trout...

good times this weekend at stokesville... jj and i rolled down saturday morning and met mike miller at braley pond to start our first ride of the weekend. we were supposed to meet up with darren and evan, but we were late getting down there, and even later getting started riding that we figured they'd gone on ahead. part one of the ride was the braley pond loop and it didn't disappoint.

after a quick break at the cars we left for the ride over to hankey/dowell's. the hankey climb felt good, but it's always longer than i remember. once we cleared the top of hankey and started along the ridge my handling skills felt like they were improving a bit (i felt rather rusty on braley) and by the bottom of the run i'd promoted dowell's draft back to the top of my all-time-favorite-downhills list.

we ran into darren & evan at the top of dowell's... they were climbing back up after riding over hankey from the campground and then doing the braley loop backwards. it turns out evan had a mechanical on the way over to meet us in the morning and they didn't get there until a half hour after we left braley pond.

over to the stokesville campground, set up camp, popped the top on a brooklyner-schneider hopfen-weiss and got serious about relaxing. evan came by and shared some of his beer & a nice pepper salami, then we had the potluck, some presentations on mountainbike issues in virginia, and then the campfire.

sunday morning we had a pancake breakfast then set out to ride the first 30 miles of the course with darren. narrowback is always a longer climb than you think it'll be and cookie trail was a lot more fun without the sm100 hordes stacking up on every other rock. at the bottom of the downhill to tilghman rd we had a double wammy. darren's pedal had seized and then started unscrewing itself and my brother's allergies were killing him so we hit the road back to camp.

after a trip into h'burg for some claritin and some recovery time, jj and i took a ride up lookout mountain. the climb up and out the back of the campground is about as tough as they come, but the lookout ride was a lot of fun. probably the rockiest downhill that i know of in the stokesville area and but then it's got some super swoopy sections near the bottom.

back at the campsite more food and beer followed, maybe a bit too much beer... monday morning we decided to call it quits a little early. we stopped by the new pump track in harrisonburg on the way back to see what thats all about. not the place to ride a 5" dual-suspension bike, but fun none-the-less.

back home we had my parents over and we finally get to the headline of this piece... heather and i picked up a bunch of whole trout fillets. i stuffed them with slices of lemon, onion, a whole mess of herbs - mostly from our herb garden (note to self: plant some tarragon) - and threw them on the grill. flipping them proved to be a little challenging, and a couple weren't quite as nice coming off the grill as they went on, but for something we'd never tried before we were very happy with the results.

stokesville awaits...

topher on wolf ridge

less than 24 hours till i'm riding sweet gw singletrack... i'll be down in stokesville, at the virginia imba festival tomorrow through monday. home of the sm100 and a couple of the best rides on the east coast (at least in my opinion). here are my photos from the 2006 edition of the sm100

klasmeier crossing ramsey's draft

hmm...

was mayor fenty on the goon ride last night? looked like it was him...

iris

pardon me for a quick rant on a topic not usually covered here...

hey cable industry (comcast of montgomery county in particular). if you're going to run ads touting the fact that your service beats satellite because the signal doesn't break up in the rain then you should really make sure that actually holds up. i've never seen it until recently, but we've been getting satellite-like break up on a lot of channels when it starts raining. i assume it's coming from their satellite downlinks, but why does it seem to be to getting worse (more compression to squeeze in more channels perhaps) now? and don't advertise an advantage you don't have.

and we're done... resume your normal activities.

italian beer...

no, not moretti and peroni... italy has a thriving craft beer movement these days and with no history of brewing these new small brewers aren't constrained by any national brewing tradition or style. rob and i went down to national geographic live last wednesday to taste some of these beers under the guidance of garret oliver, brewmaster of brooklyn brewery. i've put up my notes up over on joefoleybeer.blogspot.com. a lot of these beers have only been in US for a couple of weeks, so it was a treat to taste so many all in one place.

Flurette
Seson
Nuova Mattina
Cassisona
Nora 2005
Strada San Felice
Malthus Birolla
Palanfrina
BB Dexi
Baladin Xanuyu

artomatic starts tonight...

Heather met me at the artomatic site after work on wednesday to help me get set up for artomatic. with the extra pair of hands we were done sooner than expected and got home in time to throw some sausages on the grill for dinner. i was grilling in the dark by the time everything was done, but they turned out all right.

artomatic opens tonight at 5 and runs through june 15. check http://www.artomatic.org for full hours and all of the other details. i'll be there volunteering tonight, but i have not idea where i'll be or what i'll end up doing.

i've set up an online gallery of the photographs that are hanging in the show. go to http://www.static-photo.com to take a look.

artomatic...

after thinking about it for a couple of years, and then missing the registration opening for last year's show, i'm going to have a space in this year's artomatic. started work on my space this weekend by slapping a coat of paint onto the primed plywood that we've been provided with and working on getting my work for the show printed and framed. the show opens this friday and runs through june 15th. if you want to find my work go to the 6th floor. i'm right off the elevator banks, right next to an installation of neon sculpture.

May 9 – June 15, 2008
Capitol Plaza I
1200 First Street, NE
Washington, DC 20002
Metro: Red Line, New York Ave., M St exit