Nothing great has been going on these last few days.  First, this light is killing me.  By the time I get home, it is damn near dark.  Sure, I can get out the lights and head out, but I really want to take Campy for a run, but she doesn’t do so well in the dark, so we don’t do anything.  Second, the bathroom sink drain just about exploded on us the other day, so I have been playing plumber trying to get it back up and running.  Finally, my plumbers crack hanging out has a purpose.  Since my house hasn’t been updated since the early 1960s, the parts for the drain seem to not be a “standard” anymore so things aren’t that easy to find.  Last night, after cursing for a while, I just ripped everything out that I could and will start from scratch tomorrow with it.  I say tomorrow because the plumbing store will be closed when I get home from work.  Why don’t I just go to Home Depot or Lowe’s?  Mostly because the people that work at our are idiots…so I will be staying away from there as much as possible..

On a side note, we are supposed to get an inch of snow tonight.  Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope warm weather comes in and pushes that snow outta here…

Ugh, Mondays.  I don’t really like Mondays, but does anyone?  Its not that I don’t like my job.  I enjoy it to be honest.  It’s just the fact of getting up, and actually going somewhere on someone else’s schedule.  On the weekends, I set my own schedule and that is much better…

This weekend didn’t have much excitement.  Took the dog for a couple hour walk both days to keep her mind occupied.  These next few weeks will be taken easy and just out having fun as the beginning part of training will start during the middle of November.  I haven’t picked the dreadful date yet, but it is coming soon.

Other than that, nothing too exciting except for the fact that we are supposed to get a bit of snow this evening with a high of 37 tomorrow.  I guess winter is coming, and its coming fast.

Back on the bike for the last 2 nights.  Its always tough to get back on the bike when you haven’t ridden in over a week, plus you are still feeling the cold that is keeping you off.  The mind says “NEED TO RIDE” but the legs and body says “sorry sucker, you need to stay on the couch”.  The mind won the battle the last 2 nights and I bundled up for some riding.  Wednesday night it was 30 degrees when I got back and my water bottle was starting to freeze up.  I did about 2.5 hours on the single speed and it was good fun, except for the wheezing and coughing up all kinds of nonsense.

Last night went out for about 1.5 hours on another little ripper with co-workers on the single speeds.  I wanted to try out his 26″ wheeled rig and he wanted to try out my 29er.  He definitely won in the bike swap because his bike was a size or 2 small for me.  To make a long story short, I was pretty crunched up on the bike.  Not the best for night riding, plus one of my lights was still attached to my bike, which he was riding.  There was a lot of point and praying done for me on the ride.

Any way you slice it, 2 nights out on the bike are better than 2 nights in on the couch.  Plus, I still haven’t needed to get the trainer out yet, but that is coming soon as snow has started to fly and temps are getting colder.

Now I am just waiting for the time to reach 5 o’clock so I can punch out and start the weekend.  I don’t really have anything planned, but I am sure Campy and I will hit some of the local trails as Saturday is supposed to be pretty nice.

Well it seems as if we missed the snow, for now.  I believe they are calling for more snow this evening into tomorrow.  Great.  I guess I really shouldn’t be so surprised, it is nearing the end of October and I live in New England.  What do I think is going to happen??  I just hope that all the leaves fall from the trees with enough time for me to rake them before the snow hits and stays.

I do feel a bit depressed today.  Not sure if it is the week or so I haven’t been on the bike, the head cold I have that just won’t go away, the dreadful weather forecast, the lack of light or all of the above.  I have a feeling it is all of the above, but I need to change something up or it is going to be a LONG winter.

For some reason, my allergies are in full effect right now giving me a wicked runny nose, sore throat, itchy eyes and a head ache.  Damn you allergies.  Because of that, I have decided this would be a perfect week  to take a little break from some pedaling.  I rode once this week, with a bunch of people from work, and while the legs can take it, I don’t think my head can.  I think I will just take it easy until the weekend and go for a nice road spin.  It should be nice riding up through the notches this weekend.  Sure, there will be a bunch of leaf peepers out, but I think the leaves are about done with their colors and things should be ok.

Speaking of riding at work, I can’t really express just how nice it is to actually work in the bike industry and work with people who actually ride a bike.  For the past how ever many years that I have worked in the bike industry, I was the only one riding.  Maybe one other person at my bike shop rode with me and when I worked at Michelin, no one ever really rode.  It is quite nice.  I definitely think that changing jobs over to here was one of my best decisions.

Another night for heading out on the bike at night. This time, it wasn’t a dirt ride, but one with the road bike.

I was actually breaking and demoing a new Soma Fabrications road bike and I have to say, it rode really, really nice. Downeast is using the bikes for the upcoming Outdoor Demo East that is coming up shortly and we need to get the cables stretched and everything broken in. So I grabbed the bike, took it home and hit the streets with it.

The bike I got to ride was a Soma Smoothie ES, which is a little more layed back comfy frame compared to their race stock Smoothie frame. Paired up with that was a full Sram Rival set with some FSA wheels. Have to say the frame road GREAT for a $500 frame. I was completely suprised how smooth everything was and how stiff it was when it needed to be. For the Sram group, that was the first time on any Sram road gear, and to be honest, was not all that pleased with it. I guess I am just used to other components. With that being said, I only had about 1.5 hours worth of pedal time on it and can’t be sure I don’t like the Sram stuff. I think with a little more “hands on” time, I could convince myself that I like it.

This time of the year is so nice for night riding. The weather was quite warm (about 60 degrees) and the moon was throwing off a TON of light, so I kept the light usage to the minimum, only turning on the lights when cars are getting close. Either way, it was another 1.5ish hours of turning the pedals. No matter how you look at that, there is nothing wrong with that.

Night riding….gotta love it.  Last night went out for a 3.5 hour ripper.  Sure, I had a little tire/tube problem, but that was fixed fast and we were off riding again.  The cool part about it was 1)for 3.5 hours, I only had my light on for less than 1.5 hours because of the moon light and 2)the trails we rode were 100% new to me.  New trails plus night riding by moonlight….that there, is a win win situation.

Ya know, its quite interesting to work at a job with people in the bike industry who actually ride there bikes, something that never really happened at Michelin.  It’s nice to be surrounded by people who actually like to pedal a bike.

Heading out for another night ride tonight.  Hopefully I am making a habit of this.  The one nice thing about it is that I am riding with folks I normally don’t ride with, so I am learning new trails.  Hurray for that.  Finally, I can ride something else.

The weather is starting to turn over to the dark side recently.  It is like 35ish when I wake up in the morning.  There is nothing good about that.  Mount Washington has about 2.5 inches of snow on it.  There is no need for that nonsense.  Once the warm weather came this spring, it seems like it rained every fargin day and now it is ready to snow again….such bullshit…

Here in New England, the day light is fading fast. It is getting pretty dark around 6:30-7 already. So last night, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get home and ride before it got dark so I charged up the batteries for my lights. At about 7:30 I left out for the Cranmore access road for 3 reasons.  1)  A sweet, sweet downhill in the Red Tail Trail.  2) I wanted to punish myself a little bit.  That access road is steep in some parts and going give me a quality workout and 3) I wanted to hear the screams of the Cranmore Ghoullog.  If you aren’t familiar with what the Ghoullog is, it is a little halloween event where they try to scare the hell out of you.  They have a little maze set up on the bottom of the mountain and some on the top.  I would imagine it is a nice little set up by looking at the pictures and the money they dump into it.  Anyway, I did the access road to hear the screams of the people, and boy were their screams.  After about 20 minutes of hear coyotes howl (I imagine it was just a tape being played over and over) and people scream, I got a little weirded out, after all, I was out in the dark woods all by myself.  So, I hit play on the ipod, got the death metal cranking and started the pedaling.  Moral of the story?  There is nothing like a good, 2 hour night right.  I got home around 9ish and was completely pumped and just stoked on how much fun it is to ride at night.  If you have never done it and are a big mountain biker, I would suggest getting yourself some lights and head out.

Today was spent watching PSU whoop up on Purdue in football, followed by some hiking with the dog and bleeding of some brakes.  Usually some sloppy brakes don’t bother me so much, but having hardly any front or rear brakes coming down the entire Red Tail Trail was a bit unnerving, enough for me to come home and actually do a little maintenance to the bike.  After getting some HUGE bubbles out of both brake systems, I will feel a little more confident about riding down hills from now on.

I think tomorrow, the Campster and I will hit one of the local 4000 footers (a mountain over 4000 ft tall) to get her a good workout.  If I am feeling good afterwards, I will head out on the bike…maybe on a night ride. Who knows….

It’s been a while since I have posted anything and boy have things changed since then.

First, and the biggest thing, is I got and started myself a new job.  I started about a week ago over at Downeast Bikes as one of ther buyers and also customer service reps.  So far, everything is going extremely well and I like this job much better than the old one.  Smart move over to here on my part.

The first week of the job, I commuted by bike, but the draw of bringing the dog with me is just too much, so I quit the riding over and started driving.  Sure, its a bit more expensive because of gas, but the dog doesn’t sit at home all day by herself.  There are 3 other dogs that keep her occupied all day and that is worth the price of gas anyway in my book.

I started doing a bunch of night riding which has been great.  By the time I get home, it is working on being dark so trying to sneak out in the daylight isn’t much of an option.  I just hang out at home for a while then get out in the pure dark later at night so I don’t have to rush anything and I also get to make sure my battteries are topped off.  Its good times.  I want to try and wake up earlier to try and get some riding in before work in the daylight, but I can’t get up early enough, so I always bag that idea.

Another thing that I have entered into is another weight loss bet with John again.  Latst time we did this, he won, BUT, I had my hand in a cast for more than 4 weeks, went on 2 all you can eat don’t worry Michelin is paying trips and still managed to only lose by a few pounds.  This time it will be different.  We set it up to be a total of 6 months long (instead of the 3ish last time) and it will end the week of my 30th birthday.  I figured that with the big birthday coming up, I might as well lose a bunch of weight for it.  Who knows if that strategy will work out.  The big thing is last time John took 50 bucks of mine.  This time, the best is for 51.  That way, I will get my 50 back and take 1 of his.  That puts me on top.  Now, if I can only stop eating like a horse and drop some of that weight.