Aug 1, 2010

Yesterday's Blue Mountain blues

Yesterday's ride at Blue Mountain was short & sweet. I had envisioned a long day on the trails but several factors worked against that vision. For starters, I'm still sick. I have had this false notion that I'm fine, despite my constant hacking (this cough won't leave me). So when I got out there and started the first long climb I was feeling completely drained and barely got my singlespeed up the hills. My pace was slow; that's for sure.

The other factor that worked against us was Marc's bike. He had sent me an email the night before saying that he was having problems with his brakes. I thought to myself, no problem, I'll get him rolling at the tail head. Having spent several years as a wrench in bike shops I was positive that I could fix whatever was wrong with his ride. Unfortunately Marc, not knowing any better, had sprayed an obscene amount of WD-40 on his brake calipers to try to "free things up". I was able to adjust his calipers so that they weren't rubbing so badly on his disk rotors but the oil on his brake pads make the brakes pretty much non existent. The other issue with his bike was that the cones in his hubs (both hubs) were loose. They must have been loose for some time because when I tightened them down, by hand, the bearings were super gritty. (Marc I highly recommend you pick up this book!)

We rode for about an hour before we called it quits. I was OK with that. I loved being out in the woods as it was beautiful. The drought we're experiencing has definitely taken it's toll on the forest. Several of the swamps we rode past were completely dried up leaving black leaves and dried out moss where swamp water once was (see pics below). This area sure could use some rain.




As per standard operating procedure we swung in to Peekskill Brewery before catching the train back into the city. I enjoyed a couple of their IPA's (my favorite type of ale) and we all talked about riding, work, life and exchanged ridiculous stories of times gone by. The brewery is a great place to end a ride.

6 comments:

recumbent conspiracy theorist said...

As the saying goes- A short ride in the woods even with a mechanical is still better than a great day at work!

Conditions are very dry here in Ohio too.
-rct

Anonymous said...

Well said.

Kate Geisen said...

Blogsurfing...

Looks like a great place to ride, even if you weren't feeling well. Cool pictures, too.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Kate!

Unknown said...

I guess up in Alaska we're getting all of the rain that other places need!

Looks like a beautiful place to ride...I'm jealous you were able to get out, I was at work, yay. Hoping to hit some single-track here in town that I haven't ever ridden during my "weekend" (Thurs./Fri.). Hope you feel better soon!

Anonymous said...

Hi Whitney:

I'm feeling much better lately and looking forward to getting back out to Blue Mountain this coming Saturday afternoon. Hopefully I'll post up some more pictures. It really is a beautiful place to ride; lots of evergreens and soft loamy/mossy/pine needle covered trails that twist their way through the woods.

Re: Your weekend lol... I once worked the night shift as a aircraft mechanic and my weekends were Tuesday and Wednesday - boy did I live it up...