Full Moon Mountain Bike Ride

To celebrate the Full Moon, John Harter called a ride up at Smithville Lake. The only catch was no lights were allowed. He mentioned that we would be able to see just fine with the Full Moon and the snow on the ground. Let me be the first to say that John is FOS. You couldn't even see two feet in front of you. Not to go against his rides rules of no lights we pressed on....Most of the trail was in o.k. shape. Other parts were really hard to ride and made a really challenging ride. On the way back we (Tige Lamb and Mark Studnicki) somehow lost Harter, Puglsy man and the others. They might have done the smart thing and doubled back on the packed trails. We on the other hand peddled our bikes through several inches of deep snow. We only rode one lap which took nearly two hours (this included a stop to repair Tige's flat tire).

We decide to hit the Subway on the way home, but we never made. My trusty 1996 Ford Aerostar had a little mishap on the way home. I started hearing some loud noises coming from the front end. Come to think of it, I have been hearing noises for the past week, but thought it was something to do with the transmission. We stopped and tried to figure out what the problem was. I decided I was just going to park the van overnight in a nearby construction area because I just had this feeling that something was not right. I go to back up and turn around to park and the darn front wheel falls off. I lost all control of the van and thought for a second that I was going to hit Tige who was behind me. The van finally came to a stop several feet from a nearby ditch with my tire still in the middle of the road. Thanks to Tige, he ran out into the road to grab my tire before it was run over by an oncoming vehicle. I guess I should be very thankful that the tire didn't come off while traveling 70 mph. I could have wound up seriously injured or god forbid dead in a Smithville ditch. Thank you God!

Winter Wonder Rides

Today was a little a hard getting up. Yesterday's crash was a little worse than I thought. I could hardly move my neck this morning and all the muscles in neck and upper shoulders were really sore. After about 30 minutes for stretching and yoga I felt better.

Sunday's planned ride was out at Clinton Lake. These trails can be hard to ride when it is dry let alone with 2 to 3 inches of snow. Randy Cartwright, Shad Schreiner, Gerard Arantowicz, Mark Studnicki, Jeff Arnaud and myself got in about 2 1/2 hours of riding. We we out there close to 3 hours, but about 1/2 was fixing all of Shad mechanical's (2 flats and a broken chain). Luckly I had my cool Crank Brothers multi-tool to get em going again. Another good base ride in the books.

A fun day of riding out at the Landahl Winter Wonder Ride. We got in about 3 hours worth of riding. Conditions starting off were a bit cold - 5 degrees, but we quickly warmed up. I for one felt very good in the cold conditions. My clothing was a base layer, long sleeve jersey, winter jacket, base layer of tights, winter riding pants, Lake winter shoes with booties, baklava and a pair of lobster gloves.

The ride was going well and I felt good on the bike. The only exception was the rocky technical sections. Every time it got rocky and technical Rich picked up the pace. Or I guess it could have been I slowed down and it just seemed like he picked it up :-) About 1 1/2 hours into the ride we entered a section of Landahl called Rim Job. This sections is rather technical and has a just name, but after a header that I took (because my winter riding pants got caught on my seat) I think we should change the name to Head Job. End result was a cracked helmet and a broken ego....

Heck, even my Brother Joey went riding in the snow today. And he lives in Florida.

Here are today's top 5 Do and Do Nots for cold weather riding:

• Do fill your water bottles/bladders with hot water before your ride.

• Do run your tire pressure as low as possible - 28/30 is best.

• Do wear your camel back under your jacket to avoid freezing.

• Do not wear baggy winter riding pants.

• Do not leave soda's in the cooler (which is in the van outside) overnight :-)

Racing against Floyd.

Check out this Landis to race NUE series.

I'm going to put my Hole shot face on and stuff em in the first corner :-) Just like Mark says "Neutralize him in the single track"

Training is going well for my first 100 mile mountain bike race. The Cohutta 100 is planned for April 19th. My base miles are adding up and I am feeling very healthy and most importantly motivated to do well. Still undecided if I'm racing my Anthem 1 or my Single Speed. Weather is crappy here in Kansas City, but I still plan to put in some heavy training this weekend. Temps are fore casted very cold (10 degrees on Saturday) which will keep the trails frozen. Hopefully Landahl did not get a lot of snow and Saturday's planned ride will be a go. Sunday we are heading out to Clinton for a 1:00pm ride.

Test - Nightrider MiNewt. X2

I just got one of those new Nightrider Minewt.X2's from The Wheel Cyclery. Decided I would give them a quick test during an impromptu night training ride with my teammates - Randy Cartwright, John Harter and Rich Anderson.

Ride: 37 Miles/2 hours 47 min on the Smithville Lake paved trails.

Conditions: Butt arse cold, windy and very dark. What did you expect it's winter in Kansas City.

First Impressions were very good. Installing the Minewt lighting system was very easy. The two headlamps mounted with rubber straps and the battery uses a nice wide Velcro strap to secure it to the stem. I had the system mounted in about 2 min. The X2's are bright enough to ride single track for sure. I was a little worried about getting a LED based system, but the X2's are very bright. I tried to take a picture of how bright they were, but I didn't have the settings correct on my cheap Samsung camera. System worked great for the next hour, but then went dead on me. I guess I should have charged it before I went out to test :-).

Luckily I had my backup from Night Sun and completed the ride with no problem. This is a good reason to never leave home without a backup. I will do a complete test later this week on our next night ride to see the burn time on both high and low settings. If you are thinking of getting a Nightrider Minewt make sure you get a X2 dual system if you are going to use on single track. For commuting a single system would be find, but for single track you need the dual model.

New Hobby

Christopher's new found hobby. For some reason he keeps finding very expensive hobbies.....