Mohican part 3

With the weather as nice as it has been I decided last night to go to Mohican again today. This time I "slept in" until 7am when I got up and started getting ready. I really took my time since I wasn't meeting anybody and had a lot of time to waste. Had breakfast a few cups of coffee, read the Plain Dealer and then decided to head out the door. The parking lot had a few cars and more people driving in. By 11am I was hitting the trail. This time all the leaves are down and the trail was covered up to the hubs in some places. The storm that went through on Tuesday took 3 trees down but Ryan Odell was walking the trail doing some light maintenance and I'm sure they'll be cut and moved off the trail soon. The trail is so dry that not even the Tuesday rain did anything to it other than keep the dust down. Had a great ride and maybe I'll make it again next Saturday.

On to another subject. I took the road single speed and turn it into a 1 x 9 for fall, winter early spring riding.
Before:

NOW:

Sram 12-26 cassette, cannondale carbon fork, shimano 105 parts I had laying around and a 42" chain ring.

1 shifter brake lever and a "retro" brake lever. Haven't hit the road on it yet, but I rode the trainer and the rollers and it shifts great.

Road Repairs

Well, it looks like Valley Parkway in Brecksville is going to be repaired before the weather turns after all. That's good news for all of us that travel through there everyday. Allthough, it is great not having any car traffic there.

The heavy equipment was brought in and work has started.













Yesterday on my commute home I almost got thrown off the bike a couple of times. It was so windy I had a stiff neck when I got home holding on to the handlebars. Ther's still a few days left until the time change to ride home from work hopefully the weather will cooperate next week. After next week I may try riding home  a day or two a week and see how it goes because it's going to be getting dark earlier.
We'll se how it goes.

Mohican 2

Went back to Mohican last Sunday to take advantage of the weather and it was a beautiful day. Temps in the 50's to start and mid 60's by the time we finished. Hopefully yesterday's storms dumped some rain down there to soften up the trail a little bit. It is is so hard on some downhill sections the bike bounces all over the trail and you really have to hold on to the handlebar. Nevertheless, better like that than muddy. No crashes this time.
Did you notice how strange yesterday's storm was, no thunder or lightning, at least in Solon where I work.  I was looking out the window at my house later in the afternoon towards the horizon and it was the weirdest sky I have seen in a long time, don't even know how to explain it.
I'm checking the weather in Pa and planning to go to Raystown mtb trails in the next couple of weeks before the weather finally turns for the worst, meaning wet muddy trails.
If you see me on the road today, please throw me a tow rope. It's going to be a long ride home from work with a strong head wind blowing.
Have a great one.

Fall colors

E-BIKE as in electric bike

Valley pkwy climb

Rode from work yesterday in the rain. It never stopped raining in Solon until after 5pm.
The climb up to route 21 on Valley pkwy looks like this. It doesn't look like they are going to fix it before the weather turns real bad. There's so many leaves, sticks and nuts that there's places you can't even see the pavement. Going up is not bad. "Can't wait until I ride down at 6am tomorrow morning".

The wooly bear myth explained

The wooly bear caterpillar, which turns into the tiger moth, Isia Isabella, is the source of a common superstition. Some people believe that the coat of a wooly bear caterpillar can be used to predict how bad the coming winter will be. There are many wooly bear caterpillars in the United States and Canada. They can be seen anytime from May to October.

They believe that if a wooly bear caterpillar's brown stripe is thick, the winter weather will be mild and if the brown stripes are narrow, the winter will be severe.
One experiment showed that the color bands might tell where the caterpillar grew up. Some think that the wide black bands mean the caterpillar was living in wet conditions while the wide brown band means the caterpillar was living in dry conditions.
The coloration may also show how near being an adult the caterpillar is. At full growth, fall weather signals the wooly caterpillar to seek shelter, as ladybugs do.
In the late 1600s, farmers relied on weather history to predict weather. For that reason, they looked for something in nature to help them. They found the wooly bear caterpillar. Reports about the weather, along with a comparison of wooly bear stripes, made people think that the wooly bear's coat was a good signal about weather. Some people still believe the wooly bear caterpillar can be used to predict weather.
Not that wooly bear, but this one

The morning after

I got up this morning to find more bruises from my nice crash yesterday. The elbow really looks ugly.
Got a ride to work with my daughters boyfriend so I can ride home in the afternoon, hopefully the rain will stay away until I get home tonite. Is going to be a long day, got here at 6:30 and I don't start work until 8am. I figured an hour early is not as bad as getting up at 4:30 and riding to work. I have to keep putting in the miles, at the end of January I'm going to PR to do La Vuelta 375 miles in 3 days with 150 the first day. I'm hoping the weather stays warm enough for long weekend rides.

Tow path / Mohican riding

With a lot of yard work to do on Saturday, I decided to go for an early ride on the tow path on my road single speed. I had plans to go to the last Neo series race at the knob but I didn't want to keep on posponing the yard work. Who knows how many more nice weekends we are going to have.

It was a great day for an early ride. Many leaf peepers on the trail, there was even a bus full of them at the train station and I had to basically play dodge for the first 3-4 miles.

It was great to see that many people enjoying the trail, but please, move out of the way when you see a bike coming. I almost hit a couple of people even though they see me from a mile away and don't move over. I'm on my side move over to yours.

Lots of woolly bears on the trail. Have to brush up and find out about the color bands again. I forgot what they mean in terms of how our winter weather is going to be if the dark band is wide or narrow or no bands at all.

Got up today at 6am and headed to Mohican to meet Ken at the trail head. Got there at 8 and the sun was just starting to get bright. It was 42 degrees when I got there and 62 when I left. 3 miles into the trail and I had already peeled off layers. The trail was so dry it was hard and bumpy in a lot of places, it almost looked like horses had been on it.

Rode across the covered bridge and since I had not been off road in over a month my back was killing me, I decided to by-pass the steep climb after the bridge and climb the road to the horse trailer paking area at the top and hit the trail again from there. The colors of the leaves when the sun hits them is just amazing. Even the leaves already laying on the trail look beautiful. And thanks to all those leaves on the trail on a fast downhill section covered up with leaves I hit a soft lip and down I went. Skinned off my elbow real good. It didn't look like much until I got to the car and was able to take a good look at it.

And that was with a long sleeve jersey on. Could have been worse without it. Overall, a great sunny dry weekend. Let's hope we get a few more before the cold a wet weather settles in.

Hocking Hills

Have to start saying "My wife" I got a lecture from the boss for calling her "The wife".

Anyway, "the wife" and I drove down to the Hocking Hills area Sunday and spent a night at Ravenwood castle.
 Our son and new daughter gave us a night at this place for helping them during the wedding. The place sits on top of a hill surrounded by trees and nothing else. Very quiet very nice place, it even has a pub style dungeon with beer and wine but because it sits in a dry county, there was no beer or wine for Sunday dinner. Dinner was very good but the portions were on the small side. Breakfast was buffet style and also very good.
On our way home we made a couple of stops at Ash Cave and Cantwell Cliffs for a little hiking. The color of the leaves and the nice warm weather was perfect to spend a great weekend with "the wife".

Todays lunch

No, I didn't eat it, I had Tilapia Shanghai style instead. It sure looked good and tasted good according to Roger at one of my co-workers 30 year anniversary lunch. Can you imagine, 30 years at the same company. It'll be 30 for me too next March.

Re-grouping

After the Georgia ride I've been catching my breath and re-grouping. Making (or trying) plans for 2011 really expecting not to get hurt and be able to complete a whole season of racing without gettting hurt.
I started my  off season program on Monday and boy am I hurting. I had not done much leg lifting, plyometrics and dips for the last 3 months and I could hardly walk on Tuesday. My spinning classes finally started for the fall and winter and that's extra doe for the cycling budget. In the works is plans for a 2 week trip out west to show the wife some of the places I've visited like the Grand Canyon, Zion, Moab and many other places I'll like to see again. One place i really want to go se is the Rocky mountains NP which I have never visited. More later, time to work.

Few pics from Georgia

It was an Epic ride with all the rain, but one of the most organized rides I have done in a long time. It was hot it was cold, drizzle, hard rain but it was great. Thinking about next year...So much water, I had to take the tires off the rims to drain the rims.

About to turn around and yell wheel sucker.

Please explain to me, what I'm doing here

Doesn't look like I'm a good mood
after I saw a hybrid drafting me.
Didn't last long.

Valley Parkway, Brecksville

VP after route 21 in Brecksville has been closed for the last few weeks and it doesn't look like it's going to open soon. Part of the road sunk on the hill going up from the bottom. The pictures are about 3 weeks old and now the road is worse. Good for doing short hill inetrvals if you don't mind the leaves, the buckeyes and small branches all over the road. Let's hope it's fixed before next years road race there.
you can see in the video below how the road looked yesterday going up on my commute home from work. In the morning commute to work is an adventure going down.