Tangential Adventures

Two fantastic rides this week, both group rides with MVNEMBA.  First was a 12 mile ride on Tuesday night at Lowell-Dracut-Tyngsboro.  Got to see a lot of the fun singletrack that I had never managed to find on my own when riding there.  Friday night was at Russell Mill in Chelmsford, crossing over to Great Brook Farm and back for a total of about 16 miles.  Both rides were half night rides, which has always been something I’ve enjoyed.  My old NightRider halogen lights are getting more of a workout this year than they’ve had in a while, between the bike touring and these rides.

It’s fun and challenging to participate in group rides, especially since much of the group is faster than I am.  It’s been a while since I’ve had someone to chase, and I know that will push me to be a better rider.  They’re a fun group, and the post-ride hanging out with munchies and adult beverages is a good time.  I hope to be able to make a few more of their rides before the season is out.

The newly rebuilt bike is behaving reasonably well.  The shock seems to be holding air now, which was in doubt for a period after I rebuilt it.  My drive train needs a little TLC, as I think I snagged the derailleur in between some rocks last night and it’s not shifting well now.  Also, I managed to blow a Slime tube on a spot at Russell Mill which has apparently claimed 6 tubes (and one wheel) so far.  The Slime tubes worked really well for me when I was having flats all the time a couple of seasons ago, but I guess it was no match for that snake bite…  Left a lovely gob of green goo inside of my tire, though!

I just completed  a full rebuild of my mountain bike over the last few days.  I hung on lots of new bits like chain, chain rings, cassette, derailleur cables, brake pads, grips, tires, and tubes.  Also overhauled the rear shock and replaced all of the seals, hoping it will clear up the rebound damping issue I’ve been having with it.  I tore the whole bike down to bare frame and literally gave the frame and wheels a bath, then built it all back up with the new parts, and did a rough drivetrain tune.

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Just a quick catch-up with a couple of things I forgot to post.  Last week, Sarah invited me up to Bear Island for a couple of days of R&R at a cottage she’s stayed at most summers for many years.  It was a nice time with lots of laying in the sun, swimming, and a bit of recreational kayaking in addition to the utility kayaking of schlepping stuff to/from the mainland.  I don’t have all of the photos since I took many of them using Sarah’s camera, so they’ll have to wait until later on when I can get them.

Last Thursday I met up with AndrewH and his coworker Will again at GBF and we had a great ride.  We hit some of the fun stuff including Stone Row, Keyes Loop, Five Boardwalks and all of the Tophet Loops.

I’ve spent some of my free time working on planning, preparations, and outfitting for my two weeks of insanity that are to cap off my summer sabbatical.  There’s five days of kayak touring, circumnavigating Lake Winnipesaukee, immediately followed by a trip out to Portland, OR to meet up with my friend and do several days of bike touring on the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington.  By “immediately followed,” I mean it.  The kayaking is scheduled to finish on a Friday, late afternoon.  I have a flight out to PDX the following morning at 6:50AM, so I need to get myself back home, wash gear, recharge devices, and re-pack.  It will be a little crazy and difficult but I am looking forward to it.

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Decided to head up to Auburn, NH Saturday morning to get in a ride at FOMBA, quite near where I kayaked several weeks back.  Had to stop by Goodale’s on my way north to pick up a new helmet, as my last one finally gave up the ghost, with some of the internal support structure breaking and becoming disconnected from the foam.

Felt great for the first mile or so of the ride, but really started to feel the heat and humidity quickly thereafter.  No amount of water or breeze was really cooling me down. Consequently I only rode Fire Line, Lady Slipper, Deer Run and Red Pine before deciding I was feeling too overheated to continue and packed it in for the day.  The trails were also pretty wet, especially the northern trails which don’t seem to drain as well.  It was a slow, damp, and thirsty slog through the trails… but still somehow enjoyable.  Since I don’t ride those trails very often, and they’re really quite excellent as far as mtb-specific trails go, it usually makes the ~35 minute drive worth it.

I took a few short, crappy looking cell phone camera videos… Here’s one of them.

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Met up at 5:30 for a fairly short ride with AndrewH and his coworker Will.  I didn’t make my way over to the Acorn side to do a warmup or “cool down” loop.  It was probably the warmest and most humid it’s been all season so far, and I’m definitely not acclimated to it yet. Had some mechanical mishaps with my bike on this ride after a walkoff crash on Keyes Loop.  I think it bent my derailleur inward slightly, which then threw my chain off into the spokes pretty badly.  It’s definitely time for a major drivetrain overhaul (rings, cassette, chain, possibly jockey wheels or a fresh derailleur), and I also need fresh brake pads front and rear.  I am also concerned the rebound damping on my rear shock has failed, as the bike has felt very bouncy lately.  Lastly, rear tire is very chewed up and needs to be replaced before it gives out when I’m out in the woods.   Given that I haven’t given the bike anything but a fresh set of rubber 2 seasons ago, it’s long overdue for some TLC.

I expect to be back at GBF on Saturday morning for an MVNEMBA scouting day at Great Brook, to identify future trail work that needs to be done.  We decided to carry some small tools and do a ride-and-repair for minimal stuff, but it’s mostly a mission to hit as much of the park as we can and set an agenda for two more trail days this year.  I’m also anxious to check out the new Russell Mill trail network, which is located just northeast of the Thanksgiving Forest land.  A short hop on the road and you can connect the trails at Rusell Mill into Great Brook and put together a nice mini-epic.  Around 8 miles of trail supposedly exist in Russell Mill, I’d guess another 3-4 in Thanksgiving, plus around 12-15 depending on how much you repeat in Great Brook.  Definitely could be a good, tiring, 20+ mile day.

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I decided a somewhat brutal ride (for my current physical condition) was in order for a gorgeous Friday, so I decided to combine a round trip road ride (a bit over 8 miles each way) with some moderate mountain biking at Lowell/Dracut/Tyngsboro State Forest.  I packed a quick lunch of cheese sandwiches along with some hummus and carrots, and made up some impromptu trail mix with cashews and chocolate covered espresso beans.  Once suitably outfitted, I headed out of the house and made decent time on the road to the main LDTSF parking lot.   Had a bite to eat and then hit the trails.

I’ve ridden at LDT a few times, but I still find the collection of old doubletracks and service roads combined with twisty singletrack to be a bit confusing, and I have ended up mildly lost every time I’ve ridden there.  Even with a map, it’s easy to get confused, especially in the areas that don’t (yet?) have markers at the intersections.  The park seems to have a lot of trails that aren’t on the map as well, so it’s easy to end up somewhere unexpected.  Every time I ride there I am certain I’ve missed the best singletrack, though I manage to find some of it.

It was also quite wet, which is no surprise given the weather we’ve been having.  Many deep mud puddles and pools of standing water, and the water was quite high in the various bodies of water in the park.  Ran across what looked like a beaver dam towards the end of the ride and got a couple of shots of that, along with the incredibly glassy water.  Also ran across a series of trees with burlap banding around them and spray painted numbers on them.  Not sure what the deal is – diseased trees, perhaps?

The ride back was definitely tiring, and indeed my legs were basically done as I pedaled back up the hill to my house in granny gear.  Got typical roadie heckling riding over the Tyngsboro bridge on the way back too (“sidewalk’s over there!”).  I’m beginning to see why roadies curse the cagers.  Aside from that, it was a good ride, and it was nice to finally do an out-and-back from my house instead of getting in the car to drive to the trailhead.  I don’t know why it took me almost 5 years to do it, but there you go.

Photos this time around are crappy cell phone camera pictures, but better than none.  I did take a GPS track log, but between giving away my house location, and losing signal a dozen times in the forest, it’s not really worth it.  Best distance estimation was about 16 miles of road riding and about 8 miles of mtb.

Had a nice 10 mile ride today, 8 of which was with AndrewH.  Andrew took me through the adjacent Thanksgiving Forest, which somehow I’d managed to never explore in the seven years I’ve been riding at GBF.  It’s mostly non-technical, but it should add a little variety and maybe a couple miles to my usual GBF loops.

Things are wet at GBF.  Very wet, in some spots.  Wetter than I’ve ever seen them.  On the Acorn South loop, there are massive pools of water in places where there are not normally pools of water.  The entrances and exits for some of the boardwalks were under 6″ of water.  Other spots in the park fared better, and were not much more wet than I’d expect.

Unfortunately, things are also slippery.  I had ridden solo at GBF a couple of weeks ago, and came off my bike rather unexpectedly at the end of the Tophet Extension boardwalk that I helped NEMBA build a few years ago.  This time it was Andrew’s turn, and he really got a proper Tophet Baptism.  As we were riding across the old Tophet bridge, I heard quite a splash behind me as he went in and got covered with wet muck nearly up to his neck.  Unfortunately he had also forgotten his riding shoes, so he was riding in closed-toe Sandals.  Needless to say, he got very muddy and wet… but magically, his cell phone survived and we were able to later grab a couple of photos for amusement back in the parking lot.

Now, you might think Andrew’s little dip in the swamp was the last of this ride’s problems, but not so much.. A few hundred yards down the trail after the ill-fated swamp crossing, he thought he threw his chain.  “Hang on, let me get my chain back up on the crankset… err … if I, uh … had a chain. Hmm.” Turned out he blew a link on his chain, but thankfully he had the proper quick link for his 7-speed chain in his pack (mine are all for 9-speed).  A mercifully short (damn mosquitos) repair session later, and we were back and rolling and on our way back to the cars.

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While it’s certainly a stretch for me to call riding at Great Brook Farm an adventure given how many dozens of times I’ve ridden there over the last seven years, I still had fun meeting up with AndrewH to show him around and hopefully fuel his new mountain biking addiction.  We did a nice loop around the main part of the park and hit a lot of the fun singletrack bits over there including Keyes Loop and most of Stone Row.   I finished off the ride with a quick paced run around Acorn and up Blueberry Hill to exhaust myself as thoroughly as possible.

	#	Elevation	Distance	Time	Movingtime	Speed	Movingspeed	Max Speed	Climb Up	Climb Down
	1	-37 m	0.000 mi	0s	0s	-	-	-	-	-
	2	60 m	9.157 mi	2h 07m 37s	2h 07m 27s	4.31 mph	4.31 mph	36.05 mph	1201 ft	883 ft
Summary			9.157 mi	2h 07m 37s	2h 07m 27s	4.31 mph	4.31 mph	36.05 mph	1201 ft	883 ft

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