Chilln' and missed birds

Due to stupidity Py missed the birds :-( However, he had friends visiting and they did the motorized scenic North South Fork tour, a great day -- for what so ever.

Greenport:

From Long Island

Orient Beach SP

From Long Island

From Long Island

From Long Island

From Long Island

You see it?

RP2IPBP - the original

This afternoon some rain was expected. Quick last minute decision this morning was to go for the RP2IPBP ride with M. Weather and temperature was perfect, little high humidity, overcasted, windy. They meet at Tildas as usual and went out the usual route, in case of early weather changes they had the option to take the short way back.

Some efforts going east, strong South or SE winds, but no big deal -- just pushing air. As they got to IPBP even the sun came out, really nice. So the they returned via mill, the ole regular original route back. Flying North... back home was fun. 2h40' (just counting time from Tildas) for the ride with two and wind, not bad. Py did a lot of pulls.... good ride.

Jim Thorpe & SGL Rock Gardens

This past weekend Py escaped from the Island and went for a road trip to Jim Thorpe, PA. A very scenic drive out west

to Jim Thorpe:

Arriving at JT unexpected crowds and a fully with cars saturated small but lovely set village at the Lehigh Gorge was found.


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As there was the annual foliage festival weekend and some special train rides going on.

But beyond the city limits is was quite.

Seen that, Py got out of that crowds to find and explore the State Game Lands just little past JT on 93.

1st day, Broad Mtn Loop in SGL. An easy MTB ride, little rolling rough double track,

a few sections of rocky single track,

leading to more and

more great vistas:

2nd day, Py wanted to find out about the legendary network of single track hidden in SGL.

some nice easy winding narrow single track, but the look may be missleading, it got more and more technical to the end

hidden unter a dense cover of leaves more and more rocks all over...

Almost like some one put them there to decorate a garden, but they were just every where spread out... good (cross) skills training.

Camp Health Fest 5k -- not really getting to speed

The annual Camp HF 5k event was due today. A beautiful day, little on the cool side, but just right for any endurance outdoor sports -- may exclude water fun sports.

He started out w T, they hit the 1mi mark very close together, but Py was feeling terrible until that point, at 5'34" -- not bad. From there Py some how had a huge gap behind and a slowly growing gap to T in front and he kept moving at a little more comfy pace, just did not worked out to hang on closer, even he was not breezing hard or was in any pain, just did not worked. But he kept feeling OK from now -- what so ever this ment. He kept T in sight all the time until finish, but that's it.

Here a few photos Py took all over the place before and after his run and one of him at the finish from J - thx.



Actually -- as strange as it may sound -- Py was not exhausted at all or close to his HR limit (even he did not wear any HR meter today, but he knows good enough), either had he any pain at the finish.... and could have gone much longer, just little slower. Only issue, Py could not move any faster o-)

But no complains about 18'55" for the little running effort he put in only recently
-- just excuses:

He guesses it's because
a) he is not used or trained to run short and fast at all,
he only did a very few 10k's...
about 4 or 5, one per week, last month.

... and also
b) he put in over 600mi/month on my bike over the past year(s)....
and well, and
c) he be leaves his HR kept down (where ever), as he was not yet fully recovered from TOREC.

TOSREC 2008

This Wednesday was the 3rd annual TOSREC.

In short: 7am Orient Pt to New London Ferry, start and end at New London, Ferry Dock. 169km / 2250hm.

Day of Ride Report:

4:30am Alarm!
4:40am..... time to get up and prepare&eat breakfast (no pre-ride secrets here) and get that bathroom business done. Py made one spare take along for the ferry sandwich. The bike and stuff was already pre-packed into the car. Filling up water bottles. Almost time, getting dressed up. A nice comfortable perfect ride day was expected.
5:30 take off to Orient Point - dark, not much going on.
6:28 arrival at the Ferry dock, OP.
... getting tickets, seams more expensive then in memories, but could be wrong. They also charge a bit for the bike, Argggg.
... the usual riders were almost all showing up at the same time at the ticket counter that early and well in time.
about 6:45 getting out the bike, putting bike shoes on, checking accessories, camera, etc...
... ready to board, they walk on the ferry boat and park the bikes.

close to departure, gates to the ferry ramp already closed, one or two expected riders still missing... but just shortly to departure, they made it last minute.

7:0? departure and sun rise. A smooth ride to New London. They occupied one just perfect fitting room on the boat and had some coffee. About 1h20 later

8:20 arrival in New London and roll off...

Slowly moving out of the dock aera towards the big bridge, a winding trail brings them up to the side path on the bridge and over, some jams due to two-way bike and other traffic on this narrow walk/ride way. Finally on the other side 'en route they warmed up and started moving North hitting and following scenic route 49. Short restroom(tree) stop at km 45, proceeding on 49 taking 12 to Plainfield and stopping at the Dunkin' in Canterbury for a Coffee/water refill at km 68 -- Py took a good number of long pulls. Here a few of the group

cut the route short while the others and Py proceeded little more North on 169, little less than last year, but instead followed the really great and very scenic zero traffic minor North Society Road until end, left into Windham and going little too far on Brooklyn Turnpike, back tracking, taking Pinch Rd to 97.

Looking at the map now, it would have been also possible to proceed from where they had been, may be next time a variation via end of Brooklyn, right on Back Rd, short section on 14 and 203 to Jerusalem Rd, following to Station and Waldo back on 97 or also checking out Decker Hill Rd?
Looks like this area has many many options of minor roads to offer (and get lost).

A few more nice smooth winding roads countless up and downs... but see the map below for details. At km 118 lunch stop. The 3pm ferry seam unreachable, so there is plenty of time for lunch, as the next boat is departing at 5pm. Py got a bowl of pasta -- came just right, Wednesday is Spaghetti day at this place :-)


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From there an easy ride back. With 169km the group rolled back on the ferry dock.

Enjoy a few more photos or follow the Link below for bigger and better photo displays:

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Get your own

A great day for an excellent ride. Thx to all for making this day so much enjoyable!

Wicked

Wicked? A almost normal day. A ride to the Camp. A good fairly quite morning. A 10+k Bluestone at lunch time with unknown distance detour around an Explosion site at the Camp on 5th en route of the regular run, so it was about 60' instead of 42'. More work got done until Py attended an too long meeting -- Py just planned to help out else where just shortly before and to grab an coffee on his way... but got stuck almost until dusk and needed to hurry to off site in time -- he really dislikes the road if dark, even he has light and is most likely safe and been seen may be even better than on day time -- but even the strongest head light will not unreveal all of the road hazards and just the imagination of an flat in the dark is as scary as this wicked site he came along tonight.....

From Long Island

...... and now he is tiered but still busy preparing his bike for the TOSREC 2008, baking bread, laundry, cooking, blogging and still some Camp user support via Email ........

Fast Train

A great day for a great ride is coming up. As Py got up this early morning it was still dark. At the time of putting the bike in the car and heading to Manorville the sun was just rising and scattered high light looked scary like diffuse nebulae... It was still quit chilly he figured at the starting location.

However, the sun would warm them all up soon! A good sized group and a few more and good riders from further out west showed up -- not seen them at this ride for a while. This put expectations high for a fast ride coming up...

...the usuals

From Early Birds

From Early Birds

and ...

From Early Birds

the Babylon riders, here at the reassembly quick stop spot after the "The Tanks" run:

From Early Birds

From Early Birds

From Early Birds

From Early Birds

From Early Birds

and from here some work into the wind. And back via Cutchogue -- skippin' the Deli stop, so not hot coffee for Py.... but a fast train of riders back, this time not via, but around Riverhead, as there was some road blocking event going on.

In numbers: 93.9km, 2h28 or 38.0km/h average. Fastest leg: 45km @ 39.6km/h on the return part, flying over 50km/h for some time... max of 61km/h -- more or less flat.

The ride data, maps and stats:

RP RCA Trail

Once again, a quick lap in RP. Nothing in particular, only a trail status update:

Some careless biking at/after wet conditions of last day(s) generated a whole series of muddy holes at countless spots. Much worse than last Saturday.

Camp Health Fest Bike Day

The Camp Healthfest Activity of the day was the MTB race, uoops, ride. Py took his Stonie Cross (custom made my Stonebite) for a ride to the Camp today. He choose a specials route, see below... to make the day even more special -- Single Track ala carte (for LI). Little less used, lots of sticks, logs, branches and other wild stuff in or on the very narrow path, but no big deal for Py.

So this should be a Cross day.... To the Camp, "official" noon MTB ride -- no big deal -- just flying low on about 10mi of easy fast back roads.... -- and returning home.

Here a few picss of the ride back home only:

Winding narrow single track in the woods...

From Diverses

and some fast more wide run way...

From Diverses

But what is this cute bug? It just took a ride from some where in the woods on the Stonie downtube...

From Diverses

He put him in his backyard later, a better closeup of this funny looking thingy:

From Diverses

And here just the map:


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Unlucky Birds

6 Early Birds.

Py was best prepared and got up at 5:45 and noticed around 6:30 that it some how unexpectedly was wet and little rainy, the radar looked like this that time:

Hmmm, not much and probably gone at ride start time, but wet and a little more was approaching, slight chance that it misses the East End. Undecided he was wondering around. He just cleaned up his bike from last weeks mess, sand and road grime and put on all new cassette and chain what was already kind of overdue. The middle sprokets of the old one looked pretty worn comparing with the new one, close to half width some of the most used teeth o-( Uooops.

Well, did it matter? --, it will get wet either weay some day soon, is is that season.

He loaded the bike in the car -- he did not do that for a long time, as he rode to the start for this ride all summer, but now it's too dark! However, let's see who is showing up and if no-go, he could still just get his grocery shopping done out there.

As he got there not much was going on, three riders arrived by car and little later two more rode in from close by -- looked like the critical group size was reached...


What a wet mess is waiting today....?

And they rode out the South Route, may be hopefully, the rain system still coming up passes by north... But this should not be the upcoming trouble for now. A comfortable good pace taking extra care at every turn, skipping some minor winding part of the route going strait to West Hampton and towards Dune Road.


Py was pulling for a while and just passing the green painted cheese grater like surface of this draw-bridge. He never liked that thing, more worried about the tires, not even thinking about the more worse case scenario. He noticed some talking in the back and all sudden two riders on the side walk part of the bridge, he was a bit ahead and a gap behind him and then opened, he did not saw what exactly happened, however one rider must have slid out on that obviously very slippery pained steel grate surface and one more behind this very unlucky bird some how tumbled over/around him. Not nice. Py wishes both unlucky birds the very best and to fully recover quickly.

The action of going on the side walk part was due to obvious earlier experiences of one rider... however Py did not noticed any trouble, but preventative did not made any steering moves, just like on ice and went over trouble free. Avoid or take extra care on wet paint and steel surfaces!


The bike unfriendly construction:


After staying there for a while, they decided to ride back from there -- now counting fife riders.
Py was getting chilly starting to ride again and pulled a very long part of the ride back to Manorville and got moving pretty well towards the end as some more rain was approaching.

Rocky Point RCA Trail

Today Py decided for a MTB ride on the RCA trail of Long Island, also call-sign RP -- as no one showed interest in an last minute announced RP2IPBB road ride for Saturday.
After finishing up some house work he got his "Humwee" -- his heavy duty Fully -- ready to hit the trail at 10:30 as he also pointed out at the USCC group@google, but did not really expected any one also. Arriving at the East plot on 25A at 10:29, some puddle, but a perfect day for a MTB ride.

A few minutes later he hit the trail, partly cloudy and starting foilage - very pretty -- and a nice tast of fall in the air...



This just looked liek a nice photo stop...




A try to get a photo....
and one more...
Almost done...


Stopping at Tildas as usual... and one more stop for this view:


A good day. A decend 1h40 RP w all Blacks loop.