Tanglewood Night Ride

Curtis, Drew, and I made it out for a nice little jaunt in the woods tonight. The trails were in surprisingly good shape, even after the rains. There were a few muddy spots, as evidenced by the post ride bike shots, but almost all of the trail was in good condition. Not much else to say, but riding behind Drew was entertaining, he's still getting the feel of riding a mountain bike.


Moving Time (h:m:s) 1:01:32 6:41 pace
Distance (mi ) 9.20
Moving Speed (mph) 9.0 avg. 26.5 max.
Elevation Gain (ft) +839 / -842



My 29's next to my 32's




eyes staring back at us


Untitled from Barry Stevenson on Vimeo.
Short clip of Curtis, with my lame comment


tanglewood night ride1 from Barry Stevenson on Vimeo.

Drew on the same section of trail

Dark Mountain

Paint Booth Progress!

So here are some pics of the paint booth that we have been building. To quote Greg, "Holy crap, it actually looks like we know what we are doing!" I am very impressed with the job we are doing. Most of this is due to Greg and his many years of construction experience. I know we couldn't have gotten this far this quick without him.

Anyway, the idea started a couple of months ago when Ryan and I realized that a booth was going to be necessary to properly use a spray gun and higher quality paint products. We both did lots of research and sorted through the good and bad (and some really really bad) ideas. We decided against an open face booth because the cost difference to build it fully enclosed was not that much more and we will be able to control the painting environment much better this way.

So the concept here is basically a free standing 6.5 x 8 x 8 foot room. The whole back wall is going to be washable fiberglass air filter material to filter all contaminants out of the air flowing into the booth. Then, at the front of the booth, there is a 5 x 5 foot section of 2 inch thick spray booth filter to pull all of the paint out of the air before it exhausts. We are using an 8 inch explosion proof 460 cfm fan to exhaust the booth. This will completely filter and replace the air in the booth about once a minute! The walls are all tile board so we can wash them easier and we have two four-foot flourescent lights to light the whole booth. We may add more lighting if neccesary. Anywho, that is the basic concept and here are some pics of the progress so far!

Muddy Creek Greenway

I woke up this morning to snow on the ground and a call from the superintendant stating that we could come into work today at any point, or take the day off.


The view from the deck this morning


I decided that I had rather go in on time and leave at lunch so that I could get a ride in. I saw a couple cars off the road (one of which was a van flipped over that had taken out a fence). So, in lieu of riding on the road and getting plowed by an incompetent driver, I decided to go mountain biking. One small problem...rear tire will not hold air. Crap. What to do? Take the dog running on the greenway.

Arwen, wonder dog!



There is a new greenway under construction here in Winston called the Muddy Creek Greenway. Apparently, after doing some research, I find out that it will eventually connect my area to the area that Paceline is in...what an easy, stress free commute that would be by bike!

Road ride to the Shop

MLK day, hooray no school! I needed to make a run by the shop to roder a few things for my mountain bike and to talk to Doug about getting a fit done on the road bike, so I decided, why not ride? It's a nice enough day, low 40's calm winds, and cloudy. I took the shortest route to get to the shop and it ended up being about 10.2 miles, not a bad commute for this summer as long as it isn't too hot. I am realizing that if it is warm, I may want to opt for a slightly different route. Spicewood road could be a nemesis on a hot commute. There are two short hills going to the shop that are short, but steep. The longer one, when looking at my GPS it was registering as 16%, slightly painful!

I got to Paceline without any incidents and hung out for a little while to talk with Van and Curtis. I took a bit longer, more round about way to get home.

Moving Time (h:m:s) 1:19:43
Distance (mi ) 22.27
Moving Speed (mph) 16.8 avg. 37.1 max.
Elevation Gain (ft) +1,839


View Larger Map

Scenic Road Loop

Sauratown Mountain off in the distance


Distance (mi ) 12.60
Moving Speed (mph) 15.6 avg. 35.1 max.
Elevation Gain (ft) +1,055 / -1,087

I had planned on a decent loop on my road bike for today. Lisa, the dog and I all managed to get some kind of stomach bug though and have been passing it around the last three days. So the decent loop became a short loop, because I was feeling kind of weak (well, weaker than normal). I'm planning on commuting to school twice this week now that I have some decent cold weather wear, so I wanted to get out and tool around on the road bike. I haven't ridden on the road since before Christmas, so it was a nice change of pace.

I took my clothing up to the school to drop off, and headed out from there. I spun around some of the backroads around Sauruatown Mountain, and saw one of my 8th grade students using a chainsaw (scary). So I stopped and talked with him for a minute or two and met his dog. I took off down the road about a mile and a half or two and a Boxer (dog, not pugilist) was standing in the middle of the road growling and refusing to let me pass. I turned around and headed back the other way and had a scene reminiscent of American Flyers. "Eddie is a fast sprinter!"

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful, just a lot of up and down, good scenery and country roads!


Stokes County rolling hills in the foreground, Moore's Wall in the background


Same view, different angle


Hooray Bikes!

Last night I got a short night ride in at Tanglewood Park. I wanted to test out some new clothing I got for cold weather. In preparing for TMHTE I decided that I needed to break down and buy some proper winter clothing. Last night was a good night to test it out because the winds were cold and the temps were in the upper teens/low twenties. I ordered some AmFib clothing from Pearl Izumi Overall, I'm very pleased with the effectiveness of the windproof material. The gloves were so warm, my hands were actually sweating for part of the ride.


Crappy pic of me in the new clothing

Earlier this week I got an email from Eric, the race director of TMHTE with confirmation of registration, and a list of required gear.

Duo Mandatory Gear:1.Whistle, 1.compass, 1.pisgah map, 1.knife, 1.lighter, 2.emergency blanket, 2.front light, 2.rear light, 1.first aid kit, 1.water filter or iodine, 1+.RELIABLE digital camera (You will prove you were at the CP's by taking photos. No photo, no CP). 2.winter tights, 2.mid/heavy fleece upper, 2.rain jacket, 2.helmet (duh),1. 50* or better sleeping bag (night sections only)

After looking through the list and figuring out how to pack it all into a pack, I decided that especially because of the sleeping bag, I needed to go ahead and buy a new pack as well. I opted to get a CamelBak H.O.S.S. It's more than large enough to carry everything that I need for TMHTE, but I've also got some plans for some Bike-Camping this summer. I've been working on plans to do some kind of a point-to-point type of ride through Bent Creek/Pisgah/Dupont this spring/summer. Also, I've been hearing of some rumbling rumors that Todd is planning on putting on a four day point-to-point stage race in Pisgah. Sounds interesting!

Hobby Park

I was able to get in a short ride at Hobby Park this evening. After making a round of the trails, I decided to do some hill repeats on the soap box derby track. The hill is only maybe 85 feet of eleveation gain, but towards the top the grade sustained at 20%; painful after the fourth repeat. Anyways, some pictures from tonight, and a short video below...


Billy's new bike, and extra stretchy bed mount bike rack...ingenious!


Shot of the Soma


Me attempting to look cool, but alas...


Cool rocky, rooty section of trail



Short video of Billy

Untitled from Barry Stevenson on Vimeo.

Westwood

Billy and I managed to get out today for a short ride at Westwood. I had planned on a logn day in the saddle out at Dark Mountain, but I had some other stuff to take care of. I loaded up to head out to Dark Mountain, and the car had a flat tire...boo! So, I took the car to the goodyear store to have the nail taken out of the tire. When I got there, they started working on the tire, then one of the guys coming back from lunch came in and said there is a hawk that's laying on the side of the road injured. So we formed a rescue squad and got the hawk rapped up in a towel and put it into the truckbed of one of the workers. Meanwhile no work was getting done on any of the cars because everyone was outside trying to figure out how to best rescue the hawk without losing a finger. In any case we contacted a vet's office who said they were willing to come pick the animal up and try to restore it to health. Long story short, got the tire fixed, went home, headed out. Called Billy, plans changed, headed to Mt. Airy instead of Wilkesboro. All in all a fun ride.


Westwood 1 from Barry Stevenson on Vimeo.


Westwood 2 from Barry Stevenson on Vimeo.


Westwood 3 from Barry Stevenson on Vimeo.

Dinner!

I decided to do a little cross training tonight. Weights and running. My reward was dinner, yum!

Well, Steve and I have officially thrown our hat into the ring. There will be no smack talk or any predicitions if we will even come close to finishing. It will be a fun experience for sure, if 36 hours straight, in February, in Pisgah sounds fun!

The Most Horrible Thing Ever

Friends, Family, Fish

Lisa, the dogs, and I made a trip back to Ohio for Christmas. It was a whirlwind of 8 days of friends and family. It's fun to get back there, but you almost need a second vacation when you get back because it seems like everything is at 90 miles per hour. Anyways, we got to see some friends...


My brothers (among other family)


And I got to catch some fish with my father-in-law



I got in two short rides. Ride number one was cut short when my tires were cut by some glass. Ride number two was cut short when Brad and I heard about a million gunshots at Mohican State Forest.

View Larger Map

Hopefully, later this week when the rain stops, all will be back to normal and riding will resume!