you eat you're burning up riding your bike.  That's a lot of cool stuff from a free website.

When July finished up I checked on my monthly totals to see how I'd been doing.  It felt like I'd been riding quite a bit, but a lot of my rides are short in duration in order to fit into the chinks in my schedule.  In the 31 days of July I got in 28 workouts - all but 6 were bike rides, and those 6 were either trail work or gardening.  I rode just under 143 miles, and burned about 16,000 extra calories.  For me that's pretty good, though I have a co-worker who just rode 150 miles last weekend.  For me, that's Riding A Lot.

So out of those 22 bike rides 10 of them were on dirt.  Most of those were in the 1-1/2 hour to 2 hour duration (time is more important to me than distance when riding on dirt), so they were definitely good workouts, but not even close to anything epic.  The rest of those 22 rides were mostly rides around town that last between a half hour and an hour, with a couple rail trail excursions thrown in for variety.   Once again, not extreme by any means but at least I'm keeping active.

And what does all that riding get me.  Well, with the heat lately I've been leaving my leg protection at home, so I have a pretty good collection of pedal stings on my shins.  Every time they start to heal up I'll slip while trying to ride over a rock and mash the pins on my pedals into my legs again.  Nothing like bloody socks at the end of the ride to show that you were giving it your all.

I also have a closer understanding of my hydration needs.  You see, I perspire freely.  Or to put it another way, I sweat like a lawn sprinkler.  So with the temperatures hovering around the mid-90's for much of the summer I've had lots of opportunities to think about hydration.  I'll try to drink a goodly amount before starting a ride, often with a little caffeine in the mix, then bring several bottles of water with me on the ride, and finish up with water and sports drinks to bring back up the electrolytes.  This sounds like an easy plan and not that much of a chore to do. 

But it's not the routine, it's the quantities that get start to drive me up the wall.  Last weekend I hosted a Slow Guys Ride at West Branch State Park near my home.  The temps were once again in the mid-90's as four of us headed out for a ride.  The heat was brutal, and the air was so humid it felt like breathing cotton.  We set off trying to set a pace that would let us conserve our energy in the heat.  Being slow anyways, and dealing with the heat just dragged out the afternoon so that it was well over two hours before we finished our lap and made it back to the parking lot.

All my clothes were soaked.  My shoes were soaked.  My PACK was even saturated.  I'd been sweating so much that the skin on my fingers was wrinkled as if I'd spent too much time in a bath.  I'd had Mountain Dew before, water during, and started on the Gatorade afterwards.  On the drive home I felt more than tired, I felt weak and dizzy.  I kept on drinking - fruit juice, more water, more electrolytes - and I still felt bottomed out.  Once at home I laid on the couch and tried to sleep but my head was spinning.  More water, more Gatorade.  Finally late that night I topped off my tank and replaced the last of the lost fluids from the ride (How could I tell?  Think about it a second.)  Relieved, I took a moment and added up the intake from when I started the ride - it came to 168 ounces.  Approximately a gallon and a third.

I started thinking - a gallon is pretty good sized.  I'm not a really big guy - 5'-7" and about 175 pounds.  You'd think it would be difficult to remove that much mass from a body that sized and still get it to work correctly (not that I was feeling "correct" at all).  That's about the size of my HEAD for example.   I guess that would account for the muscle cramps and dizziness.  This is a lesson that I have to learn at least two or three times a year.

The other thing that all that riding does is helps with the technical skills needed to ride over rocks and roots.  After spending two years working on riding slowly over technical rocks while standing, finally last month it all came together and I understand what I'm supposed to be doing.  I've spent hours and hours riding out of the seat, trying to build the muscles, balance and skills necessary to stand while riding rock gardens.  It seemed like I was getting better, but it was just an incremental thing - the big breakthrough eluded me.  Then one day last month it just fell together, and I made a step up to another level of tech riding.  It was such an unexpected surprise that I was laughing out loud as I hit the rock gardens.

I have to say, it's pretty gratifying to still be able to learn something - ANYTHING - after this many years.

Dehydrated but Organized

And time passes for our hero, as it does for all of us...

Work continues to barely drag along, but the REAL world (note: there is no such thing as the real world) has been doing pretty well.  Our garden is at least sprouting, and there are a bunch of hot pepper and tomato plants in the ground, growing contentedly.  There are also sweet peas, beets, lettuce, green beans and cucumbers (don't count on the cukes though - they look a mite sickly).

A Simpson Design convertible at the Greenway trailhead.
Turns out it's a body kit that goes on Miata frames.

I've been trying to maintain a healthy level of exercise, which for me is riding five days out of seven.  Looking at my trusty MapMyRide calendar for the last couple of weeks I see that two weeks ago I only rode four days out of seven (darn that mythical real world) but the one day I got out and rode twice, soooo - it's almost kind of like I rode five days out of seven since I did get in the same number of rides.

Then this week I redeemed myself from last weeks shortcomings by riding six days out of seven.  Checking the MMR tally I see those six rides consisted of two singletrack sessions, three pavement rides and one stationary bike torture-fest.  And on the seventh day I got in three hours of trail building down at Beaver Creek (more on that later).  So it was a pretty active week, and I'm basically feeling mostly good, though I am still sporting a few fading bruises from my latest Off Bike Experience.

About a month ago one of my trail building buddies, Eric, and I started talking about what it would take to start a mountain bike club for our area.  Cleveland Area Mountain Bike Association (CAMBA) does a really great job and has helped me a lot, but they don't cover our county since we're 50 miles away.  I'd thought of starting a club a couple of years ago, but I seriously don't want to be the president of anything, so I put it off.  But Eric and I decided to see if we could get something started, so we made up some fliers and got them out to all the local bike shops.

The response was minimal, but at the same time another rider was having the same thoughts.  And when he met up with the International Mountain Bike Association (IMBA) rep for the Great Lakes region at a mtb event, things really started moving.  Thanks to the work and commitment of our new president, the Rust Belt Riders MTB is the newest IMBA chapter club (or will be when the final application is submitted this week).  I did end up with the job of secretary, but I think that's something I can handle.

We'll cover Trumbull, Mahoning, and Columbiana counties in Ohio, as well as the area in Pennsylvania that's just across the border.  One of the main issues will be to get Mill Creek Park to change their policy and allow mountain bikes on some of their trails.  Another focus will be continuing the work I started with building new trails down at Beaver Creek, and making that park our showcase of trail building possibilities.  After putting in three years of negotiations to get this project going I'm really excited with the possibilities.

We had a trail building day at Beaver Creek this Saturday, despite the 90 degree temps.  The park was having a Civil War re-enactment this weekend (a fact of which I was unaware) so the place was PACKED full of cars.  We're working on the other side of the creek from the encampment and re-enactment site, so there weren't many people around - just a hundred parked cars.  But I found a space way at the end, and so did Eric.  We got to work on the trail and finished off our big rock work project, an 85 foot long rock roadway that contours across a rugged part of the hillside.  The next task facing us is a steep section that will require a good sized rock retaining wall and pretty substantial bench cutting.

Building a new retaining wall at Beaver Creek.

Partway through the day Ian showed up to help with the build.  And just about the same time Doug, the "ranger" (actually a Resource Manager, I believe) for Ohio DNR stopped by to look at the new trail.  He's actually an avid mountain biker, and was excited to see our progress and the quality of the new trail.  We got to talking about the Rust Belt Riders and he wants to set up a time to do a walk-through of 100 acres of land over in Lake Milton State Park that he thinks would be prime for development as a mountain bike trail system.  And I heard second hand that Trumbull County Metroparks might be interested in developing another one of their parcels with some mtb trails.  So it turns out that there are quite a few positive things going on with the new club, and lots of possibilities to make a real difference for riders in our area.

Then today - funny thing, today... 

Yesterday I ended up doing three and a half hours of trail work in 90 degree heat, followed up with an hour and a half of gardening, in the same heat.  The real problem there is that I am of Greek heritage and sweat like a lawn sprinkler, so in the heat I have to put considerable effort into maintaining my hydration - or I crash like the Hindenburg.

Yesterday I drank two 32 oz. Gatorades, two 12 oz. Mountain Dews, and two 24 oz. water bottles while trail building and gardening.  Then when I got home I had another water and a couple beers.  I added up the total input in my head and thought that it should have been sufficient and went to bed tired.  Then this morning I got up before 7:00 and headed out to West Branch to ride.  Even getting out of bed was tough, but I attributed it to a hard day's work and being 49 years old.  When I got out on the singletrack I expected to feel better and get my groove, but after the first half hour or so I felt like chewed gum.  Despite that I continued on the singletrack, passing on the bail trail that in retrospect I should have taken.  It wasn't long before I was feeling seriously low in energy - like "maybe I should lay down for a minute" low.  I'm used to draggin' ass now and again, and this wasn't it.  After several granny gear climbs I finally made it back to the car and drove home, where I once again poured in copious amounts of fluids.

After a bit of reflection I decided that I must have still been dehydrated from the day before when I got up, and that once again going into 'full exertion' mode in 90 degree temps might not have been the best idea.  This afternoon I just sat around and took in fluids, with short naps in between (I'm usually not a nap guy).  And after drinking a LOT of Gatorade, ice tea and water I seem to have once again balanced the system somewhat, as there is now at least some output to go along with the massive input.  And once again I've relearned the 'hydrate yourself, you fool' lesson.  Hopefully this time it takes!