The weather was glorious, about 65 degrees F (I prefer days that aren’t so hot), and I got over to CP for a morning ride on Saturday. There weren’t too many folks there when I arrived, maybe 5 or 6 vehicles. Its only the third time I’ve been over there this season, and the second time I went I rode with a friend late after work and we only did 6.5 miles and one Black Diamond. This time I was going to hit them all and try to make it under an hour. The whole trail is about 9 miles when you do all the optional routes, and at the end of last season I was able to complete it in about 50 minutes if I booked. I’m rusty though, as I could tell from my first time marker (3 minutes over), but I wasn’t tiring, so I decided to attempt to do all three of the impossible hills in the back. I never make the first one, but the CLIMB guys had lain down some wood chips and the trails were really dry, and for the first time (ever) I made all three hills! I finished at 1 hr 7 mins, but it was a good ride. The new XTR high-rise dérailleur makes a big difference on the climbs, making it alot easier to get into the right gear on the way up.

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It was finally warm enough (for me, thats at least 50F) to go out riding today. I’ve been doing some stationary riding in the basement, but it’s so boring that I never do anything like the kind of riding I do outside and I slack off to maybe once a week. Although I’ve managed to keep off the weight I lost last year so far, I’ve been slacking in that area as well so today’s ride was a bit of a wake up call. I only managed to get in 8.5 miles (and road riding is a lot easier than trail), but it was so good to get out again. Today’s lesson: don’t forget the little clip on ear muffs for when it’s windy and chilly. Luckily I brought mine today, because at about 3 miles my ears were in serious pain. I popped those babies on and I was fine for the rest of the trip.

My road bike is almost 30 years old! I resurrected my dad’s old bike last summer in anticipation of the annual 40+ mile cancer benefit ride I’ve been doing with some friends at work for the last couple years. It’s way too big for me (27″ frame!) but I can still manage it safely with the seat all the way down. I much prefer to ride trails on the mountain bike, so I didn’t really want to drop a lot of money on a road bike so I just put some new tires on the Fuji, did some minor adjustments and service and I was good to go. I added a cyclometer after this picture was taken, and I still need to get a water bottle holder.

It was over 50F at 10:30 this morning, so I started making plans to hit the street. The bike has been down in the basement hooked up to a magnetic trainer (a Cyclops Magneto) for just a little more than a month, and I haven’t used it as much as I had intended, mostly due to sickness. I had to change the rear spindle to use the trainer, and I just left it on for the ride – they looked pretty similar, so I don’t see why it could be a problem. It’s been really cold for a long time and there was still snow in shady spots even yesterday, but today’s high temps melted everything so I had decided to stay on the roads.

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In June of this year, I bought a used mountain bike from a friend at work. It’s previous owner is a serious bicyclist, and had just gotten himself something newer and better, but his old bike was none too shabby, really. The bike is a 2002 Giant DS-1, but he had cracked the frame and Giant had given him a replacement DS-2 frame. My friend had done a couple mechanical upgrades to the stock bike, but it did need new tires. I rode all summer pretty religiously and now it looks like I’ve taken my last ride for the year – it’s too darn cold.I’m not up on all the mountain bike vocabulary, so please pitch in the correct verbage if I get anything wrong. I was (am) still quite a bit disoriented by the whole new language that has evolved around bikes since I was a kid – everything seems to have been reinvented, and I find most of it is definitely for the better.
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We used to quote a line in a punk song when we younger: ‘you’re only bored when you’re boring’ and it’s proven to be a truism. I’ve had just way too much to do lately to spend very much time writing about any of it as well. This entry is really just a summary of several recent activities – although I usually like to put a little more effort into these journal posts, there’s really just too much to say to do it all any justice. Jamming regularly with Tim, and less regularly with Ned since the feast of Imbolc (around Groundhog’s day) blossomed into a CD and a sweet gig of sorts at the Tuatha de Bhriain feast of Beltaine (what later became May day). We had such a good time at that camping event that we decided to get some more tunes together and go out to Pennsic to play them. Pennsic [link:]http://www.pennsicwar.org is a participatory medieval festival that I haven’t been to for nigh on 8 years, and was as fantastic and otherworldly as I remembered it. My brother and I spent nearly the entire time jamming in various camp-life venues. The night we rolled in, Momus and our new friend Christianna caught us and gave us 10 minutes to dress and grab our intruments out of the car to run up to the Chalkman for their annual talent contest. We went on 11th of 17 acts! As we were going up on stage (of sorts), the ‘MC’ asked Momus what we called ourselves, and having never thought about it, he burst out, ‘Momus and the sugartits’! (after Ned’s recent favorite Mel Gibson comment to a female police officer). The MC leaned over and said ‘you have three seconds to think of another name’. Fjord later suggested that he should have said ‘OK, Dave and the sugartits’, but instead he blurted out ‘Momus and the Fomorians’ (after the legendary Irish immigrant race). The MC, apparently unaware of this piece of Irish folklore suggested ‘it looks like there’s only TwoMore-ians’ which brought some serious laughter.

Momus’ tune ‘Whiskey Down’, which mentions the chalkman among many other delights of Pennsic won for originality and we were brought back up on stage for photos and a plaque! The rest of the time we spent jamming in the clan’s yurt (actually it was Vollund’s Yurt, but was leant to Fjord for Pennsic since Vollund was in Ireland), or just around camp for various guests and gambling night festivities. Blending two of my favorite activities, Medievalism and playing music has allowed me to discover a huge mess of great modern and well as ancient folk music and provided a forum which forces me to practice performance.

In more mundane news, sometime in June I bought a mountain bike used from a guy at work. He’s been into biking for many years and this was his 2002 Giant Warp DS-1 that he had put almost 600 miles on. He’s about 12 years older than me, but our first time out together at a local park he squarely kicked my butt on the hills and trails. I stuck with it, riding two or three times a week, whenever I could get out for an hour. I’ve ridden at some of the trails maintained by Climb, but also around home in the woods that will soon be ripped out to build a new electric generation facility. I’ve really improved, and can ride for an hour (about 10 miles) on the trails without getting worn out anymore. The hills are no longer massive obstacles, they’re just part of the ride – and it’s great to be able to do just a little bit better than the last time i was out. As activities go, mountain biking is really one of my favorites, since I can go out to check out new places in the woods just like I used to when I was a kid, it’s a mini-adventure and I’m getting some much needed excercise.