Christmas Ride

Medium-rare is the mountain bike ride that is fueled from the carcass of an eight-pound rib roast with a horseradish and garlic crust. Kitima spends most early December mornings like G.I. Jane grunting through a regimen of one-armed pull-ups and no-armed push-ups in an effort to be able to hoist the annual hunk of bovine flesh from fridge to counter to oven and out again. Now I know why meat has to rest.

On the Eve and on Christmas Day we went over to Dryer Rd. Park. The first day we met her friends Mary Ellen and Chris, who, like us, got up at the crack of eleven. There isn't a dawn at noon.

The trails were medium-packed and like riding on a tremendously long and twisting pair of white corduroy pants with a bizarre pattern; possibly factory seconds. I found myself trying to identify tires from the tracks left behind. This could be a trivia game for the gal and boys back at the shop.

"I'll take cross tires in the mud for $400 Alex."
"The tire shown here, know for it's prowess in the slop, is only available in tubulars."



Being Thai I wonder if Kitima is having thoughts of the Bridge Over the River Kwai as she rides across this span. Is this Western Thailand? Is it the Burmese Railroad? Is that a Brit manning the TNT plunger?

Safely across she gives the thumbs-up.

At the top of Owl's Maze I attempted a reverse-fakey-butt grab-arbor-vert-Superman. It ended tragically. The bike was fine.

Here I am about to launch into some epic air; at least ten feet but the Thai camerawoman (I won't mention any names) suffered from premature aperturation.

PA, Part Deux

We started with a day at Seven Springs Ski Resort. Kitima is chugging up the steep road that leads to the cross-country trails on top where we cruised around and hit a few rock gardens.

Here Kitima bombs down a trail named Dirt Surfer at Allegrippis which sounds like something you might pay a prostitute to help you perform.

The next day we met a gang of riders at Allegrippis. There had to be around 15 of us at the start. After a short warm-up period on the trails someone shot an imaginary starting pistol and off we went. I sat in with a group of seven or so. It was like a pace line on the roads. A fun, but unsafe, way to ride single track. The leaves had left so you could see our colorful line snaking through corners, climbs and switchbacks. It reminded me of a dragon float at Chinese New Year.

Before I knew it Kalten was down in front of me. I took the low side of the trail, narrowly missing him and a mighty oak tree (it really was just a sapling, maple probably, but by next week if you ask me it will have been a 300-feet tall redwood). A few behind me weren't as lucky. After about an hour I got dropped from the front group once the trails went uphill a bit. Kitima consoled me later with a chilly ale.

Armed with a map by senior cartographer Jim C. (at a price of one Lake Placid 46er ale) we headed over to Rothrock State Park. He didn't have to but Jim added that the map "wasn't drawn to scale." Notice the "beer taps" on the far right of the map.

On the way to the Ridge Trail I splashed around a bit.

We found the beer taps after a few wrong turns, nebulous directions by some locals and plenty of expletives by me. After that we could've used a trail side brew.

A few logs greet you as you start up the Ridge Trail.

You didn't think you'd go to Rothrock State Park in the Keystone State and get away from some stones. There were rock gardens, rock ramps, rock stars...Fred Flintstone would love to ride here.

Kitima strikes a pose.

Innocent start to the trail. One of the most fun trails I've ever been on. The logs and rock gardens are unlike anything I've been on before. I'm already scheming a trip back in the spring to ride more of the park.

Ridge Trail seems to point uphill through a series of burned-out trees from a fire a few years back. It has an apocalyptic feel to it...something out of Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road (also coming to you in theatrical form at the end of November). Do you remember art class and drawing in 3-D? This trail is a line approaching, but never reaching, a vanishing point.

The Serendipitous Scout

"I have two bikes for you," Jim said motioning with his head towards the door leading to the basement stairs and away from the new bikes. He was already walking as if this proposal had never been rejected.

I left Kitima with Matt to discuss the best way to go about embellishing her current mountain bike. Matt had his bike on hand as a show and tell centerpiece and she was taking notes, pointing out parts, asking questions and the last thing I heard from her was a protracted, "wow!" as some carbon doohickey or expertly-machined gizmo was pointed out and explained in detail down to the last gram.

The steps were narrow and creaky and reminded me of the wood on a light-colored spruce violin my fat music teacher used to play in high school. We would taunt his classical sensibilities with requests of The Devil Went Down to Georgia and refer to his Stradivarius as a fiddle.

The planks were smooth from years of tiptoes but were arrayed at odd angles like something out of M.C. Escher's (no he wasn't a D.J.) print Relativity.

At the bottom of the stairs a gallimaufry of odors enveloped us. I smelled rubber, bike lube, mustiness, an aging fontina Val d'Aosta (peculiar, as I hadn't noticed any Wheat Thins upstairs in the shop) and something redolent of a sweaty leather Brooks saddle circa 1972? I took a deep breath.

Before me were what seemed to be an infinite amount of bikes. Most were hanging from the rafters but a few were standing at attention, with others more casually leaning against the rough rock foundation. It was hard to discern though from the sole 20-watt light bulb performing an anemic, Cimmerian, light-unfantastic aria.

"Here they are," he said pointing at two bikes hanging from the ceiling like a fisherman-landed shark strung up on the pier for that hackneyed photograph. If I ever catch a shark I'm going to lay it flat on its belly on the dock as I straddle it while hanging onto the dorsal fin with one hand and grasping a cowboy hat high above my head in the other hand. I think Shark Rodeo was on ESPN 8 the other night; I love the ocho!

Most of the bikes were used, that is they all came with a soul. It seems odd to me that the addition of a amiable ghost of rides-past reduces the value of a trusty steed. Suddenly I felt like I was in an animal shelter and wanted to take all of them home.

One was a 29er full suspension. It is identical to my current ride but a year or two older.

"Who wants a backup ride that's the same as his current one though?" Jim said at some point as I was staring at The Scout. Both were Jim's bikes.

The Scout is made by Origin8 but they do not have models called The Jem, The Atticus or The Boo.

Harper Lee would be proud to know that The Scout is steely, black and strong.

Jim listed the parts spec and I heard some of that, he spoke of the price and the company and I heard less of that. I must've looked like one of those fishes from the bottom of the ocean with huge eyes.

We ascended and for some reason I felt lucky not to have a case of the bends after lingering in the subterranean bike shelter.

I'm going to pick up The Scout in a few weeks after they doll it up and I get back from Allegrippis Part Deux.

Allegrippis

After much hype, kudos and fanfare from several people who rode the Allegrippis mountain bike trails at Raystown Lake in Central Pennsylvania Kitima and I headed down for a weekend.



What is an Allegrippis? A new plier-type tool from Sears? Someone who complains all the time? The phonetic spelling of a one Mrs. Ally Grippis? Not close. It is a Native American word variant of Aliquippa which is a Delaware or Seneca Indian name that is a title of a female leader. This was after Queen Aliquippa, pictured and sculptured above. She had a friendly meeting with then-Major George Washington who quipped in his journal, "I made her a Present of a Match Coat and a Bottle of rum, (the latter) which was thought much the better present of the two."



The extent of Queen Aliquippa's and George Washington's riding ability are unknown. I imagine they rode oaken hard tails and during especially grueling rides in the spring they would suck sap from the sugar maple trees as Gu gels were still a few years off from being invented.



In only four-and-a-half hours we made it to Huntingdon, PA and the luxuriously-appointed Comfort Inn along the banks of the Juniata River (Juniata is loosely translated from the Native American Seneca language as "swiftly-running Yoo Hoo").



We met some friends at the trail head parking lot on Sunday morning. The lot was packed; always a good sign. It was sixty degrees and sunny and off we went.



I'd heard that the trails are one continuous pump track but thought that was a healthy chunk of hyperbole. After a short ride down the first trail my suspicions of rider-embellishment were starting to be realized until we hit some whoop-de-doos. It turns out that the trails are comprised of serial whoop-de-doos and banked turns. With nary a root or log in sight it was like riding on a carpet.



The first thing you notice is your constant, silly grin. Then you notice everyone elses' silly grins and then you think you are going to go hoarse with all the "Woooooooos!", "Woo Hooooooos!" and other similar exultant monosylabbic shrieks of glee. If you ride you will feel a good 20 years younger...unless you are 19.


Our friend Mike turned to us and said wryly after our first dose of fun, "You didn't think I'd take you just anywhere did you?"


It definitely is like a pump track but faster and without the gerbil on an excercise wheel feel. It has oodles of flow and as our friend Rody said, "It makes you want to go faster." You bury yourself trying to get to the next set of whoop-de-doos. There are over 30 miles of trails. We did 17 miles in two hours.



It is equal parts surfing, downhill skiing, boogie-boarding, Parkour, sledding, and riding a rollercoaster. You can take the rollers any way you like. Big air, small air, no air. I grabbed some extra-medium air at one point and landed sideways on the uphill side of the trail and burped all the air out of my front wheel. At least I missed the tree.


The trails are smooth and reminiscent of a sine wave. The line could be used to represent the scale of the trails' rollers from the side or map it's serpentine wending from overhead. For those who haven't flexed their cerebrum in the mathematical gymnasium of trigonometry since high school I give you the sine wave below. Drum roll and please hold all applause until the function is complete.










Rody (pronounced roadie) stands with his newly built bike in front of a group of admirers below. The man in the green t-shirt couldn't control himself in the presence of Rody's impressive fully rigid, 29er with Rohloff hub so he started drinking quickly to reduce his custom-bike induced delerium tremens. If you are equally impressed check out his works of functional and rideable art at http://groovycycleworks.com/default.aspx Mike and Rody's son Kalten said this group worship happens wherever they go. It happend at least twice that I saw in two hours of riding.




Part of Raystown Lake below. For some reason I'm sporting an explorer pose, perhaps Vasco da Gama with a touch of Henry Hudson. In any event parts of the Lake are seen from many of the trails. This place is begging for an Xterra.



Kitima and Mike on the Doe Trail.






After a few minor adjustments Rody catches up. He slapped the bike together that morning. I had problems with the hotel's waffle maker that morning.

Mike, me, Kitima and Rody's son Kalten. I had three heart-attacks trying to hang onto Mike and Colton's (teenager!) wheels. While I was chasing them Rody and Kitima went on another trail that was all downhill, complete with valets, aid stations and a refreshing pine scent.

Typical trail below.

Kitima rippin' it up!


Kalten: the baby-faced assassin. He tore up the trails like a hobo on a ham sandwich.


Mike on his Rody-built steel hardtail with frame couplers, Rohloff hub, killer snake paint job, and 650b wheels.


"You've got to ask yourself boys...are you a buck or are you a doe?"

Below are several videos of varying cinematic value. Enjoy. We are planning on going down again in two weeks so if you are interested...

Whiteface: Because It's There

In 1923 British mountaineer George Mallory was asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, "Because it's there," he replied. Good ol' George died on Everest later the next year and his body wasn't found until 1999.

Now Kitima and I don't confuse what the Tibetans call Qomolangma with a summit of 29,029 feet with the height of Whiteface (what the Tibetans might call Palevisage) at 4,867 feet but we were going to top with our road bikes nonetheless.

On the way up we stopped by to take my mom out to lunch and then hit the Lowville Cheese Co-op for provisions. Our summit attempt would be fueled by "Grandma's Donuts" (Kitima one; author two) complete with an ingredients list that contained mashed potatoes. Below Kitima and her bovine friend.


The route is eight miles long at an 8% grade and climbs 3,500 vertical feet. To put that in perspective that would be .00000028 miles towards the moon.

We started around six o'clock about an hour after the summit road closed to car traffic. We reached the toll gates three miles into our climb. It indicated a summit temperature of 42 with winds over 25 mph.

"That's got to be Celsius," I said looking through my rose-colored glasses.

The ride was peaceful on the ascent. Only an occasional grunt was heard going into the stiff headwind. Before the ride we thought we might want long sleeves, "Nothing we can do about it now," Kitima said.

Took this while I was riding, excuse the lack of focus.

The summit loomed in the background. Every mile we'd get a "Rough Road next three miles."

"That's a lot farther than three miles," Kitima said pointing at the summit in the background.

This was the penultimate switchback. Lake Placid in the background.

A rocky set of steps leads to the true summit.

We take a few short minutes to savor the summit. The winds really whipped up so we descended. The road was rough, dark and steep. I stayed on the brakes not wanting to endo into a pothole at 30+ mph. I overheated the brakes and promptly flatted. Luckily I heard it.

Since the day was getting colder and darker I told Kitima to go on ahead and either drive up to meet me after the repair or I'd catch up. I fixed the flat fast and took a good 20 lbs. of PSI out of my tires so I wouldn't get another one. It worked wonderfully.

I shivered all the way down. I couldn't keep my teeth from chattering and I bit my tongue. To avoid biting it again I thrust my tongue towards the back of my bottom teeth and descended with my mouth open. My fingers were numb and my neck muscles seized up. I finally made it down to the car where Kitima had just finished loading her bike. The car was on and the heat was cranked and she told me all about her frigid descent.

It took us a while to warm up. She was still cold after a long, hot shower and a bowl of soup at the Brown Dog Cafe. We feasted on a Bison Ribeye like Vikings although I think Leif Ericson would have suffered the descent with less whining or would have at least packed a cycling jersey or arm warmers.

Cranky Monkey

"Mr. Chartrand! I've got something for you!" said the representative from the 40+ year-old Sport class race in Quantico Virginia. "This is from almost all of us."


"Oh thanks," I said as he handed me my ass.











Two 9.5 mile laps of a mountain bike race on the Marine base. You know, the place where Jodie Foster is jogging at the beginning of Silence of the Lambs. The course was hard-packed sand with plenty of climbing (suspiciously it also had plenty of descending and some flats), ample obstacles and, in my age group, 25 guys faster than me and four slower.


The air was hot that day my friends. I was sweating like an idiot in a spelling bee. Eighty-five plus and humid. It was like breathing broth.


On the first climb of the day I was Icarus. My waxed-feathered wings melted and I was tumbling as some speedy-guys from the wave behind me passed (I think one guy was on a single-speed recumbant). Looking around I noticed I wasn't appreciably closer to the sun than anyone else so I pedaled onward.

Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, or a MTB race. Although sober I felt it would be in my best interest to avoid heat stroke so eight miles into my 19-mile race I decided I would DNF; I would slink off unnoticed to a shady spot under a tree and near the food...if anyone asked I would complain of some mechanical issue, "damn kanootin valve blew again!" and throw my bike down in disgust as I ate my entry fee in pizza.

I rounded the turn towards the end of lap one and Kitima, Mike, Erika, Marian, and little Fabiola were cheering me on, encouraging me to "race the next lap" since I'd apparently gone so slow the first time that everyone noticed (Yeah well those four guys behind me in my age group noticed my dust!). I stopped, muttered about it being hot (what a sterling wit am I!) and soldiered on.

The rest of the race was uneventful, excepting the man who stunk of rotten curry. He was a bit of consolation though as I caught him from an earlier wave...I think he must of flatted twice.

I was racing with Rolando who started two minutes ahead of me. I thought I saw him on the first lap but after checking the race splits it must have been a mirage...the Mirage del Magnifico!

Next up: Suicide Six relay with Kitima.

Hardcore 24

"G.B.C.!" yelled a disembodied voice from the pitch dark trail at three in the morning. A headlight from the passing bike bathed the wet grass in an arc for a second. Flat on my back in my tent next to our pavillion I looked at my watch and calculated that I had a little over an hour to sleep until I had to get ready for my next lap. A cold front rolled through and I shivered in my sleeping bag.

My tent and our pavillion.

Our campsite sat on the inside of an elbow of trees along the run-in to the start/finish house and each rider on my team yelled "G.B.C.!" towards the guys resting, eating and drinking to remind the next rider to get over to the start house for his next lap in case his caffeine-addled brain had been left revving in neutral. After the sun set I took the G.B.C. acronym cry as sort of a snooze alarm set for around an hour. Later in the race it became a tri-syllabic pep rally for the Geneva Bike Center team that I was on.

The Hardcore 24 race started at noon on Saturday atop of Gannett Hill in Ontario County Park in South Bristol or Northern Naples depending on if you are a Hatfield or a McCoy. If you can count past the sum of your phalanges without removing your socks and mittens you can probably decipher that it is a 24-hour mountain bike race. I discovered that possessing a mountain bike and signing up for a mountain bike race doesn't make you a mountain bike racer.

I started the first and only dry lap of the 24 hours as a motor bike led us out on a short promenade around the park to string us out before heading into the mostly single-track course. Into the woods we went. The course was fast. Passed some; some passed me and I handed off to Kurt with a touch of fists.

Part of the peloton before the motorbike led us out.

Towards the end of Kurt's first lap the rain came. We touched up and off I went. I am positive that he mumbled that old King Louis the XV line, "Apres moi le deluge!" I ignored the 18th century prophetic utterance and attributed it to an active imagination and some rumbling thunder overhead. About the time I made it to the lookout over Ski Valley and Camp Cutler the clouds exploded, imploded and I was definitely incommoded. Roots crossing the trail acted as wooden dams for a time but they wouldn't hold and the trail became a series of terraced, muddy, waterfalls. Glasses were useless and the phrase, "here's mud in your eye," took on a heightened level of personal meaning. Robert Plant started to sing to me, "If it keeps on rainin', levee's goin' to break." I slipped through my first lap in a Led Zeppelin-induced fugue state as Mark Hartmann blew by me on a descent. He wore a yellow rain jacket and looked like the Gorton's Fisherman on EPO.

Curt and I before the race.

We had a four-person team but Curt and I had the honors until around 6:30 when Jim and Chad showed up...they claimed work responsibilities but I suspect they were sitting at home looking at the Doppler radar on their computers, slippered-feet up on the couch, sipping hot cocoa, laughing wildly with Cuban cigars in their mouths, donned in warm, dry bath robes or smoking jackets and as soon as the front passed they made their way up to the Park. When they arrived the rains had gone, rainbows sprouted up, the trails started to dry, unicorns frolicked in the meadows and naked women were handing out free carbon hardtails.

No one said there'd be mud.

There's a sweet ride in there somewhere.

Voila! Une velo!

"I didn't think I could get mud in there!"

Gratuitous action shot. Mountain Dew commercial here I come!

Finishing up my third lap after the thunderstorm. I was so happy to get off the bike that I almost overcooked this turn coming into the start house.

Curt finishing up his second lap and wanting to go for athird. "I'm in the zone!" he yelled but der Kaiser, a.k.a. Chad, orders him to stand down and let Jim Hogan take a lap. Chad's order stood and he and Curt leg-wrestled about it later.

The rest of the race was part camping trip, part buffet, part rock concert and part intervals. My tires were ill-suited for the mud but I did manage a few night laps. My last lap ended just past dawn as sleep deprivation caught up with me and I found myself crashing for unknown reasons. Jim's morning was finished soon afterwards leaving Chad and Kurt to finish up. I felt like I let my teammates down but did manage five laps in my first 24-hour race.

Camp Soggy Bottoms

Apropos of something: Performing Stevie Ray Vaughan's Couldn't Stand the Weather.

We managed to get second place in our age group. I felt like Phil Jackson the basketball coach who has won 10 championships. He's had teams with Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant. Charlie Brown could've coached those teams to victory. I suppose if you pick the right team any manner of hardware could come floating your way.

GBC second in the geezer division.


The Midnight Rider, Chad, getting a prize for the fastest night lap.

The Hartmann's getting first in the two-person division.

Connor and Brenda help Curt with his trophy.

"Maaaaaaaaaattttttt! Why is that guy looking at your butt?"

I had a blast and can't wait to do another 24-hour race. I'll definitely try to sleep and eat more. I couldn't ask for better and more experienced teammates. They did an excellent job in horrible weather and gently provided great advice.

If you are interested in this race I can't recommend it enough and you can find information here: http://www.thehardcore24.com/ As a bonus I wound up winning a sweet, $180 cycling jacket.

Kitima took all these photographs and at the end of the race cooked up some excellent pork satays (meat on a stick) for dipping in a hot and spicy peanut sauce. She's got the bug and is scheming to form a team for next year.

My next race is a six-hour race in Harriet Hollister Park. Not sure if I'm teaming up with Curt, Kitima or going solo.