Rothrock in Autumn

The Mark Family enjoyed an amazing fall weekend in State College, PA. What started as a mt. bike weekend turned into a very nice family weekend. Martin Kell, our neighbor from Chambersburg, joined us for the trip. We drove to State College early Friday evening and had a nice dinner at Kelly's Steak & Seafood in Boalsburg with the Muckers and Aaron Hofelt. My sister, Daphne, kindly let us all stay at her house for the weekend. She and her husband, Mark, have three boys Eric, Matt, and Charlie so Thomas and Henry were happy to have kids to play with. Eric and Matt were playing in a football game Saturday; Eric had a soccer match on Sunday as well.Saturday morning we awoke to coffee, bacon, waffles, and fruit. After a quick breakfast, we headed out to the Tussey Mt. ride start (with a stop at Starbucks, of course). We had Mike & Brenda Mucker, Martin Kell, Aaron Hofelt, Eric Lensig (SP?), Kevin Bergman, Aaron Pontzer, John (LHORBA), Mike Steininger, and me (10 total).Aaron and Kevin put together a nice collection of Tussey classics including the uncleanable John Wert Path, the fearsome Wildcat, and the always beautiful Tussey Ridge and Croyle Trails. HO actually rode the big rock garden on Wert clean, but failed to get the entire trail - I mean PATH.

We logged 30 Rothrock miles on day one.

Including this nice log/rock bridge at the end of the extension - many of us rode it.

After test riding my singlespeed 29'er in Michaux, I realized that while the Mary bars it came with were fantastic for level singletrack and mild hills, they totally blew for long downhills where you had to stay on the brakes. A quick visit to Mt. Nittany Wheelworks and a discussion with avid singlespeeder, Harry, led to my swapping the Mary bars for a set of Easton XC70 monkey bars. The new bike:

Saturday evening we had a nice dinner with the Suchanec family, and my brother Nabil at Beula's B-B-Q in downtown State College then retired to Otto's for a very nice high octane Stout.

Some of my good friends were there: (Frank told me this means hello in State Collegese)
Sunday morning I awoke to my nephew Eric who said that my friends (Mike) thought we should get moving. Mike was concerned about making the 10am ride start. It was 8am! Michele and I were just wrestling with Henry anyway, so I got up and moving. Plans changed several times, but we finally got under way (with a stop at Starbucks, of course). This stop had Mike convinced that we were running late and that we should call the others. I was still positive that were would make it on time and held out (I had told everyone to expect me at 10:05 anyway). Long story short, we made it to the Tussey lot at 10:01. In my own discreet way, I tried to let Mike know that the stress and worry about being late for the last two hours was entirely unnecessary - he was a good sport. We rallied and drove a convoy of bikers over to the shale pit. At the shale pit we were greeted with some hunter types (no hunting on Sundays in PA) who were sighting in their high-powered rifles across the shale pit and over top of the parked cars. I trusted that they were good shots and parked - they kindly ceased firing until we left the area.

At this ride start in addition to Mike, Brenda, Martin, Aaron, myself, HO, Eric, Kevin, we were joined by Nabil, Don Andrews (saw him at Otto's), and the Perry County boys: Ray, Brian, Larry, and Keith (14). This would be my first long ride on the fully rigid SS 29'er.

Almost immediately out of the parking area, I took a wrong turn and climbed up Brush Ridge solo only to reconnect with the group near the deer fence. We then proceeded over to the Cooper's Gap area and rode (not in this order) Cranberry Ridge, Deer Tick, Shittaka, Chestnut Springs, Lingle, Brush Ridge (down), and much more.

Nabil shot some video:

Including shots of Martin and I returning from completely unsuccessful attempts at climbing the ridiculously steep shale pit. A couple of really nice rides in Rothrock in perfect weather with a great bunch of folks.

Hematoma

Chambersburg Friday Night Rides

The Chambersburg Friday night road rides are up and running again. They depart at 5pm and are open to all ability levels. There is the occasional sprint before a stop light or stop sign, but everyone regroups and rides as a group the rest of the time. This Friday was 36 miles. Big 'E' was up from Tennessee and he is always fun to ride with. We left town via Wilson College and a dirt road (all good road rides have a little dirt).

There was a good turnout: Joel, Big 'E', Cathy, Nadine, Chuck, Martin, Dan, Mike, and myself.We proceeded out to the Mongul Hill circuit on beautiful roads and little traffic.Nadine wonders where the hell we are going.
The climbers on the front.

Cathy, Mike, and Chuck as we head back in toward Chambersburg on Stonewall Road.

A cool bridge near the intersection of Stonewall and Maclays Mill Roads.

Martin is our "special" rider.

The ride broke up in the last ten or so miles. Dan and I were off the front, took a right onto Blind Lane, backtracking our way back to town, and climbed a short hill. At the top, we waited for the main group; but they never came. So we rode about halfway back down but couldn't see anyone. We waited some more and then figured they went straight over to rt. 11 (Chuck loves riding on rt. 11). We rode over there and waited a little more, but we had only enough daylight to get back, so we resigned ourselves to riding back without the main group.

Turns out that Nadine and Chuck bumped bars at the tight right-hander at the base of the Blind Lane climb. They were there, but Dan and I couldn't see them at the bottom of the hill - hence the name, Blind Lane. Nadine went down hard and was pretty shaken up. After a few minutes, she felt well enough to ride back to town, and did; but bad enough to go to the ER and get checked out, she did that as well.

See you next Friday.

Pirate Party

Thomas turned five and we hosted a Pirate party.

Kayaking 101

It was pushing 100 degrees when Martin suggested that I should take him kayaking "some day", my response was how about today? We had been planning a 3+ hour mt. bike ride and the idea of hanging out in water for a couple hours sounded great:Henry and Thomas were hip to the idea as well:
We rounded up the boys, dusted off the boats, and headed out to Long Pine Reservoir. I could scarcely remember how to tie two boats onto my car. I had the ropes, but the knowledge was rusty. As we left Starbucks and headed for the lake, William Nealey's Kayaking bible started to come back to me - slowly. The many trips to WV began to revisit me, the chasing flood stage creeks in PA, SC & WV began to seem familiar again - in a weird way.

Here is Martin with a near-perfect set-up for an Eskimo roll. Someone once told me that you could tell if someone was going to be a kayaker if, on their first roll attempt, they came up smiling. Martin was laughing.

and, ready to try again.

Thomas and Henry were modeling for some surfer kid magazine:Another great day - 364 to go!

Heaven or Hell

My brother, Nabil, was down yesterday so I threw an impromptu ride together on his behalf. I wanted to show him Heaven or Hell. Larry and Martin came over to help ready my bike which is still having issues. Once we thought we had it back together, we headed out to Mont Alto State Park. About 50 meters into Park Trail, I realized I was in for a rough ride. My chain was jumping, shifting poorly, loose hub, etc. - you know same as HO-fest and the Stoopid 50. I hobbled up the buckets, broke a quick link, fixed it, then Larry and I took Staley over to upper Turtle. Nabil and Martin rode Charcoal Hearth over to Staley. Larry let me sample his SS 29'er on the climb up Turtle to Wayne's Highway. Survey says: incredible. Had to climb out of the saddle because of the set-up - which meant fast. The big wheels were awesome, throw some gears on there and wow! I broke my chain again going down the Middle Narrows, this time we didn't use a quick link and it was much stronger for the duration. Lee's Rocks over to Heaven or Hell. The Gate was unrideable for me given my gear situation but everyone else rides it. Nabil rode it clean on his first attempt - something noone else has ever been able to do! Martin was liking HorH much more this time than his previous run. Nabil rides the ramp (above). Nabil at the foot of the ramp
Larry tries the lower level of Hell, how many levels did Dante say there were? He almost makes it - but not quite.

Taking advantage of the horsepower on this ride. We stop to build a little optional rock thing about half-way down that I have been thinking about for awhile. We have a blast riding pretty much everything else clean. The lower section by the river is all rideable, a little obscufated in places but several of us clean it.

We session a bit at the final river crossing. Nabil survives what could have been a horrible crash down the rocky stream bed and gets back up to clean it on some ridiculously high route with a 90 left-hander in front of the cliff face.

At the end, we play on some recently cut logs near the mushroom pavillion, wish we had brought beers, and reminisce about the fine riding we just had. I go home and later, after dinner, purchase a whole new drivetrain.

5 Kings

A very nice 90 mile jaunt around Franklin, Cumberland, and Adams Counties that included five 900+ft climbs and grades over 20%.
Summary Data
Time: 5:20:09
Distance: 90.09
Moving Speed: 16.9 avg. 62.1 max.
Elevation Gain (ft): +8,160
Avg. Heart Rate
137 bpm Zone 3.4

Temperature (°F) 79.1°F avg.
Wind Speed: SE 8.9 avg. SE 11.5 max. Only one adjustment and no mechanicals.
Hills, hills, and more hills.
Chuck was losing some sodium chloride.

Ok. More than a little.
Joel back at the ranch 90+ miles later. Cathy Large joined us in Caledonia and rode over to the base of Timmons with us before peeling off to go to work. We ran into "Fast Eddie" from Carlisle as we began the climb up Timmons. On this ride I drank nine full bottles of water, peed only twice, and burned 7,243 calories.

HO-Fest 2007

We drove to State College this past Sunday for HO-Fest. HO-Fest is an annual cycling event put on by my friend, Aaron. HO is a rather obvious and adolescent shortening of his last name, Hofelt; but it was a cool nickname and it has stuck. We have been friends since sixth grade - long before mountain biking was even a twinkling in Joe Breeze's or Gary Fisher's eye. Our friendship has weathered middle school food fights, high school ski trips, college frat days, many girlfriends, rooming together, marriage, divorce, Dead shows, rock climbing trips to Kentucky, epic bike rides, horrendous camping trips, and much much more. Not to mention this video we once watched that his dad was allegedly previewing for the english course he was going to be teaching at Juniata College on Arthurian Legend - yeah right: Here is a review:
The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea is a film of contradictions. Beautiful and disturbing, erotic and psychotic, this melodramatic thriller is a film of unsettling dichotic elements. Quite an infamous film in its day (due to its shocking subject matter and modestly explicit sexuality). Just be prepared to file it in the "oddest films I've ever seen" category of your mind.
Trust me due to the aforementioned subject matter we filed this baby time and time again.

But life with HO has always been like that, odd and cool.

HO-Fest begins starts from Black Moshannon State Park west of State College, PA. The black part refers to the coloration of the lake due to the high level of tannins in the water; the moshannon part is a derivation of "moss-hanne" Native American for moose stream.
Henry and the tannins. HO-Fest begins with 15 riders who travelled in from all around Pennsylvania.
Including some of the Perry County boys: Ray and Dave.

From the HO himself:

"Here’s the recap: Kberg paced us up Dry Hollow to the gasline, where an unnamed local blew past the gasline.""After a quick direction correction, we dropped the wicked Rattlesnake trail to Benner Run. We climbed up the fire road to the gasline.""Despite the recommendations to the contrary, an unnamed local led us on the gas line where we encountered high grass followed by a grunt of a climb (not fun)."

"Unnamed local then blamed poor trail judgement on Yoda who magically ‘appeared he did’ at the Rock Run trail head." (Yoda in green)

"The easy part over, we followed Rock Run over rocks (HO above) and drainages and abandoned rail beds.""Allen and Don took the ‘large cahuna’ prize for riding the sketchy bridge across the creek. We climbed the rail bed up the switchbacks to the AFT."

"This marked the beginning of a rash of mechanicals: Ray, Dave, and Darius all ended up with chain problems." - like this one wrapped around the seat stays.

"We passed the normal bail-out point at Moosehead lane and continued on downstream where an unnamed local had knowledge of perhaps the sweetest piece of single track in the forest."

-I swear that unnamed local is flipping me the bird.
-Yoda rides the bridge he does. After this nice bridge ride, the group split up; half going up a nasty double-track hike-a-bike to a fire road.-The other half taking a sweet piece of singletrack down by the creek with challenging uphills and rock gardens. "As the rest of group delighted in the challenging rocks and beauty of this trail, Rich found that he had somehow snapped his frame between a rock and his grundle??? "

-Fortunately, there is no picture of his grundle.

"We regrouped at the crossing of Black Moshannon then either went upstream (or uphill) to the AFT/Shingle Mill intersection. The group, now weary from the days’ unrelenting technical tortures, drew its last ounce of strength to face the daunting Shingle Mill trial. This trail is always difficult and can take the best riders out of their game and have them screaming for their mothers. At the end of a long ride the group did a terrific job of taming this trail."

"Kudos to everyone who met the challenge – it was a great day to be in the woods on some great trails." - a great group of folks to ride with durable, amiable, and skilled - like Jedi. After the ride we headed down to HO's house for a picnic and some cold refreshments. It was Canada Day and HO had hockey pucks to grill (inside joke on his grilling skills). Thanks for another great ride HO - you have come a long way since Mello Yellow and holding your rear deraileur on with a drywall screw.
-Cheers