"It's not that bicycling is so important, it is that everything else is equally unimportant."

Trail Maintenance  
Friday I cut out of work early and headed over to Wakefield for Team Leader training. Basically to cover the quick and dirty safety message and then we started working. For two hours we did bench cutting and trail reclaimation. By this point I had officially made up my mind, no fun for DT on Saturday, well not as fun I should say.

Instead of hitting the SSPBE I hit Wakefield again on Saturday morning. Bright and early, we split up into crews and went to our spots. We had over 35 people on the day. The crew I was helping out was the one crew I was hoping to not be on, but I enjoyed it all the same. We built a rock trail to the side of the powerline access road. It's going to be sweet when it's finished. Looks like some Welsh trail or a super skinny coblestone road (3-4 ft.). I spent the first half of the day digging up the ground and then placing these mamoth rocks where the dirt had been. With the solid base, the path might be wet, but it won't be muddy! I think we got about 50 feet built, but it will move much faster now that people know what they are doing.

After working most of the morning, we hit the parking lot for some pizza provided by the Bike Lane, just what I needed. A soda and a few slices of pizza and it was back to work. Being that I already put my back out a couple of months ago and I've just been lugging around a couple thousand pounds of rocks, I switched over to the bench cutting groups for the second half of the day. Mostly worked on the retaining wall section, adding fill dirt and making a little crown so it wouldn't hold water. Looked good! Headed back over to the rock path for a bit before most left. Then did a quick walkthrough with Rich Edwards from IMBA who is leading this whole thing. We talked about the good and bad on the new trail and closed off the downhill shoots that were blocked closer to the bottom. This was to keep people from shooting down the trail only to realize someone had replanted a tree in the middle of the trail!

Spent a good 9-5 full day working on the trails. Good to be out there and only saw a few jerks out riding, well not riding as much as walking, dragging their rear wheels that were so clogged with mud the wheel wouldn't turn anymore...nice. I would venture to guess these people are not involved in any type of advocacy, well other than self.

Anyway, it was a long day and I'm trying to get some civic time off from work. MITRE provides up to 40 hours a year and well, it's a new year...

For all those that did the SSPBE, you better get your ass to the next weekend of work, March 5 (at least if you ride Wakefield ever). I'll be leaving for Maine on Thursday and won't be back until Sunday, which is why I skipped out on the fun this past weekend.

Oh yea...anyone know snowshoes?

DT
posted by DT at 12:56:00 PM
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Snow on Thursday  
Last night Spearmint and I hit Wakefield. It had been snowing since about 4am, but when we got there Pete said things were kind of wet. He gave us the lowdown on what should be rideable and we headed out. We stuck to the flat stuff for awhile to get warmed up before heading into the hills. The fresh snow was a lot of work, but we were rewarded at the top of the hill...

We eventually made it back to the parking lot and hey...looky there...it's a Stone Old Guardian, mmm. Nice, well let me put my bike away first and real fast. Ok, ready for my drink, done, now pull away and leave the front wheel still leaning against the back of the car...dumbass. Luckily I've been feeding the karma bank pretty regularly. When I realized my wheel wasn't in the car this morning I logged onto the MORE forums and Paul has found the wheel, posted, and I'm forever grateful. Heading over now to pick it up!

On top of all that, somehow my cell phone fell out of my shoe when I was walking into the house. I had to have Kristin call it while I roamed the front yard listening for a sound. Sure enough it was buried deep in the snow, but it's still working!

DT
posted by DT at 2:32:00 PM
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TNSuccess!  
Good times on the 3rd TNS ride. We headed out from Panera and continued up the W&OD to the Custis Trail, then onto the Mt. Vernon trail and took the 14th St. bridge. We got a little messed up here since I thought we were supposed to go one way and Steve was thinking we needed to go somewhere else. After padding our mileage we head back the way I thought we should have been going. We rode along the mall and up 7th St. before getting to RFDs. Joe Foley stopped by later in the evening. With food in our belly and liquid courage running through our veins, we headed out into DC traffic. This is my playground, this is what I enjoy. We cut through the city and into the seedy underbelly of Georgetown. This made for a good hill climb up to M St. and across the Key Bridge. Once back into Roslyn I pointed us in the direction of the biggest hill in the immediate area. It's around this point I start slowing down a little and Stoner chases after "Old Man" Spearmint...the "Old Man" that just kicked my ass up the hill. This was the last time I would see them for the next 45 minutes or so. Evidently Steve was making sure Stoner was behind him and Stoner was hanging onto Steve for dear life. They ended up waiting for me about 5 minutes from the cars. I was a little pissed, because it's a group ride, but we never discussed a no-drop policy so it was partly my fault. Guess I gotta pick up the speed a bit and stop being a boat anchor. Wouldn't have anything to be mad at if my butt wasn't so big...

Took some pics while we were riding along the Mt. Vernon trail. It's an awesome stretch at night and my camera skills really don't do it justice. Check out the album.

DT
posted by DT at 1:36:00 PM
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TNS  
Tuesday Night Swill

It's on, meet at Panera in Falls Church at 5:30pm.

Click on "A" for exact location and directions.

The plan is to ride to RFD, get some food and beer, then ride home. If your coming, let us know so we can wait if your late.

DT
posted by DT at 12:44:00 PM
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Web Design  
Ok, all you web designers, graphic artists, creative people...I need ideas. What do you like and what don't you like? I'm looking at CMSs (Content Management Systems) right now, but I'm still not sure in what direction I want to go. The blog will still remain, but it won't be blogger. Fat Boy Deluxe will be the location. I'm thinking mostly just my own personal portal for all the stuff I need/like to get to, with some of it open to the public. Do I go flat file, php, etc.? Anybody like to design templates/graphics out there? Ricky d. put together the FBD logo to the left (thanks Ricky), not sure yet if I'm going to keep it and the rest of the color scheme.

I've been pretty good about my naming structures, but I think my top priorities will be to add the photo gallery directly onto the blog or at least a better way of organizing all the different albums. I don't need forums and I'm not trying to be SSO. I do want the site to be dynamic though, the ability to post things in different categories (to make it easier for me to find stuff), templates instead of static pages - that kind of stuff.

So let it fly, if you come up with something really good I'll pull something out of the shed for you. Really looking for suggestions. Drop some k-nowledge on me.
posted by DT at 2:02:00 PM
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Frozen Saturday  
Saturday, Spearmint and I started off from the ice rink in Reston early morning. We did a simple and casual loop while the trails were still frozen. The park is in pretty bad shape right now. Some big trees went down last year with the big storms we had and the spider trails popped up all over to get around these massive root balls. Today it was a rutted mess. It was sad.

I know it's preaching to the choir, but stay the fuck off the trails if they aren't dry or frozen. These trails have been around for a long time and are used by runners, walkers, bikers, and horse riders. They flat out take a ton of abuse and they don't dry fast. Contrary to popular belief - it is not "cool" or "extreme" to ride in the mud. If your leaving a 3" deep rut, you deserve an ass whooping. Educate yourselves people and if you see someone on a trail or getting ready to head out, step up and have the balls to tell that person they shouldn't be riding. Oh, and if you want to keep reopening a 10 foot crappy piece of trail so you don't have to ride a better more sustainable 10 feet trail that ends making the bridge crossing better, keep trying. I'm gonna close that sucker everytime you clear it. Hell, maybe I'll get a shrubbery and place a knight behind it that can scream "Ni!" at you.

Anyway, I'm trying to set something up if I can get permission from FCPA, we need a kiosk or signs or something to educate people and even be a reminder to those that know right and still do wrong. Next will be reroutes and armouring hopefully.

I can see why other user groups hate mountain bikers. This trail is a perfect example of people saying, I know it rained this week or I know the snow is melting...but it's 60 degrees today and I just have to get out and ride. Well if you just have to ride, drive to something rocky, don't tear up your own backyard!

The ride itself went good. Talked to a couple of people about helping out with maintenance and even did a little impromptu work. Damn, I'm all worked up now. Get ready for tomorrows Tuesday night Swill - this time we're taking RFD by storm.

DT
posted by DT at 1:32:00 PM
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1st Weekly Swill Pics  
Thanks Spearmint, there's a reason the site is called Fat Boy Deluxe, ha. Click on the pic below to go to the album.



There's also a good one of Stoner in the album if anyone likes to work with Photoshop...

DT
posted by DT at 9:48:00 AM
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Netflix  
So we caved in. Last night Kristin and I signed up for the free trial at Netflix. So give me movie suggestions and if your on Netflix, let me know, we can do that friends thing so I can see what recommendations you make. So far it's pretty cool, but the search function pretty much sucks! If you don't know what movie your looking for, you lost. You can't just type in mountain biking and get a bunch of movies about mountain biking - there's no subject searching like that. Now if you know the title or a person in the film, your golden.

DT
posted by DT at 9:13:00 AM
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Weekly Swill  
Our new weekly tradition of Tuesday night Swill rides is still going, two weeks strong. This time we rode from Falls Church to Old Town Alexandria and hit up Founders. We lost a body and added a body this week. Gary joined Spearmint, Stoner, and myself. The ride there was pretty uneventful, just a good ride. It was nice to ride next to the water and to see the city lights and monuments all lit up. We got to Founders, sat at the bar and joined their Founders club. You basically get happy hour prices all the time and you get a much bigger glass. I ordered a club sandwhich and it was horrid. Granted we were there for the beer, but this sandwhich was terrible. It lacked any flavor, was dry, and it was these super thick slices of meat that tasted more like cardboard. Spearmint and Stoner said their wraps were fine, so maybe I just picked the wrong thing to order.

The ride back was so so. The ride itself was good, but there was just a lot of aggression going on. Stoner and Spearmint had a little spat and then I got jumped by both of them for being a wuss and calling the girl. Guess I'm not a real man. Whatever, we worked it all out over beers, drama left behind and got back on the bikes and started pedaling. It all melted away and you find yourself ending the ride at 1:00am and everyone feeling good and jovial.

Who knows, maybe next week it will be RFD or maybe back to ODB. Either way the weekly Swill is on...rain or shine.

DT
posted by DT at 9:02:00 AM
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Stone Brewing  
The posting's been a little sparse lately, but it's not because I haven't been getting out there. Busy busy.

Last Friday was a good time. I tried to drum up some bodies to head over to the Whole Foods for a Stone Brewing beer tasting, but no one seemed to care they could get free beer. Not just free beer, but good free beer. Just as I was getting ready to head out the door I get a call from Spearmint, turns out him and Donna are already there, so I'm out the door for a nice downhill fixie ride. I manage to make it with a few minutes to spare as somebody had knocked a bottle over and they were cleaning it up. A few minutes later Kristin popped in before meeting some of her girlfriends out.

We sat in our booth and listened to the Stone reps spiel on the history behind each brew and some of the key ingredients and what the were going for in taste. After each explanation you got to drink about a 1/4 glass of the beer. Kristin seemed to really like the Smoked Porter. I'm still on the fence, but I really liked Ruination and their Old Guardian Barleywine style. After the tasting, we hung out talking to one of the guys from Lost Dog and drinking it up. Afterwards, Spearmint got some pizza and headed over to my house while I biked back.

At the house I set forth to build my first wheel. For the most part I have all the tools you need to build a wheel thanks to my brother. It's been his theme, first he gave me the truing stand and spoke tools, then the Park spoke tensiometer, and the list goes on. I've used the stuff to true wheels up, but never build one from the ground up. So with my Salsa Delgado rim, my Level Components rear hub, and my DT Swiss spokes, it was time to build. Spearmint read the instructions from the Wheel Book out loud and told me what to do, then I did it. A couple hours later, some beer and pizza, and low and behold a wheel was born. I'll have to take some photos of it soon. Now I just need to build the front wheel (still need a front hub) and some 29er tires and I'm in business!

DT
posted by DT at 8:35:00 AM
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W&OD...B  
Last night we kicked off our first Tuesday night brew ride. Since I was riding with Spearmint, I decided to put on the stickers he had made. A couple of "FIXEDFUCKINGGEAR"s on the seat tube and a "Faster Than Your TV" on the top tube and the Pista was ready to go. Stoner, Spearmint, and myself started in Falls Church around the 5 mile marker. We cruised on out towards Vienna, but met up with John-o and Nick just before getting there. We regrouped and kept on pedaling with Nick and John-o leading us out at a tad faster speed. W&OD was in great shape and only had a few spots of slush. All could be ridden, even with my 20mm wide tires... About 90 minutes later Nick pulled off and headed home as we pulled off the paved trail and pulled right up to Old Dominion Brewery. Nothing like dinner and beer mid trip! It worked out perfectly - 4 people...4 beers to a pitcher. Chaos ensued and we were finally kicked out when they turned the lights off...no more beer for us. ODB made the decision for us, but we really needed to head back to Falls Church anyway. Took about the same time to get back as it did to get out, although it's always more fun with a little liquid courage.

All in all, I'd say we did a little over 40 miles of fixie fundom. Only a few commuters/joggers/and the occaisional odd ball out on the trail. No sign of MS13, they must have got the message we were gonna be out there after dark. Looking forward to the next ride...possibly a trip to Founders and back!

DT
posted by DT at 11:56:34 AM
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Working...  
So this weekend was gorgeous, how come no ride reports? Well Saturday I took part in the other side of mountain biking, the admin side, trying to get things done. I drove down to Harrisonburg as a representative of MORE to meet with other VA clubs with the hopes of working out the kinks of a new club...a VA Mountain Biking Club. You might say, why the hell do we need another club, another middleman? Well specifically it would be nice to have interclub communications and since we don't ride just in our little nook, it would be nice to have the other club connections. On the advocacy side, you gotta think how much more impressive it is to have a statewide club respresenting our numbers, instead of smaller clubs.

So hopefully in the next year, you'll see a new club, a confederation of clubs, and hopefully this will be a great thing.

Sunday proved to be a lot longer of a day than I anticipated...but the reward was sweet. Good friends made it over to the house and were treated to the culinary expertise of Kristin. Good beer flowed freely and bike talk ensued...isn't that what the superbowl is really all about?

DT
posted by DT at 1:42:59 PM
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Best Ride Of The Year  
Last night's ride had to be the best one of the year so far! Thrown together last minute and it all came about so beautifully. A quick email and IM's to a few people and it looked like Steve and Gary were on the fence, but when told each other were riding, both agreed, ha. It had been snowing for most of the day. With temps hovering right around the freezing mark and aa 1/2" of fresh snow on the ground, there was no question how the trails were going to be, we just wanted to be the first laying tracks. The plan - meet at the Reston ice rink and ride Lake Fairfax down to Rt.7. Since Gary had stuff to do in the evening and Steve had a 7pm meeting with Pedalshop at Old Dominion Brewing, we decided we would ride down and back to the cars instead of doing the full loop.

We headed out on the trails hoping to beat sunset. The trails were in great shape! Solid and super grippy. We made down to Rt.7 in under 40 minutes, pretty good considering the snow. At that point we debate riding mostly uphill back to the cars, which would take an hour or riding the rest of the loop, which would also take an hour...finishing the loop won out. Both Steve and Gary broke out their lights and lit up. Me, both my lights are non working, both have battery issues - more on that later. We continued on the loop, hitting the more narrow singletrack, me leading the way. About the time we made it out to a fire road, Junkins and Nick came up on us, evidently getting a loop in before the Pedalshop meeting. We only stayed together for a couple of minutes before they cruised on out and we stayed to our more casual pace. We rode through all the water crossings, cold water be damned. My Lake Winter Boots handled it like an old time pro. Pretty soon we were barreling out on the W&OD for the short cool down spin back to the cars.

After that we all split up and went our seperate ways, but damn, what a ride! On top of a great ride, Steve hooked me with two of his stickers - "Faster Than Your TV" and "FIXEDFUCKINGGEAR". All that and back in time to enjoy diner and company with Kristin...good stuff.

The deal with my lights - I have a Performance light and a NiteRider light. I've felt like the NiteRider lights are overengineered and tend to fail because of them trying to cram a ton of technology into a simple light. Too bad the battery moves around inside the casing and now doesn't work. I just packed it up and sent it out them, hopefully then will hook me with a new battery and send it on, free of charge. It would go a long way in making me a happier customer. The Performance light also had a battery issue. The light has been going for sometime now. It lasts for less than an hour and is always dim. Recently just before riding home in traffic at night, I hooked the light up, turned it on and it worked, turned it off not to waste the battery and the next time I fired it up nothing. Tried hooking the battery to the charger and I get an orange light. So I took it into Performance last night and gave them the battery and got a brand new battery. The connection is a little different, but it still fits together and works fine. So now I have one light back to working and I'm waiting to hear back from NiteRider sometime next week. I'm thinking I might be able to sell the Performance light now that it's working, then sell the NiteRider light after it's back and working, then also sell my NightSun system, which has a bad battery (pulled wires out and whatnot) to someone who wants to build their own system or something. Figure after all that I should be able to work a HID light at pretty much no cost to me. We'll see how it all plays out though. I kind of like riding without lights in the woods anyways. Forces you to use your spidey senses and makes you a more intuitive rider. Not to mention how jacked your reaction time gets...

DT
posted by DT at 5:17:25 PM
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More Links  
ShitShifter - rider of the mighty SS.

Blue Collar MTB - some good ol' boys.

Interesting hiking link: One Day Hike

One on One Blog - these guys know bikes and they know fun.

Our own Gundogg made a links site, lots of blogs, but all bikes - http://links.tortoiseandharedesigns.com/

Speedgoat Blog where our friend Mike Wendell now works...giving away a pink surly 1x1 at that...

Dirt Rag page of links, good stuff on here.

Anti doping links: Matt Decanio / USADO / Stolen Underground

Bob Caverly's new blog.

Peter Beers Blog finally...

DT
posted by DT at 3:58:01 PM
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New Links  
Some new links I've been looking through:

cfsmtb in low earth orbit - Austrailian Single Speeders.

Fat Guy Cycling - From one fatty to another...good luck on losing the weight!

Velorution has a new site.

Clean Slate - snowboarder, skater, bicyclist, writer, and all around good guy. With enough pressure, maybe he'll write more often...

Jeff Kerkove - Endurance mountain biker extraordinaire.

What do you know...Jeremiah Bishop has a blog. If you don't know about Bishop, it's about time you learned. He's one of the many legends that have come out of Harrisonburg, VA.

BustaXmove - more pics than words.

Hippyblog - definitely an enjoyable read!

Just a few of the things that catch my attention when I have time to read, which hasn't been that often as of late.

DT
posted by DT at 10:22:21 AM
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Monday Night Lights  
Rode Wakefield with Steve and Gary. Now my Performance light is out. I think it's the batter gone bad. Previously it was lasting for less than an hour and now I get an orange light when I hook it up to the charger. Oh well, that's what's great about riding in the snow on a clear night - no lights needed. It just takes a bit of time for your eyes to adjust. I tried convincing the other two to shut their lights off, but it was a no go. Steve's got an L&M HID that is damn bright and half the time my shadow was covering the trail.

We didn't see a single other person out there. While we didn't ride every inch of trail, we did hit all the sections and there was only a couple of melted spots. The worst section was probably on the trails past the power station closest to 495. The ground was still frozen, but there was running water on top of it. I don't think I got any mud on the bike though.

We hit the creek trail, the race track - had some great downhill fun, the powerlines, the 495 trails, and the bowl, including the section over the creek in the bowl, which was super fun last night. Nothing quite like night time snow logs...

We then hit Kilroys for some SNPA afterwards. Good ride with good guys.

DT
posted by DT at 1:50:56 PM
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