Rolling With the Changes

Time for another blog update, and it's not going to be the one I thought I would be able to write.  I was planning on writing about the bike tour on Greenbrier River Trail that my son and I planned on taking.  But that didn't happen.

I don't want to spend a lot of time complaining, but here's what happened.  Three days before we were supposed to leave an uninsured driver hit my car at a stop light, which caused enough damage to total the car.  With all the hassle because of the uninsured motorist, and the trouble with my insurance company on getting a rental car that I could take to WV I was forced to cancel the vacation.  It took almost two weeks to get things straightened out and get a new car - and then it broke down within the first week and took a major repair.  But that's all history now, so no use dwelling on it.

Broken wheel number one: my totalled VW.  Lucky the bike didn't get ruined as well.

Broken wheel number two: the other front wheel is pointed straight ahead.

Ken and I did manage to get the bikes out for an overnighter at Clear Creek State Forest, Kennerdell Tract.  So we did get to use the pannier systems that I made, and it turned out that while they do work they need some tweaking to get them perfect.

Ken on his bike, getting ready to ride into Kennerdell.

You can see them on the photo above. Diana got us four waterproof bags on clearance, for something like 80% off.  So I bought 100 feet of 1 inch black nylon strapping, and designed and sewed up two harnesses that hold the bags on the bike.  They hold quite a bit of stuff, but I can see that I'm going to have to start investing in some ultra-light camping gear if I want to actually do some real touring.

Our bike packing trip turned out great, with nice warm weather.  We camped at almost the exact same spot where we stayed last time we headed out there, a nice ferny section of woods not far off of the gravel forest road.  We used our new tent for the first time, and Ken got to be camp cook.

Ken loves it when I take his picture.  Observe the enthusiasm.

I'd like for us to be able to get out on at least one more overnight bike trip before the season turns.  I'm thinking of a paved bike path trip over by the Allegheny River, probably from Emlenton up to the campsite on Sandy Creek Trail, then back the next morning.

Bike camping map - Allegheny River Gorge area

And we've got a long weekend planned for Labor Day, with Diana actually able to get the whole weekend off work.  Hopefully we'll get a bit of rain so that we can camp over by the Clarion River and get in some kayak time.  But even if it's dry we'll be able to get out and camp, and that's good enough!

Classic lines at the LaBrae car show.

On to the next topic!  It's been about 7 months since I started watching my calorie intake and increasing my amount of exercise, all in an effort to shed some weight that I'd put on over the previous year.  This wasn't the first time that I'd tried this since turning 50, and there was no reason to really expect any more success than I'd had at earlier efforts.  But I figured that limiting my calories (including eliminating sugary foods and drinks from my diet), and adding a basic weight training program could only have good effects in the long run, even if my weight didn't change much.

The first couple of weeks were tough.  I definitely have a sweet tooth, and eliminating Mountain Dew from my routine was harder than I expected.  But I kept at it, even if there were no noticeable changes for a looong while.  But after about two months I started to notice a difference - maybe that's just how long it took my metabolism to get used to a different nutritional balance.  And now after 7 months I'm down about 25 pounds - from 205 to about 180.  I know it's not a huge difference, but for me at 5' 5"  I feel a LOT better without that 25 pounds. And since I'm not planning on returning to my old diet there is hope that the gradual weight loss will continue for a while.  If I was able to drop another 15 pounds I would be extremely satisfied.

With the weight loss and all the extra rail trail miles I put in during the extra rainy months of June and July, it seems like I'm riding my mountain bike pretty well this year.  Trails finally started to dry out towards the end of July, and all the local trails are finally in great shape.  I've had some great rides out at West Branch on the fat bike, as well as on my Gary Fisher Marlin.  And the trail crew has repaired the trails at Quail Hollow, making the trail better than it's ever been.

West Branch State Park, Rock Run Trail.

The skinnies on West Branch's Exit Ramp Trail.

The Marlin at West Branch S.P.

Even though we're already in the last month of summer we still have a bunch of stuff on the schedule, including a trip up to Conneaut, Ohio tomorrow to watch a D-Day re-enactment.  I'll remember to take lots of pictures for the next blog post!

Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day weekend is a kind of milestone by which the summer is measured.  I'm definitely not one of those guys who thinks that it means the end of summer - heck, just looking at the calendar will show you that there's another three weeks still owed to us.  And summer is kind of a state of mind anyway, not something that's necessarily easily defined by the calendar.  But it is the end of the three 'summer months', and with school starting it means a change of routine for students and parents.

I've had a tough time getting into the summer mind set anyway this year.  I definitely missed the early summer mountain bike season, which kind of dissolved into mud thanks to the all too frequent rains of June and July.  But August - it really did give me the flavor of summer, with all the heat, sweat, bugs and grit that I'd missed.  I did have a 'no faith in humanity' moment early in the month, when someone stole my mtb backpack - with all my tools, pump, first aid kit, camera equipment, etc - out of my car, but that's been the standout negative happening in a basically good month.

The rain did finally let up in August.  I only got 4 singletrack rides in during June, and four more in July.  Almost all of my rides were longer rail trail trips, where it doesn't matter if the surface is wet or dry.  But in August I managed to get in seven singletrack sessions - not a big number by any means, but an improvement.  And there were also about a dozen nice road or rail trail rides too, so I managed to get in about 170 miles in the saddle in August.  Compare that with July, where the focus was on longer rail trail rides and I managed to total up 223 miles.  Hopefully the weather will allow some more mountain biking in the upcoming month - I haven't even been out to ride at Kennerdell this year and would really like to.

Labor Day weekend ride at Bavington, PA.

I always take my mountain bike when I go for rail trail rides - because it's my only (working) bike.  Sure it's heavy as hell, and it takes a lot of energy to bring it to my top cruising speed of about 15 mph.  But the idea behind my pavement riding isn't to go as fast as I can, but to build up fitness and burn those extra calories, so a big heavy bike is just fine.  But my father-in-law (a truly good guy) got me an el-cheepo bike at an auction, so I've been fixing it up with the idea that it will be my rail trail bike and I can stop wearing out my knobby tires on the asphalt.

This bike is a tank.  It's a 26 inch "Stalker" 12 speed - steel framed, mega-cheap.  The flimsy wheels are stamped '1989'.  The derailleurs are at least Shimano, but they're not a model I've heard of before.  I stripped off a mess of ugly plastic dress up parts, which lightened it up a bit, and replaced the ruined tires and tubes with second hand equipment from the basement.  It took a couple of days (because I am REALLY not a bike mechanic) but I managed to get both of the derailleurs to shift correctly - and the brakes to work.  I plan on putting some narrower, smoother tires on soon but even now it's kind of fun to ride around the neighborhood.   It gives me some incentive to try and rehab the 1980's Puch Cavette frame that I've had since I was a teenager...

Another thing about Labor Day is the Oxroast Car Show, sponsored each year by the Glenn Christian Foundation at the Trumbull County Fairgrounds.  This is a totally FREE event (free parking, free admission, free midway rides, free music, and a big free ox roast meal) and is the high point of the local car shows.  Every year I spend time there and every year it's a lot of fun.  This year was no exception - beautiful cars, great weather, and fun with friends and family.  I've posted up a couple of pictures of my favorite cars.

My favorite of the whole show.

Really a work of art.

Fantastic inside and out.

It was a fitting way for my son to end his summer vacation as well, with a great day of cars and fun.  Always a good thing to see the boy having a good time.

Now lets see what September has to offer.  Hope everyone who stops in and checks out the blog has a great end to their summer, and a fine start to their autumn.

Summer so far

I keep on waiting for that ‘summer feeling’ to hit me, but it just aint happening this year.  I know the calendar says that we’re halfway through the season as of today, but that feeling just isn’t there.

 

The weather is part of the reason.  The last several years we’ve become accustomed to a slightly wet spring, followed by a dry, hot summer.  But this year we’ve only had a couple of days up in the 90’s, which happened pretty much all in one hot streak.  Most of our days have been much cooler, with many days that have had highs only in the 70’s.  And the night temperatures have been comparatively chilly, with a bunch of nights down in the lower 50’s – and even one or two in the upper 40’s!  I’m not complaining about any of this though.  Back in my youth I was pretty much heat resistant, but now I’m at the half century mark I have to admit that things have changed, and riding a bike during those 90 degree days really takes a toll on me.

The other weather issue that has been – uh, let us say OBVIOUS has been the rain.  We’ve been getting pretty significant rain events pretty much every week.  Some have been fairly minor, but then we’ve had a bunch of multi-day long hard rains.  So where I’m used to seeing brown lawns and empty creeks, this year it’s amazingly lush greenery everywhere, and water levels that are far above the usual summer lows.  But the big impact on my summer mojo has been that this regular rain has kept the dirt mountain bike trails soft for weeks at a time.  REALLY soft.  So soft that you’d have to be a mtb evil-doer to be rotten enough to go out and destroy them by riding.

So there hasn’t been much singletrack this summer.  Where I usually would be getting at least two days of dirt riding every week, this summer it’s been the norm to NOT get to ride dirt at all.  Checking my mapmyride stats shows that there were only 4 singletracks in June, and 4 in July.

I’ve made a couple of trips over to Moraine State Park in Pennsylvania – a trail system that is locally famous for the way that it holds up to rainy conditions.  And I got in good rides when I went, but with the wet weather Moraine has become the ‘go to’ trails for local riders, and all the extra traffic is starting to develop mud holes in the areas between the rocks.  And I got in a couple of rides between the rain out at West Branch, Quail Hollow, and Beaver Creek.  But the trails are just so soft that riding makes deep ruts – and that is a BIG no-no for mtbrs.

What do you do when you’re a dirt rider and the dirt is too soft?  Resign yourself to riding on the pavement of course.  I've put in way more rail trail miles this summer than I ever have before.  And as the miles have added up I've started riding further distances when I have the time.  Usually I have less than two hours of free time – so that gives me time to drive to the rail trail, ride for about 1-1/4 hours and then drive home with a distance ridden of between 12 and 18 miles.  This summer I’ve spent some longer days on the trail, and have several 35 mile days.  And I've noticed that my average speeds are getting faster, too.  So all the pavement miles have been helping boost my fitness so that when I do get on the dirt I’m feeling pretty darn good, and can ride to the best of my ability.

And here we are in August, when the dirt should be hard-baked like concrete – but instead it’s so soft that on my last singletrack ride – out at Quail Hollow this week – revealed the most EPIC (and I don’t get to use that word that often in relation to my riding) mudhole that I’ve seen on a trail.  Four feet wide and twenty feet long of nasty, grey Jello mud with no way around.  Sad.  I was hoping that the five days without rain would have been enough to soak up some of the water.

The weather forecast for the upcoming week: chance of rain today, tomorrow, Friday and Tuesday.  Damn.  Well, maybe it’ll rain enough that I can get a kayak trip in…

The Well Worn Trail

I've been slacking lately - not doing the work I should be doing - on several projects, this blog being one of them. I'm not sure what the reason is behind this lack of motivation, but for the time being I'm blaming it on a gloomy winter that dragged out into a reluctant spring.  And though the weather seems as if it has finally decided that spring is here I'm not quite back into the swing of things yet.  Yard work remains to be done, and my bike is in the shop having a bunch of stuff replaced, repaired, or re-adjusted.  But I'm starting to feel the caveman stirrings of the blood that are indicators of summer activity, so it seems like a good time to dust off the keyboard and update the blog.

We had a nice rain event a couple of weeks ago, one that had me watching the Accuweather precipitation total maps and the USGS real time streamflow gauges.  I managed to get in two nice whitewater kayak trips while the water was up, and had pretty much decided that I was going to write a post about paddling Wolf Creek.  But then this weekend, with my bike in the shop, I decided to go for a short hike on a familiar trail instead.  So that's today's story.

Slippery Rock Creek is NW Pennsylvania's most reliably running whitewater creek.  It's just to the east of New Castle, and about an hour's drive from my house in eastern Ohio.  The best whitewater section of the creek is in McConnells Mill State Park, where you can paddle about five miles of class II-III rapids when the water is up.  This is where I learned to paddle whitewater, and I've made literally hundreds of runs down the gorge.



Me on Slippery Rock Creek in 1999, in my old Pirouette.  Note the bike helmet...

I had thought that my weekend was pretty much scheduled full, but then I unexpectedly got a couple of hours of free time, and needed to find a quick adventure that I could fit in.  There was a light rain falling, but that wasn't a problem.  So I packed up a bit of gear and headed east into Pennsylvania.

This trail runs down the gorge alongside the creek, right alongside the best of the whitewater - "The Mile" as it's known to local paddlers.  I've hiked it dozens of times, from the downstream end back up to the parking area by the ranger station, as a finale for solo kayaking trips on the creek.  But it's been three years since I've been on The Mile, and I've only been down by the creek a few times lately, so it seemed like a good idea to revisit this beautiful spot.

I parked up at the Point parking area, and hiked down the stairs into the gorge.  The highest points on the surrounding ridge are more than 400 feet above the creek, so there can be a bit of up and down if you're hiking in this area.



 

 

Once down by the creek I can see that it's at a nice juicy level, high enough that a paddle down would be a serious blast.  There had been a big rain early in  the week, and I knew that the water would likely be high, but it's still nice to see the rocks covered and hear the muted roar of whitewater echoing from downstream.  The rain and warm weather have been good to the forest too, and its beginning to show signs of spring.  The wildflowers are starting to bloom, and the trees are showing buds.  Everything seems a bit greener and the smell of wet earth fills the air.

 

 





 

 

The way is open and obvious, but not necessarily easy.  With the steep gorge walls squeezing the creek, the trail sometimes has to climb up quite a ways to find a path downstream.  The boulders that constrict the creek and create the whitewater also litter the banks, so that the trail involves a good deal of scrambling up and over.  It's one of those trails where you have to watch your footing the whole time, lest you catch a toe and tumble down the banks to end up in the water.  Yet despite the hazard it is an overwhelmingly beautiful place.  The hemlocks that line the creek give a dark, majestic presence to the narrow gorge, standing tall over grey lichen-encrusted boulders lining the perpetual movement of the creek.  Silent wildflowers grow among niches where wild bird songs compete with the drip of water down sheer rockfaces.  This is a special place, and I'm lucky to know that it's here.

 



 

 

Midway along the trail you come to McConnells Mill, a restored grist mill powered by the waters of the creek.  Here the water pools up behind a dam, and boaters must get out of the creek and portage around to the rapids below. 

 

 

 

 Looking over the creek from the observation deck I see a Great Blue Heron fishing in the water below the dam.  I've seen several people fishing along the creek already, as well as a pair of kingfishers, but the heron seems to be oblivious to everything else but the water.

 

 

 

As I hike down the trail I scout each rapid - a habit left over from the days when I paddled every weekend.  Some of the rapids seem very familiar, and I can easily remember the line needed to make it through smoothly.  Other rapids seem almost unfamiliar, and I study them trying to remember the approach, the move, and the exit.  Funny how something that once seemed as familiar as my own signature can gain distance over a couple of years.  As I hike along I promise myself that I'll get my boat back on the Slip this summer, when the water is nice and low, and re-establish my connection with the creek.  I've truly enjoyed the last five years of mountain biking, but I find that I'm missing whitewater more and more.

 



 

 

The hike takes an hour and a half to cover just over three miles.  The rain had stopped somewhere along the line, but I'm still soaking wet with sweat as I climb up the stairs back to the car.  Back in the day I used to run this trail from the take-out back to the Mill, carrying a paddle in one hand and wearing a life jacket.  Hell, I even carried my 50 pound boat the whole distance before.  Just goes to show that time goes on, despite our best efforts to ignore it.

 

It's going to be a great summer. I can't wait.