Close to home

   In all my years of mountain biking I've never had "home" trails that I could ride to, and not have to drive to. The closest was when I lived in McKeesport many moons ago. There was some decent stuff over in Port Vue and Liberty, but that required a pretty good ride to get to.

   Recently the Saint Vincent's Equestrian Team has cut some sweet singletrack into the woods surrounding the college. There was already some decent trails close by. Most noteably the stuff around the lake, but no real singletrack. It is such a joy to not have to drive to get to decent trails. Not only are they fun, but also very scenic. Yeah, all the new stuff together only adds up to about 2 miles of trail, but combined with the stuff around the lake, and riding from home it's super easy to put together a fun, 10-12 mile ride now. So I've started taking care of the trails...removing leaves, knocking back jagger bushes, clearing deadfall, even a few reroutes. There's still alot I want to to, but that's on hold a couple weeks while the guys with guns are prowling the woods looking to take out Bambi.

   Fine by me really, this year's bike riding is winding down. I only need about 7 hours to reach my goal for the year of 250. I'm trying to get into the habit of bouncing on the rebounder every morning again. I moved Paco the Kettlebell back up to the living room from the basement in hopes that I'd be more likely to randomly pick it up and get some exercise. So far that seems to be working too. I'm also going to start with walking lunges, power cleans, and deadlifts as soon as my legs feel a little better. Also need to get back into the daily habit of foam rolling, yoga and stretching.

Fat is Fun!

So I finally got myself a "fat" bike this past summer, and I'm anxiously waiting for it to snow to try it out in that environment.

The bike is a Motobecane FB5 3.0 which can be bought on-line from the bikesdirect.com website. There is some assembly required when the bike arrives, but nothing too serious. This model cost $900 and it was a great deal. 

Recently I decided that 4.25" wide tires wasn't big enough, and purchased some 4.8" tires to put on the bike.

These are the Vee Snowshoe XL tires. They are listed as 4.8", but mounted up on my 90mm rims they are measuring in at 4.5". I'm keeping them inflated to 20 psi overnight though so they may still grow a little when the casing stretches. Did a quick spin around the yard and the road in front of the house after getting them mounted, and they seemed to roll pretty good with no self-steer (though I don't think any tire has that problem at 20 psi). I'll find out tomorrow morning how the handle at typical trail riding pressures (7-10 psi).