good night ride last night at rosaryville thanks to bunky (for setting it up), ricky (for leading us at ricky-speed), and the rest of the crew that showed up. ricky-speed is highly recommended at rosaryville as it's ultra flowly bench-cut trails littered with little jumps are it's natural environment.
speaking of the trails at rosaryville... Dafydd Davis got an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in the UK for his work on trails in Wales. isn't it time started a campaign to get Rich Edwards some similar over here... a congressional medal of something?
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
mmmmm beer....
Beer tasting at Pizzeria Paradiso - American beer edition:
Pilsners
the Bear Republic Racer 5 was my favorite of the IPAs - nice floral hop aroma and buckets of fresh hop taste with a bitterness that balanced the malt body of the beer. Russian River Damnation was a highlight among a great group of belgians, subtle and smooth. The Stone Old Guardian was hands down the better of the two barleywines. I've tried the Old Crustean and it just doesn't impress me, i think it tries to do too much to do anything well.
Pilsners
- Victory Prima Pils
- Dogfish Head Golden Showers Imperial IPA
IPAs
- Bear Republic Racer 5
- Stone Ruination IPA
- Victory Hop Devil
- Dogfish Head 90-minute IPA
- Dogfish Head 90-minute IPA run through the Randall the Enamel Animal
- Ommegang Abbey Ale
- Russian River Damnation
- Avery The Reverend
- North Coast Brother Thelonius
- North Coast Old #38 Stout
- Dogfish Head Worldwide Stout
- Stone Old Guardian
- Rogue Old Crustacean
the Bear Republic Racer 5 was my favorite of the IPAs - nice floral hop aroma and buckets of fresh hop taste with a bitterness that balanced the malt body of the beer. Russian River Damnation was a highlight among a great group of belgians, subtle and smooth. The Stone Old Guardian was hands down the better of the two barleywines. I've tried the Old Crustean and it just doesn't impress me, i think it tries to do too much to do anything well.
Monday, November 27, 2006
4 days - no work, good food, good riding...
thursday. lazy morning and then out of the house and off on the bike think that the rain was ending... it wasn't, but i managed to convice myself to keep going for 2 hours in steady 40-degree rain. i've got to say, it was a pretty miserable ride, but it's good to know that the first cold & wet ride for the winter is past me now -- it's a lot easier to get out on the cold dry days once you're glad that at least it's not raining. once i got back home it took almost an hour to get my body back up to room temperature. we went up to my parents in the evening for thanksgiving dinner.
friday. woke up to a beautiful clear sky and warmer air but no coffee beans in the house so we took a walk down to one of the local coffee shops (we've got 3 in stumbling distance) to get a cup of joe and something to eat, read the paper, and replenish our bean supply. so much better of a way to start the day after thanksgiving than heading to the mall or standing in line for hours outside a big-box store. not that either of us would be inclined to do that anyway.
after getting coffee i got the road bike out again and what a difference a day makes. i started out planning to ride the same loop as the day before with a slight extension on to the end, but since i was feeling so good i decided to see if i could make it all the way out to travillah rd and back instead of cutting across on seven locks road. my legs felt good, the sun felt good, but once i got to travillah and then turned back down river road i started to realize that i was going to be back later than i'd told heather so i cut a little distance off the ride and kept pushing all the way home.
after a quick lunch we took a trip down to georgetown... a couple of errands and then a trip to pizzeria paradiso. i started with a nimbus "strong pale ale" from atlas in scotland, hand pulled off the beer engine and then stuck with the british isles theme with a conniston bluebird bitter and a old engine oil from harviestoun brewery. they all went really well with the pizza margherita... i keep thinking i should explore the menu a little more, but the margherita is just so good it seems like it' be a shame to put anything else on it.
saturday. another day with the family, this time to hike at sugarloaf mtn, which heather has never done and i haven't in years. the walk was fun, except for when i dropped heather's camera onto the rocks and watched it bounce a few times before sliding to a stop. it's working, sort-of, but i'm guessing that when i take it that there won't be much chance of fixing it. finished the day at crate & barrel to start registering. it seems a little early to me, but who really knows...
sunday. gambrill.
friday. woke up to a beautiful clear sky and warmer air but no coffee beans in the house so we took a walk down to one of the local coffee shops (we've got 3 in stumbling distance) to get a cup of joe and something to eat, read the paper, and replenish our bean supply. so much better of a way to start the day after thanksgiving than heading to the mall or standing in line for hours outside a big-box store. not that either of us would be inclined to do that anyway.
after getting coffee i got the road bike out again and what a difference a day makes. i started out planning to ride the same loop as the day before with a slight extension on to the end, but since i was feeling so good i decided to see if i could make it all the way out to travillah rd and back instead of cutting across on seven locks road. my legs felt good, the sun felt good, but once i got to travillah and then turned back down river road i started to realize that i was going to be back later than i'd told heather so i cut a little distance off the ride and kept pushing all the way home.
after a quick lunch we took a trip down to georgetown... a couple of errands and then a trip to pizzeria paradiso. i started with a nimbus "strong pale ale" from atlas in scotland, hand pulled off the beer engine and then stuck with the british isles theme with a conniston bluebird bitter and a old engine oil from harviestoun brewery. they all went really well with the pizza margherita... i keep thinking i should explore the menu a little more, but the margherita is just so good it seems like it' be a shame to put anything else on it.
saturday. another day with the family, this time to hike at sugarloaf mtn, which heather has never done and i haven't in years. the walk was fun, except for when i dropped heather's camera onto the rocks and watched it bounce a few times before sliding to a stop. it's working, sort-of, but i'm guessing that when i take it that there won't be much chance of fixing it. finished the day at crate & barrel to start registering. it seems a little early to me, but who really knows...
sunday. gambrill.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
taccinio
this is going to be a rambly post... there are a bunch of things i've wanted to post but haven't had time and i wasn't quite ready to bump the last post down yet.
raced squadra coppi's taccinio ciclicross on saturday. heather & my parents both came out to watch but i managed only a respectable finish. 14th is my highest placing so far this season, but the field was small (sub-40?) and i should have been top ten.
i had a decent start for for the first time this year and managed to move up 4 or 5 places on the first lap but had constant trouble on a short but very steep climb right after the start/finish. i wound up in the tape off the side of the course at least 3 times in 8 laps and lost at least 4 place because of it. i only salvaged 14th because dave crouse from the bike lane also wound up in the tape on the last lap.
the highlight of the day was when the annoucer, who was calling out names as we came past the start/finish midway through the race, paused when he read my name, then mentioned my blog post from last week and congratulated us both... heather and my parents were out of earshot of the PA at the time, but it was pretty cool. after the race we wandered around leesburg for a while and got some halfway decent fish & chips at a little pub in town.
looks like i'll be doing a couple more cross races this year. other than the capital cross out at reston i'd figured this would be my last racing weekend of the year, but it looks like i'm going to be able to swing a trip to providence for nationals in december. i'll be racing friday in the 30-34 and then hanging out to watch and shoot the national championship races on saturday before heading down to philly to meet up with heather. it'll be interesting to see how far back i end up lining up since the seeding is based on registration order.
i'm going to try and get to the MABRA championship race in taneytown the weekend after thanksgiving as well. should be good motivation to stay active over the holiday weekend and keep me in shape for the capital cross in reston.
i need to get out to some more cross practices... the barriers on saturday were ugly. they were in the middle of a long fast flat section and i just didn't have the chops.
we had a dcmtb/city bikes team meeting last night. sounds like there will be a little structural change but unfortuantely they seem to think i'm doing a decent job and don't want to kick me out as captain. there was talk of getting together a team (or two?) to challenge for the granny gear national point series. we'd hit the 3 east coast races (converys, big bear, killington) and one west coast (temecula?). sounds like fun to me...
raced squadra coppi's taccinio ciclicross on saturday. heather & my parents both came out to watch but i managed only a respectable finish. 14th is my highest placing so far this season, but the field was small (sub-40?) and i should have been top ten.
i had a decent start for for the first time this year and managed to move up 4 or 5 places on the first lap but had constant trouble on a short but very steep climb right after the start/finish. i wound up in the tape off the side of the course at least 3 times in 8 laps and lost at least 4 place because of it. i only salvaged 14th because dave crouse from the bike lane also wound up in the tape on the last lap.
the highlight of the day was when the annoucer, who was calling out names as we came past the start/finish midway through the race, paused when he read my name, then mentioned my blog post from last week and congratulated us both... heather and my parents were out of earshot of the PA at the time, but it was pretty cool. after the race we wandered around leesburg for a while and got some halfway decent fish & chips at a little pub in town.
looks like i'll be doing a couple more cross races this year. other than the capital cross out at reston i'd figured this would be my last racing weekend of the year, but it looks like i'm going to be able to swing a trip to providence for nationals in december. i'll be racing friday in the 30-34 and then hanging out to watch and shoot the national championship races on saturday before heading down to philly to meet up with heather. it'll be interesting to see how far back i end up lining up since the seeding is based on registration order.
i'm going to try and get to the MABRA championship race in taneytown the weekend after thanksgiving as well. should be good motivation to stay active over the holiday weekend and keep me in shape for the capital cross in reston.
i need to get out to some more cross practices... the barriers on saturday were ugly. they were in the middle of a long fast flat section and i just didn't have the chops.
we had a dcmtb/city bikes team meeting last night. sounds like there will be a little structural change but unfortuantely they seem to think i'm doing a decent job and don't want to kick me out as captain. there was talk of getting together a team (or two?) to challenge for the granny gear national point series. we'd hit the 3 east coast races (converys, big bear, killington) and one west coast (temecula?). sounds like fun to me...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
