The (unofficial) Tour de Fat

woody said:
But the real excuse is the ill-prepared zero-body-fat sissy who decided to tag along with you.
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Sissy my ass the fact that you pulled this DM 3?x18 is more then any mortal can pull, amazing as I'm spinning my fat ass away and you can crawl behind on those numbing climbs. So the sissy award goes to me and all those abusive gears. You are always first on these rides to nowhere 😎
 
well my fall in to BS50 has gone awry with weather being so poor. No commutes this past week because if it's wet going in I'm out going home I don't care. Well wet all last week. So off bike since last friday until yesterday which lead to some what of bfat death march at least to me. Woody my main DM go to met me at famous Enzo's and we took off on the typical urban to far SSP entrance. Did a bit of scouting up beyond Highlands to look for upper park trail head. Bit of pavement but found a nice link into upper white. Spent a good chunk of mileage in SSP and notice a lot of new trails being built albeit spiderwebish being that it seemed there was something new every 100 yards but expected. I leave it at that...

Got over to North to woody's water stash and refilled, weather has been just horrible hot and muggy. Refilled and went up blue this is where everything went to shit. My new pedals came apart and we spent bout 30 mins trying to get it back together with no luck. I was left with only one working side of the bad pedal. Now with long delay the legs went to shit add in the sweaty rocks, tubed higher pressure rear Nano and my handling skills I was ready to throw the bike off a cliff. Total struggle the rest of the way with poor Woody having to listen to my whines. Thanks for hanging in there Woody because that had to suck for you...

The ride

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/182773950

Today was a ride with the wife at SSP and I broke out my latest find. Yes I picked up FFT's Bullit. Now before heading out I needed to fine tune some things but ran into a snag. Seatpost was cut short so had about 1/2 inch in frame. This still was way to short for my liking to climb any mole hill. add in 35+ pound bike, really and it made for a different kind of DM. My main goal here was to get to the top of the mountain and enjoy what this bike really can do. All I can say is it was worth every inch up because this freaking thing rip down, my old DHing flavor just drooled. I looked for everything to jump off and stayed off the brakes. I will be looking to add some lighter but smarter touches to get me to the top easier as I do live in a perfect place to let a bike of this caliber shine. Thank FFT check is in the mail 😀 and yes there is a place for baby wheels...
 
I totally enjoyed the ride, and getting to bust on your whiney ass was icing on the cake. Just glad it wasn't 45 degrees and raining.
 
Hey Guys! I enjoyed catching up on your latest adventures. I'll try to put some miles over the next couple of weeks so I can tag along with you on a TDF soon.

See you.
 
Knock knock! Wow is anybody home, has been since May I was last here.

Plan was much poking to get Woody to ride up to Propton for new trails. Woody polity declined. I then woke up at 3 30am this morning and declared Trexler Game Preserve with JD (my Boy). I knew I saw somewhere there were not a lot of miles and no rocks. JD has been improving with every ride and looks like he will be ready to race by next season.

Wasn't a bad ride out to the park, about 2 exits past Leigh Valley Mall on 22. We started from the central ridge lot and was told to head for the north ridge. Big rolling hills are in between. I made a noob mistake by going up a newly still in progress switchback which would have been better going down at this point. Going up this brought those feelings of shit I am sorry I drugged JD out here as he started to teeter on being miserable I want to go home shit. I manged to get to a spot where the trail head began. At this point as we were hitting big berms, small doubles I knew we hit the mother load. Holy Shit is the north range fun or what, as I looked to my boy who had a smile ear to ear. This was halfpipe1 and we followed 2 others who brought us back to which is the main lot for north. So we talked to some locals who gave us the deets on the place. went back up to the start of HP1 then followed down to HP2 acroos to dozer and HP3 and back to the lot. Trails are hard packed shale with rollers, doubles and incredible benching on some really steep hills. Totally a smaller scaled (mileage) raystown with just some great trail building.

If you take my route reverse the yellow trail and take the boarder trail up then come down the yellow.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/242486576

Of course I forgot the camera when we went riding but here we are after.

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I managed to find my way out today. Rode the SS from home to DP to see whats up. Got to the lot and saw lots of peeps getting ready to head out. Got confirmation that some work has been done. Thanks to you folks as you know who you are. Saw Fat biker "The Original mtbnj Jason", Waited for locals but ran out of time, ended up riding the basic loop with Tom Scott. Still many large trees down but getting there. Then scooted home to head to Westchester for turkey...

The Ride
http://app.strava.com/activities/29055745
 
So I have been bad at keeping this going. Today was worthy of a post though. It's not that I haven't been riding dirt but most has been once a week typically Sundays.

I started a new personal commitment to not drive my car to any mooch lots. Instead all rides must start/end at my house. I am also now back up to my triple park loops. A few weeks ago I was in DP in the snow and came across local friend Chris (carru227-SSer) so he joined on in a double. 500' up the trail we came across Ian (icolquhoun-SSer) who I never met but was riding a Misfit. That made him an instant rock star. So now they are both on the Sunday call list.

Today Ian wanted to try bigapples on his 29er gravel grinder so he had met me at my house to test this out after the ride. We set out in single digits to meet up with teamies Woody Utah EricO and PoorIggy. Once at the lot I could not feel toes. We set off and did I nice bit of DP and finished out on the now classic Rouge trail. Into stephens maze and up the gravel grinding climb to the upper Park. SSP took a big hit as did all but it's all slowly coming back. We finished through the upper part an down to the tressel. Utah and EricO were on time restraints so they dbl. back to the cars. We proceeded to the under 80 bypass to waterloo lot where my man Woody hides water for refills. Woody and I have done this enough now that we have a system. Fill up and head for the hills of north. OK I cheated in that I took the yellow gate to green up but we are in the early season of true DM madness. But by cardiac bypass my body was grinding down. Once out and on the road I think everyone was done. 517 climb is always a grind and to think I still had to climb back home. We say our goodbyes to Iggy and Woody who both put monster weekend in and headed towards the cliff I live on. Ian's face was white as a ghost by the time we reached the house as was mine. That ride kick some serious ass and I thank god for that...

the ride

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/266713575
 
Nice ride. This was a great winter classic, complete with some ice, snow and Woodyee warming up to break dance.

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Was supposed to be on the Utah train, but late night at the slopes and drive home in the snow made me choose for not starting a car on Sunday.

So I rolled out without a plan which is pretty much how I roll. By the time I got to DP school trailhead I decided on getting most out of DP and SSP. Nice snow cover made for slippery traction. As I started I already saw tracks were laid Pampa and Emyrha (Arron ? teachers 😀) have been early birds by beating me out there. Hit a good part of DP before heading into SSP.

As i rolled to the concert field Big Hammonds had pulled into the Iron Gate. We shared good things and I talked him into joining me for some SSP goodness. I saw his look and beat down the on coming excuses 😀. We rolled the maze and the lower park till we came to the T where you go up or head to the trestle. I figured we were heading to the latter when Big man says he is going up ugh! That freaking climb hurts like hell on a SS, It just keeps on going. Once we got to the heavy blow down in the middle of the park we said adieu and split to different directions.

My plan was to go up to the top and stay till the Ranger station. That plan got trashed as my pedal imploded somewhere up there. Took green to white down past pink and stayed low as I had no chance of grunting any steeps. Went out thru Ranger station and headed home. Once I got to the bottom of the cliff I live on it was Pain on. The kind that makes your mind think. I was really hoping the family would be coming home from church and I would be rescued, come to find out later they went to early service. Never felt so good rolling into my driveway and know this ride is done.

Got home in time to get the Mrs and my self signed up for my Favorite race of the year. I plan good things this year and no flats. I also got my neighbor to sign up, it will be his second. He had a blast even with flatting out. Yeah he likes Beer but who doesn't.

The ride
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/269304108
 
mattybfat said:
As I started I already saw tracks were laid Pampa and Emyrha (Arron ? teachers 😀) have been early birds by beating me out there.
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Yup, that was us 🙂

Man, you're doing some monster rides on the SS. What are you doing in SSAP Sport? I trade you 😀
 
Maaan... I need to hook up on at least a portion of some of these rides!... seems all the good chit is goin down on Sundays... hell, I just need to get back on the bike yo!
 
I guess this could of been put in my hillz ride but I throw it here. This was posted in the base race but I would think there prolly not a lot following that unless your playing.

So today was the first day off my rest week whatever that is. I knew it was time to shut it down as my legs were not recovering. Still rode in with my regular commute just didn't push it. It seemed to work as my legs felt fresh, well until mile 38 then it was brain tricks.

I tossed around what I was doing right up to last minute and decided to ride this 27lb commuter/gravelgrinder.

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I have been planning to put together a 50+ rail trail loop and had expectations to do so. When I got to SSP ranger station I was greeted by the ground. Ice patch just before this pic.

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Went in about 50' feet and came to the conclusion big apples don't work in 6" of snow. Turned around and went out to waterloo valley rd. which looked like this unplowed. Perfect!

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I thought perfect but I had about 6 OH SHIT moments as the tire tracks would throw you. The 5 miles of this road was actually pretty damn hard and took almost a full hour to do.

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Once out it was all back roads from here on out. My feet also became a pita and took a solid hour to thaw out afterwards.

I saw this and couldn't stop thinking this is what the yellow chair party was like that I missed last night.

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The gravedigger here almost took me out,he never saw me, so I took a pic of him.

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I know I say it every time but living 1000' above sea level sucks, it really fucks with your head when you spill your guts out there.

Pig being humped by a lion
http://app.strava.com/activities/40445772
 
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Are you saying that on that day, on that bike you were thinking of a 50ish RT loop? If so, we need to get you some help😕 Nice ride anyway. The geese on that pond are just disgusting..............
 
Plan was to get up ass crack and ride a triple parker that didn't happen thanks to 6 of my friends coincidentally all named Dale. They did help me put on new tires on my Misfit. Speaking of tires I have had a bad run with tires and am not up to seeing a race get away because of tire choice. I had a conversation through the team and notably Mr tire whore Jshort. Jeremy is probably a bigger tire whore then myself so I trust his opinion.

Tire of choice are the Bonty 29.3 team TRL if you look them up on the bonty site you will be confused but they look like this https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&...ager+428465&fp=1&bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&cad=b . These suckers were the easiest tubeless specific tires I have ever mounted as they went right on without a fight and sealed right up. Nice volume and widely spaced nobs. I should also say sidewalls have some girth and nob compound is pretty flexable. On the road not an over powering buzz and road pretty reasonable. As recommended I ran the rear in the reverse direction. Traction was above average and managed to throw plenty of rocks at them today. My PSI standard was 18lbs front and 22lbs in the back. The only area I found the tires below average was loose over hardpack in turns at speed, they broke loose a few times. Overall I really am liking these tires and will be interested to see how they preform in wet conditions.

I ended up doing a super loop in Stephens and can say the Park is fully up and running end to end. Got me a KOM that took out an old HS friend Jamie Troy and Emhra. Thats a big deal Jamie has been and still is a ultra athlete, I still need to take my other one back from woody and just missed it but put 26er behind me. It was a beautiful day and wasn't till the end that I came across another rider, my town buddy Chris C as I was finishing up.

the ride
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/294147295
 
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