Another Cycling Death

I really hate the first post of 2010 to be a sad/negative one, but a friend of mine from Miami sent me a post of a blog about a terrible incident in Miami yesterday. I stupid/drunk motorist ran over a cyclist who was riding in a bike lane on the causeway to Key Biscayne. Its a really popular causeway and one I rode a few years ago when I took my bike to Florida on a trip. This kind of think makes me sick. Some cycling accidents with cars are not always as blatantly horrible as this. All of them are sad but this one really stings the cycling community. Look at the mugshot of this person and you can see someone who just has bad attitude. God Bless this family and God help the person who hit him understand what he has done. Every cyclist who rides on the road knows the dangers. But its still sad when it happens to one of us. http://miamibikescene.blogspot.com/2010/01/cyclist-killed-on-rickenbacker-causeway.html

My New Bike

I have been contemplating a new bicycle for about 8 months. I really didn't have the money but that is secondary to the fact that I NEEDED a new bike. Well, I didn't exactly "need" one but I was going to have to put some money into my old bike. Its been a great ride and I will continue to keep it, but its 6 year old technology and with Road Bikes, that's almost like driving a 70's car. The frame is still in great shape but the components need replacing since I have put somewhere around 25000 miles on her since 2004. Everything was starting to wear out. So, after all of this justification, I felt like I needed to look some. So in September, I started looking at bikes. I rode some European bikes that I really liked. I rode Pinarello, Eddy Mercyx, and a Bianchi. I liked them all but could not find one that really stood out with ride quality. I have always loved my old Trek 5200. It was never a doubt that I wanted to stay with Carbon frames. The stiffness for power but suppleness for ride comfort is unmatched with any material. So I started looking at Trek Project One. Trek has a deal where you go online and basically customize your bike to be whatever you want it to be from color all the way down to tire color. The first time I went on the site, I built up a $10,000 bike. OK, that may have been just slightly over the top. OK, it was WAY over the top. After I came back to reality, I built a few bikes in my price range and sent the sheet up to Jeff Archer at First Flight in Statesville. Jeff really spends more of his time building great mountain bikes but he carries road stuff too. He is still a small shop with a small town feel. He and Wes spent a lot of time with me working on the set up and build up of this bike. It took a couple weeks for all the stuff to come in and get built. But it was worth the wait. She is a beauty and rides like a dream. Yeah I am not any faster than I was on the 5200, but I am more stylish......So my new ride is a 5.5 Madonne/ Fully Ultegra equipped/Bontrager Race X-Light Wheels/Look Keo Pedals. Almost all of this bike is carbon such as stem, bar etc. Very light at 16.5 pounds w/ pedals.....

Fall Camporee with the Scouts

The weekend of October 16-18, 2009 was a special weekend. Yes, it was fall Camporee for the Scouts but was also Kyle's 16th birthday on Sunday the 18th. Of course it rained the Thursday before and was starting to look like Friday would be a rainy day too. The event was held at Allison's Woods north of Statesville. Its a 200+ acre tract of land owned by a man named Tom Allison. Tom is a true son of the confederacy does 1 large reenactment of Civil War battles each summer as well as 6 skirmishes each year. he has a 3000 foot runway (airstrip) of flat grass that he forbids anyone to drive on for obvious purposes. But the woods are really nice and he has about 12-14 campsites spaced around the property. Since our troop is so large, we are very hard to place. We take up a lot of room. So we were given a pretty nice site right off the airstrip about halfway in the middle. We got there to check in at 6PM. It had started drizzling again as we arrived but not a fill on rain. We rode up to our site and the first thing I noticed was the mud was pretty bad. We couldn't get the trailer up the hill so we parked at the bottom. This meant we had to lug all of the 8 chuck boxes (food preparation) and tents, cooking gear, tables, tarps, gas bottles and personal gear about 100 yards. Not a real problem when you have 65 people doing it. But with a drizzle, it just made it aggravating. It took us about 2 1/2 hours to get the site set up. Only a limited number of people really know how to set up the camp. So the ones that did set up the troop gear and the rest set up tents and personal stuff. We were blessed with about 30 Webelos who have to camp with a Mom or Dad all weekend. They (for the most part) haven't done much camping. Some of them had BIG tents, some had small tents and a few actually had "NO" tent. Either forgot to pack them or left them at the church. Finally about 9 PM we had a light cracker barrel and had the troop in bed by 10. Saturday morning I woke at 6 to start helping the cooks. It was not raining but was overcast and colder. The wind started to blow too. But as is always the case at Camporee's, once the events started, everything seemed to be peaceful at the camp. I was letting the new Scoutmaster get his feet wet so I handled things in camp while he worked with the staff on getting boys/leaders situated. The theme for this Camporee was Scouting around the world. Each event had a different country theme. It was actually pretty cool. We finally got a nice fore going and I spent much of the day pulling up old wood for us and helping the staff get wood for the Campfire. Our camp cook really fixed us up nice (Adults and Webelos that is. The Patrols cook them selves) We had dutch oven breakfast casseroles, sloppy joes for lunch and beef loins cooked in a dutch oven for dinner. The food was fantastic. Saturday night we had a great campfire and the boys performed skits and our own Ken R. did a flag retirement ceremony. It was (as always) very moving. Back to the camp for cobblers and hanging around the campfire. Sunday morning was cold but sunny finally. After a great breakfast of pancakes and sausage links, we loaded the trailers back up and headed home. It was probably one of the most fun Camporee's I have been involved in. Maybe becuase I can see my time as Scoutmaster winding down.

MS 150 (Actually 170) Ride

October 3,4 2009 was my annual MS Ride. This was the first year I went to Greenville although MS switched it there last year from Myrtle Beach. In past years, going to MB was a real blast because it was fairly flat from Charlotte to MB. A few small hills on Saturday but pancake flat and smooth from Florence in. NOT GREENVILLE!!! We dropped 3 cars in Greenville Friday Oct.2 so we would have rides back and not have to depend on a bus. We met for dinner at Hickory Tavern on Friday night at 8 and I came back early so I could get a good nights rest. I didnt feel too well Friday night (something I ate) so I didnt really get much rest. Saturday morning I wasnt feeling much better but drank a Coke and ate some bland breakfast which helped. We got to the starting line and pulled off at 7:45 AM. The first 30 miles was really fast and I hung up with the group. I felt like I could have hung in there all day but decided to head wait on the rest of the team as I wanted to ride a little easier and enjoy the company. We rode in to Greenville (102) miles about 2:30 PM. The MS people do a pretty good job with party after the ride so we all had a few beers and hung out to hear the band. Then off to The Hampton for a shower and dinner at a steak House. I fell asleep sometime around 10 PM. Up again at 6AM for another 70 miles around Greenville. Lots of climbing and hills. Both down and up. We finished around 1:30 so another long day in the saddle. Overall I was pretty pleased with how I rode the bike. We all had a great time and it was good to get Roadkill back together. Cant wait until next year!!.\

I am a Gear Freak-There, I said it....

Well, no camping or hiking for me this weekend. Looks like rain all 3 days so maybe a good time to clean up my stuff inside. A post on BP'er magazine forums got me thinking about my gear collection. I admit, I am a gear nut. It only took me 47 years to figure this out but yes, its true. I have too many of everything. Sleeping bags, Backpacks, bikes, tents, stoves, pads, bike wheels. heck I even have too many energy bars. Heck the picture above is just packs and sleeping bags only. One man only needs so much stuff. But I am constantly looking for more stuff. I don't always buy it, but I am sure looking for it. Its an addiction. I need a support group. Maybe something like GA (Gearaholics Anonymous). "Hi, I'm Kevin and I am addicted to outdoor gear". Thing is, I use almost everything I have at least once a month. Well, maybe not my mountain bike but I make up for it with 6500 miles on a road bike this year alone. Yes I could probably sell a tent or 2. Maybe even a sleeping bag (or 2). And all of those bike wheels are just in case I have a failure on my current wheels. But as soon as I sold it, I would probably go out and buy another one. Everything I have purchased has been scrutinized down to the penny. I never pay full retail on anything and I would say I am pretty thrifty on spending. I don't have the absolute best stuff on the market but its all top quality. So why oh why do I have so much stuff? Yes I take care of stuff in an almost anal way so it lasts me a long time. I have had a daypack for 20 years that has many miles on it. But I was thinking the other day I need to get another one. Is the one I have broken or worn out? NO. But I still had that sinking feeling in my mind that it was needing replaced. Would I give the old one to charity or sell it on E-Bay? NO. Just add to the ever increasing pile of pack collection. I have a 5 year old road bike that has over 25,000 miles on it. its a great bike and serves all my purposes. Its a much better bike than I am a rider. But guess what? Its starting to wear out a few components and my firing sensors in my "purchase" section of my brain have started to find 10,000 things wrong with it. I even went on Trek's Project One site last night and built up a $7000 "fix" for myself. I am sick and I know it....There seems to be very little cure for this sickness except revolving credit. Anyway, I have to go. I just realized I have a backpack trip scheduled in October and I need to look at the wings on my canister stove. Last time I was out I bent one of them just ever so slightly and I think I need to look at those new Jetboil things. And I also noticed my boots have a mark on the side that could be the start of some wear and tear....And that sleeping pad seems a little flatter...and....

Back to Mt. Rogers for Day Hike w/ Neighbors

Saturday September 5th dawned sunny and warm. My neighbors don't hike much but wanted to go up and see the ponies and maybe pick a few Blueberries. So we headed out after my Saturday morning bike ride for day hike. Jeff, Lori, Redd, Ian, my daughter Hannah and me (Also the lab mix Sierra) all left about 10 AM and arrived at Grayson Highlands about 12:30. As we arrived at the backpacker lot, I noticed 2 things: one, it was getting cloudy and 2, there were a lot of folks there. I figured there would be a few folks since it was labor day but I didn't expect there to be as many cars in the lot as there were. It was almost full. We all hiked up the trail and less than 500 yards later we were looking at 2 ponies. We stopped and watched them and took a few pics. About 3/4 way up the spur trail we started picking blueberries. For the first 2 hours, that's really all we did. Between the 6 people, we probably picked 2 gallons of the sweet berries. We kept going all the way to Wilburn Ridge. We thought we might keep going to Rhododendron Gap but Sierra was beat and lay down on a rock to sleep. The clouds stayed over us all day but no rain. The temperature was almost perfect at 60 degrees and low humidity. We ran into a few folks along the way but it wasn't as many as I expected since the lot was so full. We did notice many folks already starting to set up tents in places we didn't normally see them.

On the way back down, we picked some more blueberries (as if we didnt have enough). It was a beautiful day in the Mountains (they all are), and we got to see a lot of ponies. Even got to see some deer too.

Grayson Highlands Scout BP Trip-August 2009

On Friday August 28, we left the house at 4:30 PM to meet up at the church for a 3 day trip to Grayson for BP'ing. About 4:25 it started raining. I don't mean a sprinkle either: I mean a full on "gully washer". The kind that moves mountains and floods fields. At the church, we had to load up the gear for some folks who were doing a family camp and day hiking. 3 groups of Scouts (2 older and one younger) were BP'ing along different routes on Saturday and all meeting up in the Thomas Knob area Saturday night. 2 groups were exchanging keys and reversing the routes Saturday. As we started towards VA, the skies miraculously began to clear somewhat and by the time we arrived at the Backpacker parking spot at 7:20 PM, the moon was even starting to show. We hiked up the spur trail and set up about a mile in at the intersection of the AT. Sometime after midnight, I awoke to the sound of rain gently falling on the tent. It was much cooler than I expected but the rain sounded sweet tapping on the fly. We all woke at 7 AM and fixed a quick breakfast and packed up the wet gear. Our itinerary called for us to head North on the AT, through Scales and up the Crest Trail. Then intersecting with the AT South and heading to Thomas Knob. We made great time even though I was stopping every 5 minutes and eating a handful or two of the wild blueberries that adorn this place.

We got through the Scales are by 11 AM and decided to head on up the Crest trail to a water refill spot. As we were refilling water and eating our lunch, the rain began to fall again. Not so hard but just enough to be annoying. About 1 PM the sun came back out and we arrived at Rhododendron Gap where the AT intersect 3 different trails. We climbed up on the rocks and looked at views, played with the wild ponies and just sit in the warm sun for a while. We also watched a large bird (either Golden Eagle or large hawk as he would never get close enough) soar in the wind. We started out towards Thomas Knob so we could get dibs on the best site in the area. We hadn't seen a great deal of hikers other than a few solo's and a few couples. Seemed like everyone was day hiking. We hit the campsite around 2 PM and it was vacant. YES!!! We set up the tents and the boys headed out to climb a few more rocks and play in the meadows. About 3, our second group arrived and set up and 30 minutes later, the 3rd groups was there. After all the tents were set-up, we all walked down to the water source and pumped some spring water for the evening. Several of the adults and a couple boys wanted to say they had hiked to the tallest spot in VA. I told them there were no views on Mt. Rogers but it was a pretty trail nonetheless. So we hiked up to the top and took a picture or 2.

Just as we started back down, the rain started again. At first it seemed like another short drizzle. But by the time we had walked back to camp, it was coming down in buckets. Luckily, I had brought my tarp for cooking just in case this happened. We all crammed in under 2 tarps, cooked our meals and waited out the rain. Finally about 7, it stopped and 2 or 3 very enterprising adults even got a fire started. By 10 PM, all were in their tents dry and happy. I always sleep light when Scout camping because I feel responsible for everyone. I got up at 12Am and walked out to see a moon visible in the sky and only a few clouds. The evening was cool, even bordering on cold. Sunday morning dawned bright and clear. Some of the young Scouts had decided to make pancakes with Blueberries. They were very good and the boys did a great job working together to cook. The sun was out, it was warming up to perfect and I hated to leave. But life starts again on Monday and we had to go. So, we packed up wet gear again and headed out to Grindstone about 6 miles away. There we picked up some cars and drove back to the rendezvous point. Life sure is sweet!!!