Hello Stranger!

It's been awhile since my last post, family and working has become more of a priority than blogging or even cycling. Cycling was a way for me to release my stress and writing about my experiences had become another hidden outlet for me.

I have been riding more than last summer and more so on the mountain bike than the road bike. I hate to say it but riding on the road scares me. I have been reading a lot, lately of cyclist dying from car accidents locally and nationally. There are so many distractions while driving, whether it's eating, drinking, changing the radio channels, looking at the GPS for directions and even texting. I'm no saint when I drive but I can see how easily it is to be distracted.

So I have been taking my trusty and creaky 10 year old mountain bike, the Turner 5 Spot on some adventures this past summer. At first, I said it's was the Turner's Farewell Tour, meaning that I going to replace my favorite bike but economically, that won't happen unless I can land a new job. Have you noticed the cost of these mountain bikes have skyrocketed over the past few years. $1,800 used to get you a bang for your buck kind of bike but now, a frame will easily cost you $2,500 to $3,500, which is insane! This next bike will probably be my "last" bike but I know it will easily cost me over 5k for the next bike. 5 THOUSAND DOLLARS, you say but just think about it, if you are into golf, you wouldn't even think twice and spend $300 for one new golf club or spend $100 each week to play golf. To me, it's all relative in what you like. So I want to hear your comment, on what you spend your money on and don't think twice about it?

So that's it for now. Be kind to one another and if you are riding... Happy Trails!

LOTSA SLIPPIN' & SLIDIN'

    It's been a long time since we last talked, and a lot has gone on. I lost and found a new job. A better commute, a bigger company, tons of work to keep me busy AND more opportunities to ride.

    See the new job is centraly located for me to ride at 4 spots. 2 of them is less than an hour away, 1 is about 30 minutes and the other is about 25 minutes and with me getting out of work by 5 pm, that gives me plenty of time to ride. So I have been fortunate this summer in getting a lot of riding time in. For awhile there I was riding 5 to 6 days a week, hence no postings.

    So tonight i met up a few people from NJ MTBR forum. We all met at 6 Mile Run but when I got there, the dark clouds already rolled in and in the faint distance you heard thunder and quick flashes of lightening. The wind picked up and the rain came and we all went to our cars hoping it would pass thru. Well it rained lightly, then harder and then hail dropped, about the size of marbles and of course the wind. Well it finally let up a lil and we all came out of our cars and started the ride. I say we had about 7 people, all different ranges but with the way the trails were, the playing field was even. It seemed like a quick ride, lotsa slippin and slidin' but on the way back, the wind picked up, some thunder was heard and the rain came back, heavy. Now riding in the rain is fine in the woods, half the time you don't feel it thru the trees unless it pours and thats what it did. So as we climbed up the trails, the trails themselves became lil rivers or like lil log flumes of fun.

    It was fun. The ride was cut short from the rain earlier. I wish I could ride a bit longer, but hey, that's what the weekends are for!

~happy trails
dirty "muddy" bert

MUD SLINGING AT 6 MILE!

there's v-brakes under there somewhere

    WOW, what a ride! I thought last weekend ride was muddy but this was insane!

    For the first time, I rode with Mike, Pat, Andy and Lee at 6 Mile. The weather was nice, a sunny 40 degree day with no wind. I was sportin' my fenders again and the same outfit as last weekend because that seemed to work for me.

a major mud dam begins

    As we hit the first section of trail, it became a preview of how the ride was going to be. The mud was as slick as ice and sticky like GU. I thought my fenders would give me an advantage but it only protected my eyes from the flying mud clumps as i rode down any hills.

I know everything seems to blend together, but you understand what's going on here

    I fell twice. I leaned into the slope and when I leaned to far, the front tire would just slide out and down i'd go. The tires got completely clogged to the point where my tire's mud extended a good inch past the tire and the big brown tire looked at least 4" wide.

here's the bike after the ride on the rack

    As you can see from the pictures, it clogged everywhere. I think my bike gained at least 5 pounds of mud. Would I do it again? Sure. Why? Because, I was out riding, first and foremost. Secondly, the mud made me somewhat a better rider, with all the braking and steering that I had to do. And third, I got to ride with new people and share one of favorite NJ riding spots.

happy muddy trails
~dirty bert

My Mud Buddy & Me!

    Wow, what a muddy day. Well I met Jen for a nice, bitter, windy cold ride this past weekend at 6m (aka 6 Mile Run). I arrived late and not only do I do that but lost my disc brake pad in the gravel parking lot. Yea, it was like finding a needle in the haystack. The pad was black and gray and the gravel parking lot was black and gray and to add insult to injury, I think the dam pad floated away in the wind.

    Not to be discouraged from no front brake, I decided to ride anyways and not be denied of this ride wit Jen. Off we go, Me sportin' front and rear fenders, wool socks, over my thermal thighs and a long sleeve coml. shirt tucked into the tights and another warm jersey over that and my heavyweight jersey/jacket over that and under my helmet i was wearing balaclava.

    The trails were muddy, the logs looked wet but you never know if they were actually wet or just iced, either way, my rear tire slid along them. All the mud ruts were frozen, which is always interesting to try to ride in or over them. You always fall a victim of riding in them, hoping the other person before you, picked a good line.

    We got to ride over the new bridge, thank god it was much wider with a nice approach, I walked my bike over it because the snow/ice that formed on it made me second guess myself. On the way home, I did ride it but was so paranoid thinking that I would ride off of it.

    The mud we did find, was thick and heavy, nothing like the soupy kind you find in the summer. This crap stuck like crazy glue to the bike and loved to clog every hole on the bike, I think my bike gained 3 pounds of mud over the 2.5 hrs. we rode. I forgot to spray the underside of my fenders with Pam, you know that "non-stick" cooking spray, the crap wipes off so much easier, try it next time.

Very lil traction in da mud.

Look at the mud nest.

    Well the ride was a lot of fun and we got back to the parking lot in time to see the bow hunter head into the woods. I didn't wipe my bike down in the parking lot, I probably should have, so instead I placed the bike on the roof and the wind, froze the mud onto the bike but not before some mud splattered and froze to car. I got a frozen mud splatter on my roof, back window and on the trunk.

My brown & silver Turner.

    It took me 3 days to clean the bike, along with me doing the dumb thing of washing it outside. The sudsy bubbles on the frame, actually froze, good job, dummy! Anyway it's clean, well kinda of, but I'm dropping it off at the shop tonight for sum repairs. Real quick, one time i didn't clean my bike off, well not that labor intensive as I did this time and the bike shop charged me additionally for cleaning the bike so they could work on it. It sounds crazy but it's true. I don't care about the cold weather, nor the wind or the sno, all I care about is getting back to 6m for more mud madness.

happy trails
~dirty "muddy" bert

Sun, Mud and Fun!

    Well it didn't take long, but i did it. I broke my 1 of my New Year's resolution by not posting everyday. Thursday was my last post but I did start to create a post for Friday about how nice global warming has been with it extending my riding season. I know it's bad but this season is actually livable on the east coast.

    Well I got to ride the whole weekend. Saturday was insane, we broke a record here, at 73 degrees and I got to wear shorts and a short sleeve jersey. I was planning to ride at 6 Mile but I was warned that it was swampy there and then thought about going to Hartshorne but I didn't want to do the drive and then I thought about Allaire but I hate to ride somewhere, where I'm still completely unfamiliar with the trails, so instead I rode at Mercer.

    The trails were slick, lotsa slippin' and slidin' in that goop. I think I rode for 2.5 hours on Saturday and 1.5 on Sunday. Both days I fell, Saturday I clipped a tree and I tried to correct the direction I was heading after the clip and the tire tire just washed out and down I went. No big deal, I just receive some minor scrapes. On Sunday, I cut the corner to slow and tight and the front tire again, washed out and I fell to the ground but this time my back found a way to smash and scrape down a tree nearby. I'm so thankful that lil tree didn't break like they normally do or otherwise I would have been jabbed in the side with the stump. I also unclipped at a bad moment, where I just got over a log and my left foot unclipped and whipped back around to smash and scraped the back of my leg. Remember the days, where we rode with metal cages and toe straps and yer shoe was wet or the pedal was and you'd slip on the pedal and it would reel around and slap you on the shin! Oh god, there was no other pain like tha in the world!

    I got re-invest in some fenders. I had a pair that snapped on but a lil accident broke them. I saw a pic at the Interbike show, of some company has made inflatible fenders. i really like that idea because you can always carry that in yer camelback. I also like THE fenders. The THE fenders are kinda more fancier and I guess prettier than the ordinary Topeak fenders that I currently run. The "THE" in these fenders stand for "Toby Henderson Enterprise". Here's a lil bit of a background in case yer wondering who the hell is Toby Henderson is.

    I took some pics of when I was riding this past weekend but I need to upload them on my computer. I hate not posting a lil pic along with these ramblings but I will try to get them up, sometime tomorrow.

happy muddy trails!
~dirty bert