Pilchuck Tree Farm – Tomorrow’s Ride!

Tomorrow’s Ride is at Pilchuck Tree Farm! 30+ miles of trails and I think since this is the first time I will be riding there, I should bring my GPS with me just in case I get lost.

Pilchuck Tree Farm

Here is another picture of the terrain and then the last picture is a picture of the way to get there. Its easy for me, My daughter had twins yesterday and I will be in Stanwood to see the babies. After that, I will be heading to the Pilchuck Tree Farm for a ride. Here are the other pictures:

Pilchuck Tree Farm Topo Map

Directions:

Pilchuck Tree Farm Directions

Taking the GoPro with me tomorrow to get some more good shots. This time I will make sure I have the camera set to where you can see more of the trail. I sure will be glad when I get my handlebar / Seat Post Mounting brackets! I also got the chest mounted setup as well. Eventually, I will get a couple more cameras to film multiple views of the same trails and begin to add them all together. Camtasia is finally releasing there Mac version on the 15th which is two more days. I may just wait to create the Pilchuck Tree Farm video until I get the right software to do what I want with the videos I create.

I used to use Camtasia when I had windows. Since I use Mac exclusively now, I’ve been waiting – Three Years! I’ll post some regular pictures tomorrow of the ride and post the video on Sunday or Monday while in New Orleans. Later!

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Coupeville to Stanwood Washington – 60 mile Ride

Tomorrow morning around 6:30am or so, I will be heading off on a 60 mile ride from Coupeville to Stanwood. I will be taking some photos from the bike as I go. The ride takes me from central Whidbey Island to Fidalgo Island to Fir Island and finally to the mainland. Cities riding through will be the following:

• Coupeville
• Oak Harbor
• Anacortes
• LaConnor
• Edge of Mount Vernon
• Stanwood

The trip covers approximately 60 miles or 100 kilometers and I am hoping it will take roughly about 3 hours to complete. We’ll see how it goes and I will post tomorrow the details.

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Fort Ebey State Park – Not Just For Beginner’s!

Well, I just recently got to go on my first ride since coming home from Rio. I chose to go to Fort Ebey and do a little Mountain Bike Ride. My trip coming home from six weeks of work was something else. I flew home which took about 15 hours total. Then I picked up a taxi ride to the Penske truck rental, rented a truck, packed the garage up and headed home from Houston.

The trip took me 3 days and close to 3,000 miles. Now that all that is over, I can go back to riding every day. Today was the start. I used my new Sidi MTB shoes, Bontrager clipless pedals and of course a new saddle. I went for a short ride to make all the adjustments that were needed after the bike had been boxed up for 2 1/2 month’s. Surprisingly, I only had to adjust the seat height a couple of times. Here is a video of my stats while riding. They were taken using my Garmin 405:

Fort Ebey 08-04-2009

I wanted to also let you know that I just purchased a new helmet camera setup to be able to bring you killer videos of my rides and the rides I do with the local bike club. Stay tuned for that. Tomorrow, I will go for a 20 mile road bike training ride followed by a 60 mile ride from Coupeville, Wa. to Stanwood, Wa. on Thursday. I’ll post after the rides. Later!

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Last Ride Texas – Cranky Is Back In Washington!

Hey y’all, This Yankee is back on home turf! No more riding on the flattest place on earth. Sorry Lance, but your state really sucks for riding. I’m sure Austin is a great place to ride, but Houston absolutely sucks. Let me tell you about a couple of incidents that occurred to me over the last 18 month’s in Houston. The first time I went out on the open road, I thought, “Man this is great – I can cruise at 22 miles an hour”. 15 miles into the ride and I feel an incredibly intense sting in the small of my back. Can you guess what it was that caused the stinging sensation?

Well, that stinging sensation was caused by a paint ball gun firing a green paint ball! Fucking assholes… That and the international symbol (The bird), went to the idiots in the oversized, compensating pickup truck. The guy behind the wheel obviously had a little dick to drive around in such a big ass truck. Anyway, getting hit with a paint ball really does hurt and I’m here to tell you that you certainly do NOT want it happening to you.

Another time, I decided to give the road another shot and had a drunk swerve into oncoming traffic just so he could throw his empty beer bottle at me. It hit my handlebars and shattered sending glass all over the front of my body. Good shot for a fucking drunkin’ idiot. After those two (Mind you) consecutive rides, I decided to pretty much give up road riding and stick to the Mountain bike. It didn’t last long though and within a couple of month’s, I was back on the road bike.

Of course, at this point I was only going to ride at certain times. 9:30am-11:30am was the best time to ride as everyone was at work. On the weekends, I would only ride in the wee hours of the morning. I did have a great TT set up right in my community. It was 10 miles long and perfect for checking my fitness improvements. That in fact was the last ride I did! Here is a quick video of my Garmin 405 which shows my output:

Thats it for tonight – Goodbye to Texas and hello to Washington – Tomorrow is a 56 mile ride from Coupeville, WA to Stanwood, WA! I’ll post the ride and if I take any pictures, I’ll post them as well.

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Giro d’Italia Stage 17 – Lance Showing Signs Of Good Form?

Giro d’Italia Stage 17 – Is Lance showing signs of good form?

Another Look from Lance

Stage 17 was a hell of a show wasn’t it? Today’s stage was just another was just another sprinters day as far as I’m concerned. So, today I decided to talk about stage 17. I will show you a couple of pictures to show what may have been a test to see how well Lance is coming into form. Johan has been wanting Lance to step it up. I think today we saw a little of what Lance is saving for the Tour De France!

Take a look at those eyes. That’s the look of determination.

What do you think? Think he’s hurting and cannot actually bridge the gap to the leader of the stage? Or is he setting the stage for France?

This could be a tactic hes playing to set the competition up for his attacks in the tour.

Then again, he could be hurting and just not ready for the comeback and win plan. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Let’s talk about how skinny Lance is looking. The boy is absolutely shredded right now. If he is in fact hurting, maybe its because he’s lacking in nutrition?

Let’s hope the trainer’s know what they’re doing when it comes to his nutrition and workout regiment.

Know matter – what we saw today was a look of the past Lance! I think he’ll be able to really be in great form come July. Levi was looking rough at the end of this stage. Even though he has been training and doing great in most of the races this year, won the Tour of California and looks a lot like Lance did in 2005, he was sure hurting in Stage 17.

Frothing at the mouth is a sure sign that the boy is dehydrated. They better stick a few IV’s in him and get him back in the game come tomorrow! Stage 19 is well suited for his style of climbing. Good luck Levi.

Let’s check out the over results of todays stage as well as looking at the overall general classification:

Stage 17 Results

General Classification After Stage 17

That’s it for today. Tomorrow will be another interesting stage.

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