Ride Lugged

Dropping down to Elder St, my favorite down hill!Yikes!Cross-trainingQuickbeam on zee trailTrail pandaI like this pic the best!ouch panda (and if you look closely, a "crooked bars" panda as well).JB @ Crafton HillsDropping into YucaipaGary 115!
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A site about lugs, tan sidewalls, maybe jazz, classical, punk and bluegrass, local riding, worldly riding and people, cool cats, lame ducks, 110 bcds, wool, and smelling like hell after a long ride.

Archive for the 'czech defector' Category

S24O : Summer Solstice

The Sub 24 hour Overnight during the pivotal point of summer. The longest day of the year with a full moon to boot. We ( Casey and I ) cycled up into the Frederick Watershed and camped out at a well known site at the bottom of the drop trails.

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My Hercules was all ready to go, until the pedals went wonky and dried up on me and started skweeking…I didn’t realize how easy it is to rebuild the Shimano AX-600 integrated pedals until we returned. In true Cory fashion, I rode Christines late 80’s Bianchi Strada LX which was too small for me and was geared for flying on flats…not climbing. We loaded up with gear and some bottled spirits and headed out from my house in downtown. We rode out toward the Fishing creek reservoir and headed up the gravel into the shed. We pretty much rode up the entire climb. I did need to push a couple of times due to no granny gear front ring and Casey walked with me once until he realized that pedaling his bike was easier than pushing.

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Arriving at the site at the fall of night, we had a great mild night of camp fire, brewha-ha, and talk. We decided to set up the tent around 1am and were awoken the thud-thud of what was either a trail runner or a sasquatch at 5am. After the most powerful and bitter black coffee EVER brewed, we packed up and got ready to head out. BUT, of course…, Casey had a flat. We climbed up the rest of the gravel to Hamburg road and descended at MACH 3 back into the village. It was awesome.
See more of the pics on flickr.
Rob

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the catfish are jumpin’ and that ole’ cotton is high

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It’s summer time and the livin’ is easy!
just wanted to let you folks know that we’re doing well.
Verca and I have had 5 weddings and 6 bachelor(ette) parties in 6 weeks this may-june.

It is a bit of a chore. We can’t quite think about it too much. We definitely feel like we are getting old, too, for a number of reasons.

It is Thursday(Friday) at 1 o’clock in the morning and I just stumbled(really) home from a bachelor drink. (on the way home I was track skidding up a mofo, and totally crashed and scuffed my knee a bit after I dropped off my last friend.) I have to go to work again in the morning, but can’t even think about that now.

We hope all is well back east, and that you folks are prepping for Big Bear!

Rock out and keep the rubber side down!
-Cory and Verca

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Praha - Wien pics and more

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So I have finally gotten around to picking and cropping images from our bike trip/tour from Prague to Vienna.
With some stats, here we go…
(don’t miss the story in the mouseover captions)

Praha – Wien Greenway

(day – summary – start town + time – end town + time – distance, time and avg. speed)

Day 1 – singletrack and lots of hills
27-04-2008 Sunday Praha 12:00 Votice 18:15 88.23k TOTAL
(20 min lunch) 355 min ride time 14.91km/hr

Verča crossing a freshly plowed fieldbikes ready for the journey
at the first castle’s gardens
jra with a field
pretty good signage along the way
one of many long slow climbs
a nice long field descent where the tractor has left such rough tracks its easier to ride through the field. or an early adopter of the paris-roubaix method
nice shadow of me cruising

Day 2 – mega hills and dirt paths and fields + wind (20-25km/hr)
28-04-2008 Monday Votice 10:00 Jindřichův Hradec 18:15 82.87 171.10
(40m lunch + 15m + 15m) 445 min ride time 11.70km/hr

day 2 with a good bit of nice rooty trail
and a good pondside view
czech summer cabins. or a good way to sleep and get drunk (off the fumes from the wood) at the same time.
good smooth czech roads
the ever present train crossing guarded by a loud dog (not sure if he is supposed to warn of an approaching train?)
lunch on the dockside pub
a break at červena(red) lhota - named for its tile roof, not walls. go figure.
it’s on an island. pretty rad! now I want a house on an island. but maybe a little smaller. too much to keep clean.

Day 3 – 7+ hours in the rain
29-04-2008 Tuesday Jind. H. 9:30 Vranov nad Dyjí 16:45 94.69 265.79
(15m + 45m lunch) 375 min ride time 15.15km/hr
rain from Nová Bystřiice to Vranov

Verča cruising on a tar and chip forest road. I was trying to show that there are tons of signs all along the way.
It was rainy, so not so many pics. Sorry! But here is where we ended up for the night. I thought any place with a sign saying “here tie your horse” would be great

Day 4 – rough and dirt roads and a crazy strong headwind (25-40km/hr)
30-04-2008 Wednesday Vranov 9:30 Lednice 17:45 104.26 370.05
(15m + 45m lunch +15) 420 min ride time 14.89km/hr

The morning broke with a view from our hotel(saloon) room back up to the castle we had ridden down past in the rain the day before.
and back up the other side of the canyon for another nice view
a while after and we were still going up. now maxed out on some dirt forest track.
finally on top we had a nice ridgeline view back down about 300 meters. Yikes don’t run off the road. No gaurdrail.
and of course coming right back down. this old road was a little rough and needed some repairs. I would have stopped, but we still had a long way to go before dinner.
a bit of nice singletrack through another field, beaten down by the locals who work in the vineyards. The hills are steep and the drivable roads few and far between, making your feet or 2 wheels the best way to get around here.
a nice little suspension bridge across the river then back up a steep ass hill on the other side.
then we followed the yellow brick road to Oz. (Yellow bricks just don’t age well. When they laid this one, I’m sure it was shiny enough to at least get a scarecrow to head off in the wrong direction.)

Day 5 – walk around the park and forest to relax
01-05-2008 Thursday Lednice rest day

No pics. We rested, walked around a bit, and drank some beer and a lot of wine.

Day 6 – 50% hills and 50% headwind
02-05-2008 Friday Lednice 9:15 Wien ` 17:45 110.24 480.29
(10m + 50m lunch) 450 min ride time 14.70km/hr

not quite as hilly, classic double-track
did you all know, mistletoe grows on trees. it’s like kudzu in central europe in these weird mistletoe balls everywhere.
here is a puzzle! what the hell are the austrians thinking. this is a monument to socks not eaten by the washing machine or something, in the northern wine country of austria. I really have no idea what is going on here. this is only a small part of it too. someone with an internet addiction track this down and comment as to what is going on here!(eds. note: my comment was too long for the mouse over so here is the rest: I really have no idea what is going on here. this is only a small part of it too. someone with an internet addiction track this down and comment as to what is going on here!)
look Cory and Verča riding together through an austrian vineyard.
the austrians are all about their windmills. this one makes the big guy pedal and the little guy push his scooter. the wind didn’t cooperate with a front view, but I think I will still be able to make my own one day from this view.
austria, Cory, and more windmills. (note: the pheasant feathers I picked off some fresh roadkill)
as we got closer to Vienna, it didn’t seem the construction crews weren
2 of 743 rabbits we saw. there were 217 pheasants too!

Hotel Search with none to be found in all of Vienna, 20+ hotels visited 10 more clled
18:00 Sudbanhof to Praha 21:30 508.70

Day 7 – home and tired
arrive in Praha at 6:30 03-05-2008 and home by 6:45

OK, that’s it. Hope you enjoyed the show (a long time coming. Its hard to do this what with the wife and job and friends visiting all the time and cheap beer in bars.)

-c+v

3 comments

roughly a weeks caloric intake

Gambrinus, my standard of czech beers

Day 1 – 88km
(preride: 1.5 ham and cheese sandwiches, water, orange juice, slow release vitamin C capsule)
1 water bottle with energy drink, 1 with water
ham and cheese sandwich on buttered roll, 1 pack Clif Bloks
pork chop steak with potato wedges
2 - 17oz beers, 12oz Coke
2 cups of tea

the cyclist’s favorite sugar recovery

Day 2 – 83km
2 egg omelette with ham and cheese, 1buttered roll with jelly, 1 with honey, wild berry breakfast cake, cup of tea, slow release vitamin C capsule
1 water bottle with energy drink, 1 with water
large block of fried cheese with french fries, 17oz beer, 10oz Coke
chocolate covered ice cream snack
2 more water bottles, 1 more wild berry breakfast cake
grilled chicken fillets in cream sauce with potato wedges, 2 - 17oz beers, 10oz Coke

Staro (old) brno (Brno, the second city of Czech Republic), you don’t really find this in Prague. There they have Staropramen!(old-prague)

Day 3 – 95km
2 buttered rolls with ham and cheese, small side salad, cup of tea, slow release vitamin C capsule
1 water bottle with energy drink, 1 with water
ham and cheese sandwich on buttered roll, 1 pack chocolate wafers
2 hot chocolates, Beef broth soup, small portion of fried meatloaf w/ spicy mustard, espresso, double shot of Becherovka
large ‘Mega-řizek’ pork steak, potato wedges, 17oz beer, 10oz Coke, Becherovka w/ currant juice

czech old lady medecine

Day 4 – 104km
2 buttered rolls with jelly, 3 eggs scrambled with cheese, cup of tea, slow release vitamin C capsule
1 water bottle with energy drink, 1 with water, 1 pack Clif Bloks, 1 pack chocolate wafers
pork à la some Moravian sparrow with sauerkraut and potato dumplings, 17oz beer, 10 oz Coke
1.5 more water bottle
large portion of grilled pork ribs + side salad
1 bottle of local red wine

modry portugal is a nice bodied czech red wine grape. www.revarakvice.cz

Day 5 – rest day
2 buttered rolls with ham and cheese, 1 with jelly, cup of tea, 2pc. strawberry breakfast cake, slow release vitamin C capsule
‘czech-style hamburger’ with tomato, cucumber, lettuce, & onion; 17oz beer, chocolate covered ice cream snack
olive, ham, and corn pizza; 10oz Coke
½ bottle of local red wine

a good old austrian brew

Day 6 – 138km
1buttered roll with ham and cheese, 1 with jelly, 1 roll with honey, cup of tea, 2pc. strawberry breakfast cake, cream-filled doughnut, slow release vitamin C capsule
2 water bottles 1 pack Clif Bloks,
ham Pizza, 12oz Coke
1 more water bottle, 1 pack chocolate wafers
grilled chicken baguette, chocolate croissant, 12oz coke
3 – 17oz beers

a little bottle for the misses and three for me! :)

4 comments

so long to a dear friend (aka jra)

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so this guy was stamped out august 1991, and I have retired him today.
before during and after surgery

it seems that I have actually worn this poor saddle out. a near fatal collision with a incorrectly labeled drive-thru canopy in North Carolina left it a bit worse for the wear almost 9 years ago, but it was still going strong. but it seems the last 510km loaded ride to Vienna was the downfall.

I never really thought my pointy sit bones could pierce a saddle shell. About 360km into the ride on some rough dirtroads, I noticed that it seemed that the padding directly under my sit bones had been quickly ground down and I was riding directly on the plastic/fiber reinforced shell.

when I made it back home this morning, I decided to put the flite out of his misery. in the interest of curiosity, I choose to break the saddle down to its base elements. the perforated leather cover came off without too much trouble, and the glue holding the foam on gave little resistance as well.

I was surprised to find the culprit of the sudden loss of padding.

cracked shell
underside of teh cracked shell
it seems that my ass actually cracked the shell with my sit bones, at which point the padding in that small area was ground away fairly quickly.

I don’t recall any major impact, but there were so many repetitive jarrings that day, I am not surprised.
anyway I am saddle shopping now. I may look at a racy brooks, maybe a nice fizik (the misses seems to enjoy her two), i might stick with the flite. if I do stay with the flite, it looks like I will have some modding ahead, to fix the new and unnecessary spaceship styling.

ok, off like a prom dress!
-c

3 comments

paris-roubaix [pâ-rē rō-bā], verb

1. to pedal a bicycle along the edge or gutter of a rugged or rutted path in an attempt to find less demanding, smoother passage. ex. I just rode 500km from Prague to Vienna, and some of the roads were so rough I had to paris-roubaix that shit.

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Goat on you back

I can only assume this is how Cory and Veronica train while out in the Republic. When they race goatless it’s like a 50lb. goat has been lifted off of their shoulders.


*** News flash ***
Shocking photos Cory’s goat training regimen exposed…
cory riding with a goat

4 comments

Puh Rah Ugh

To readers of this blog that may be concerned:

The poster known as 5dollarbud, aka a4nick8tor, aka Big Killa N, aka Golden Balls, aka Kung Fu Jimmy is currently on holiday in Prague, CZ.

He appologizes for not notifing sooner and wonders if it would be possible to meet any other posters on this blog before Thursday when he leaves.

He can be contacted at his usual email, or by his swedish mobile (+46 70 fourseveneight fourfouronetwo), or by calling the hotel (+420 296 889 688)

kthanks!

7 comments

cory thing

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(cory hearts hair shorts)

cory is sorta in town.  we’re gunna ride in the shed or maybe on the road on friday, meeting at cory’s unshanty between 10-11ish.  Afterwards: food (jolly ranchers ala mode?) and drink (sparks?) and barrel fires.  Bring your own two by fours.  bring your road bike and your mtn bike.  i bet you actually cant come because you got a job.  ahh.  too bad. sucka.

2 comments

hmm… soon visting again

the wife and i will be in MD for a few days.
10-12 and 19-22. with the middle in AZ for 24hr racing.
it’s quite hectic, but if you happen to be around we need to go for a week-day pedal or a beer, or both at the same time.
word is frederick is smoke free now.
good excuse as any to get drunk in public.
-cory

6 comments

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