Aren’t You Forgetting Something?

Last week was interesting to say the least. By the time Friday rolled around I was ready to kick back and relax. I decided to go out for a nice dinner and have a beer. I hadn’t been to Elk Creek Cafe for a while so I decided to make the journey to Millheim.

When I got to Millheim I parked my car and reached into my bag for my wallet and phone. It was at that point I noticed I missed a call. I had a message from Cathy so I decided to call her back. I stayed in my car and chatted briefly before changing venues from the driver seat of my car to a seat in the bar.

As I opened the door to get out of my vehicle I heard an odd beeping noise. I wasn’t quite sure what was causing this annoyance. Everything in my car was turned off so I decided to ignore the beep and continue on my way. I locked my car and closed the door. At the exact moment the car door closed it became abundantly clear why my car was beeping at me. There, dangling from the ignition, were my keys. That’s right; my keys were now securely locked inside my car.

A lot of thoughts were running through my head at this point. First, I checked all the doors to make sure I really did lock my keys in the car. I had. I decided to call Cathy back and see if she was otherwise engaged or might be interested in driving to my house, getting my spare key, and then making the 45 minute trip to Millheim. She conveniently had other plans and suggested I call Triple A (and not the blues band). That seemed like a reasonable idea so I did. About thirty minutes later I had my keys in hand and was finally able to begin my evening as I had intended.

In the end everything worked out just fine. I ended up having dinner with the proprietor of Elk Creek and he bought me a beer for my troubles. Maybe next time I’ll check to see if anyone else wants to go with me and let them drive.

The Importance of Shoes

So I rode my bike this weekend. I know I said I wasn’t going to talk about that if I could help it, but this was not the usual kind of ride. This weekend was the CVIM charity ride. It was their first try at a ride of this type. Even though it was a route that I do all the time, I figured it would be worth doing because it’s a really good cause. Also, several friends were doing it so I decided to tag along.

The ride took place Saturday morning. The other thing that happened Saturday (morning, noon, and night) was it rained, a lot. I don’t mind if I’m riding my bike and it starts to rain. It’s a lot more difficult for me to get on my bike if it’s already raining. However, as I said before, it was for a good cause so Scott, Betty, Cathy, and I decided to gear up and head out.

The route we were doing was only about fifty miles. Normally, with proper gear fifty miles isn’t that tough. What makes a ride of this distance a bit more challenging is when a key piece of equipment is left on your kitchen counter, like cycling shoes. I’m obviously bringing this up because that’s precisely where Scott decided to leave his shoes for our ride on Saturday.

Clipless pedals are designed to be ridden with cycling shoes that have cleats mounted to the bottom. They’re not as effective when wearing approach shoes. You lose a bit of science (and look a little goofy as well). Fortunately, we weren’t in any great hurry to get through the ride. The deluge of rain kept our speeds low and casual. We were all pretty soggy by the end but it was fun. At least Scott’s cycling shoes stayed dry.

A Stoopid Departure

Okay, this won’t be the most exciting post in the world but it’s been a long couple of days and I’m tired so this is all you’re getting.

This was an interesting weekend. On Sunday the Rothrock State Forest played host to the Stoopid 50 Mountain Bike Race, courtesy of Shenandoah Mountain Touring. This race wouldn’t have been possible without a lot of great volunteers like the crew from Freeze Thaw Cycles and many other fantastic people (that includes you Cathy). It was an amazing day for a ride and a lot of cyclers showed up to race. Of course, that wasn’t the only thing that happened this weekend.

While having a wicked fun mountain bike race in my backyard would normally be the subject of my post, I’m not going to write about it. There will be plenty of other race recaps for you to check out if you’re really interested. The other event that occurred today was my housemate Brian departed for an excursion out west. For the next six weeks (or so) Brian will be mountain biking, fishing, skiing, and relaxing in Colorado, Utah, and Montana. When he gets back, however, I will have relocated.

I’ve been renting a room in Brian’s house for about two years. While that’s not a long time, He’s the first person I’ve shared a living space with since I was in college. On top of that, Brian will be moving shortly after he returns. It’s a big stage in both our lives because I’m buying a house and Brian is getting a real job so he’ll finally be using his PhD for something other than picking up women.

Here We Go Again

Lately I’ve noticed my blog posts seem a little boring. I feel like I’m just recycling the same post over and over again. Sure a few of the details are different, but overall the theme is the same; “This weekend I rode my bike, blah, blah, blah.” I don’t mean to imply that I take for granted the fact that I’m able to be active and have the fun that I do, but I’m beginning to realize I might need to write about something different.

Sure, some people might say bombing down a mountain road at 50 miles per hour on a road bike isn’t all that vanilla, but talking about it week after week tends to get a little repetitive. This weekend was no different. What happened you ask? I spent a night camping with Scott and Betty on Saturday and went for a bike ride on Sunday, but I’m not going to tell you about either of those things (I’ll show you a picture instead).

I’m not trying to imply that I need to incorporate death-defying stunts and other acts of danger (or stupidity) into my life on a daily basis, but every now and then it might be nice to have a story that involves boxing a kangaroo or wrestling a shark or riding an elephant or planting a tree. Of course, it would be a tree that produces bikes or snowboards or something cool, but I think you get the point.

In the future, I’ll do my best to incorporate more variety into these posts. I can’t guarantee the stories will be altogether true, but hopefully they’ll be interesting to read.

Life of the Party

This was a good weekend. While I managed to log some miles on my bike, I also went to a birthday party. This wasn’t a standard birthday party, but the first birthday for Sergio (the son of my friends Brittany and Jordyn). The first birthday is always special because you finally get to have an age that is measured in years instead of months. You also get to smash your hands into cake, throw it around the room, make a complete mess, and no one cares. In fact, people find it cute. When I turned 28 I had a little too much to drink and did the same thing at a restaurant except no one found it cute or funny, but I digress.

Since this was a birthday party for a one-year-old there were a lot of other kids there, which made sense. Kids are fun. They’re just miniature people that need a little extra attention. While I don’t have any of my own, I do have seven nieces and nephews (with number eight on the way). Also, several of my friends have either just recently had kids or are expecting.

It’s interesting because this influx of shorties didn’t happen overnight. The stork brought the oldest of my nieces and nephews almost eight years ago so this isn’t new to me. I think I’m noticing it more because the people I spend the majority of my free time with are having kids; therefore it’s becoming more a part of my day-to-day.

Overall, I think it’s fantastic. Kids are great because the most pedestrian activities are new and exciting to them. There’s also all the different experiences you can introduce them to such as riding a bike, seeing the ocean for the first time, going camping, or just getting to stay up “past their bedtime.” I imagine there are also some things that aren’t fun but I try not to get involved with that part because after all, I’m not one of the parents.

Miles & Miles of Miles & Miles

Pain hurts. Usually it comes with a hefty price that no one wants to pay because it’s bad. For me however, this weekend brought about a lot of pain that I inflicted on myself, and it all revolved around riding bicycles. Oh yeah, Brian was included to make sure the suffer-fest actually occurred because suffering is right up his alley.

I haven’t done a century yet this year so I decided it should be included in the weekend’s agenda. As I talked about it with Brian he suggested we do the Renovo loop. Brian and I did this same ride last year and it was fast but that was last year and I was in much better shape. Unfortunately I thought it would be a similar ride, but I was wicked wrong. Without getting into the details I’ll say this: I was glad we departed from Bellefonte because I might not have completed the ride if it was longer than the 101 miles we did. Even though it was a fast ride (by my standards) I was happy to be off the bike.

Apparently I didn’t get enough riding in during the death march that occurred on Saturday because I thought it would be a grand idea to ride trails on Sunday. Granted, my legs felt like sticks of butter that had been sitting out in the sun all day but I still wanted to ride. Needless to say, Brian was more than happy to get back out and that meant I was going to suffer again.

We ended up doing about four hours on the trails which as about three hours and fifty-nine minutes more than I should have done. This became blatantly obvious when I was struggling to turn over my easiest gear; regardless of the trail. Lucky for me the route we picked included lots of climbing on double track and fire-roads. Oh yeah, the hike-a-bike we did was also a world of fun.

I spent a lot of time on my bikes this weekend. It hurt. I suffered through hot and humid conditions while slogging along on a bicycle with only myself to supply the motor. I have cuts, scrapes, bruises, sore everything, and lots of pain, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Fill it to the Top

A lot happened this weekend. The weather was pretty good (for the most part) so I spent just about all of it outdoors. Saturday I finally got to enjoy some time outside climbing. It was the first time this year I’ve been on real rocks. I haven’t had much time to climb at all lately, let alone outside so I was really looking forward to this.

I met up with Scott, Ieva, and Cathy at the “Power Cut” in the lower reaches of Rothrock. As its name indicates, the Power Cut is an outcropping of rocks at the top of clearing for an electric transmission line. The rocks are nice but it was a little humid so lots of chalk was needed. After about two hours I managed to cut my hand and that marked the end of my climbing for the day. I was okay with that because I needed to get some supplies out to Brian’s cabin for an impending pig roast.

Brian’s cabin is a rustic little place on some acreage with a pond. It’s out of the way and has a great porch for sitting. Saturday turned out to be the perfect day for doing just that. By mid afternoon a rainstorm rolled through and the heavy drops on the tin roof mixed with a group of friends and some sweet tunes made the day just about ideal. Things went on like that into the night and a good time was had by all.

Sunday brought about some cooler temperatures which was a recipe for an afternoon of mountain biking. Fly Scott, Betty, Cathy, iScott, and I went out to Rothrock to ride the Coopers Gap area. We did a loop that included some of my favorite singletrack. It was a little wet in spots but that didn’t bother me. I was just happy to be out on my bike enjoying a day in the woods. We rode for about three hours and I felt good (except for the two times I went down).

It’s weekends like this that make me realize just how fortunate I am. Sure there are some aspects that I might change, but let’s be honest; I have no room to complain. At times I even feel a bit guilty. I’m lucky enough to have so much happening on the weekends the biggest part I seem to be missing is sleep.