Turkey and mountain bikes

Well yet another thanksgiving has come and gone; along with a great deal of food and time that should have been put to better use. But even though I didn't get much studying done we did get in several good mountain bike rides over the very extended weekend.

Thursday morning Jake and I met a few people at Candler's Mountain for some turkey preparation riding. We rode with Brandon, Ben, Ryan and Bob for a couple hours and then headed back to the parking lot past the Snow-flex. While I think this place is kinda cool, i dont think that i will ever take it in...looks like super rug burn waiting to happen (maybe I'm just a snob). Upon arriving back to the car we ran into some other mountain biker friends and went back out for another hour. Then of course we stuffed ourselves with all sorts of delicious eats and visited with family.

Friday had big plans for all day epic road riding along the parkway and what have you, but nature intervened with cool temperatures and absurd wind gusts, thus we decided to alter our plans. We met Scott and rode the trails at Falling Creek park in Bedford; this was my first time on the trails and i will say that despite the cold and leaves the riding was great. We capped off the ride with a southpaw in the parking lot (well inside jake's car in the parking lot).

And for a change of pace we decided to go on a big mountain ride on saturday instead of the typical sunday. It was a little chilly in places and toasty warm in the sun in others. We drove down passed Glasgow and parked at the Locher parking area rode up a horse trail to the Sulfur springs trail, which crosses the AT a couple times, and rode down the Balcony Falls trail which forces you to get in some great switchback practice. We capped this ride off with a Starr Hill Pale ale and left over chicken biscuits from Mitchell's...awesome. We were able to get off the mountain just in time to make it back to Liberty Hall to catch yet another Thanksgiving; more delicious food. And to finish the night off in style the Hokies caught fire in the 4th quarter to defeat the wahoos for the 10th time in 11 years.

Sunday was spent relaxing in preparation for the weeks to come, we got a traditional breakfast and played some cards with the grand-rents and some quality folks.

Sweet

Rock Climbing at Cooper's

Climbing at Coop's Sunday with Lemma, and Amber

 

Spent Saturday watching the Bruceton CX races and did a little riding at Cooper's too. Mmm home made Pizza.

Lynchburg, Food, Harrisonburg, PA, Raleigh, all on deck...busy two weeks coming up!

Tunes are back!

Weekend in the Valley

You know you had a good weekend in Canaan when Monday morning you are still pretty much too exhausted to write much about it...the weather could not have been better...

Picture Time

Two 5+ hour days of riding = so sick.

 

Nice air Bala!

 

 

 

 

 

Larry ate it pretty good early in the ride Sunday.

 Chad took a bog bath...Nice

 

The riding there is simply awesome. Thanks to Ian for showing us some new sick trails. Thanks to the Lutz brothers for giving us a place to stay for the weekend. Looking forward to the winter and boading at Canaan and Timberline.

Adventures in cabin life, state parks, travel, and food...

Met some Roberts family members in Hinton, WV this past weekend, for a designated time of chilling and eating. Lucas made us some Chili Friday night, Zach's eggs biscuits and gravy saturday morning, and Wren's beef that night and french toast the next morning. I'm still full, and am in need of getting in more regular riding to reduce the obvious results of my "off season" eating binge that has been occuring since..ooo quite a while now.

The cabin was up on a ridge overlooking Sandstone falls on the New River. It was really nice, and just North of Bluestone and Pipestem State Parks. Luke and I got some time in riding the trails at Bluestone, and made it down for a visit to Pipestem also. It was a good weekend, and we had a great time seeing everyone, looking forward to the next time.

 

 

 

Made it in to Lynchburg Sunday night to visit my folks there and got in some cards with my grandparents. Even got my car inspected...finally...

Hit the road Monday night to Harrisonburg to hang out with Burchy and spent Tuesday morning talking with Chris Scott of Shenandoah Mountain Touring about working with him next year. Its looking like thats gonna happen and I'm super stoked to make the move and work with SMT.

Finally back to Morgantown yesterday evening to see Liew give us his practice presentation for his defense. He defended this morning and he passed! Great job Larry! Way to dominate.

Liew took Bala and I out to the Peking House for lunch and then back to the house and fed us some Durian that he brought back from New York. That is by far the strangest fruit I have ever eaten.

 

 

The taste of Durian? Well....the seed is wrapped in what is basically natural pudding with a weird filmy cover. If you arent into textures....dont eat it. Its fruity, sweet, confusing, kinda bitter, and just...well, you should try it.

 

Lookin' like Canaan Valley this weekend.....hellz yeah.

Happy Birthday Lucas!

My younger, yet taller, cooler, and much more awesome than I am, brother is 24 today. Woop woop!

Tunes in his honor:

Happy Birthday Sick.

And because this song is awesome...

Top of the hill...

Looking like I'm getting final approval on my thesis from my committee...final word in a day or two, and I can then work on the ETD submission. Got all the pdf conversion kinks worked out this afternoon, so pumped about that. So, it would seem that I'm almost at the top of this hill...

Much like I was here...

I rode the death hill...but only during the early morning dry conditions!

This post was a little work heavy, and I apologize for that...

Tomorrow is Luke's birthday - He is awesome.

Halloween: Crossing Over

 I'm super tired this morning, because I had a spectacular weekend. It all started Friday night with some sick ski and snowboard films put on by Pathfinder down at the Warner.

Saturday morning a local Cyclocross race known as the "Race of the Dead" was held here in town at Marilla Park. A local pirate and I had a gentleman's challenge for the single speed class, so it was up bright and early Saturday morning to ride down to the park and get ready to race. It was still dry and warm in the morning when we went off, and traction was at its best for the day with the SS, Masters, and Women on course. Rolling was fast, and I was feeling competitive so I rode pretty hard to see how well I could do. Even made it up the crazy steep "hill of death" 3 out of my 5 laps, woot! Took a beer handup from Zerbe, not so much because it would be awesome and funny, but also because I decided to race with no water bottle, and I truly was thirsty haha. It was super fun, I finished up 7th in SS and the pirate took the win.

Mr. First Place SS and Lois Griffin...

 

During my last lap, the rains began to fall and the temps did too. The B racers were in for a treat as the nice tacky course had now turned to straight up mud. Took some pics from atop the "hill of death" and there was very little, if any, riding of the hill at that point. Nothing but mud, slick enough to just dive down and slide. After watching the carnage and fun, I decided to run the A race for fun, and experience. It had been a long time since I had been that muddy, and just wanted part of the action. I was tired, slow, and hurtin, but it was super fun. Fall, cooler temps, mud, beer handups, lots of people cheering, I could get used to cross racing.

 Go Sponge!

 

 JR Dominates...

 

 Two people on one bike...

 

Ride em cowboy!

 

 

Made it home, cleaned up, and back downtown for the Motown Throwdown. Pathfinder hooks up with Wisp on halloween weekend, and sets up a snowboard/ski rail slide complete with snow from the ice rink in the middle of High Street for a sick competition. The skiers and boarders put on quite a show for 4 hours with a sick DJ killing it. More carnage, sick tricks, free goodies, and costumes, it was sick. From there on to the VIP party upstairs at the Lazy Lizard, where it was time to celebrate. I had been saving my post-defense celebration for the party, and I made the most of it. The next morning my pockets were stuffed full of empty candy wrappers...haha. Happy Halloween.

Nature's Essence Photography

 

Represent!

Awesome...