What:  July 3rd Alley Kat

Where:  The bell tower in Baker Park, Frederick City MD.  Afterparty at Krugs Place, on east street.

When: 6:30 PM

How much?  8 dollars.

Prizes?  Hell yes.  Crappy Prizes?  only for the losers.

What to bring:  A cell phone, a blinky light, a messenger bag.

Last November’s Alley Cat brought people from DC, B-more and of course Frederick out to race around the streets of Frederick, doing log pulls, making up raps on the spot, getting porn clerk signatures, and betting on virtual horses at 7-11.  We have more mad ‘nanigans planned for this summer ‘kat, so head on out, bring your bling, and see what the back streets of Frederick are about.

Prizes for: Overall Winner, Mens.  Overall, Womens, Skid Comp, Track Stand Comp, and DFL.

Questions: ask in the comments, suckers.

Anyway, this was a nice fall ride in Brdy, 20minutes south of Prague.
It was about 12° C at the peak, and pretty much overcast threatening rain.
I had to quickly try to get a pic of Verča riding through some stone walls that are a celtic left over. Not sure how old, but somewhere around 2500yrs plus I would assume.

Anyway, enjoy some techy singletrack:

Just to balance this post out, and since kneejerk ranting is a well know personality trait of this here weebblahg, I provide, for your grumbling purposes, Lancey Thesteriodman’s Damien Hirst Designed madone:

(Picture from the slamxhype blog)

Presidents Day week-end 2008
We flew out to AZ to escape the winter in Prague and then the winter in MD, only to find winter in the desert.

assembling the dumb light bike with ominous desert clouds behind

When we landed it was 60s but the wind on the approach and a choppy landing were ominous signs. It seems a storm was a brewin’. A couple of hours later at about 5pm on Thursday it started raining. Winter rain in the Sonoran desert is not the worst thing. It usually lasts less than 12 hours and actually knocks the dust down. Both of our bikes made it on the plane this year, so we were excited. Plus, as always, or better than ever, the Clarks met and welcomed us like their own. So with warm food in our bellies and the bikes ready to go we turned in for the evening. When we woke the next morning it was still raining, but was expected to stop by noon. By then we were already heading north with Wanye III (Damien’s pops) in their eco-suv, the hybrid Highlander. And we were using it since the road, usually about 15 miles or dirt, was completely mud and stream crossings.

moots SS and giant SS with desert snow

This was not looking good.
I had done this race a few years back in the rain, and it wasn’t as fun as usual.

When we got to the venue, Wayne 4 (D’s bro) and friend Zac had already set up camp. They had gotten up there Thursday to beat the rain and all were glad they did. It’s always amusing to see how hard it can rain in the desert. Temps were hovering just under 50 now up at a little higher elevation in the foothills of the mountains.

the wintery airstream and camp

We settled in here too, and started drinking and listening to music in the mostly-renovated Airstream of W3. Food and beer and a nice waterproof trailer made us forget about the rain a bit. Unfortunately we still had to go out to get more cold beer and to hit the portojohns. As night fell 2 things happened. The temps dropped and some virus later determined to have likely found us on the MD-AZ plane caught up with Verča, so she started regular and often trips out to the second option above.

She only hinted to me at her condition that night, but by her mood, I realized all wasn’t perfect. plus when I awoke in the middle of the night to hit the head myself I found 2″+ of snow covering everything. A strange desert site for sure, especially on my friendly cholla, whom I try to piss on as much as possible.

my cholla with a warm spot in the center from my effluent

By late morning the rain had let up, and the race itself got underway, so we rode in circles for several hours and had a generally great time.

Verča had a pretty amazing race, considering she had to stop to desecrate every other cactus every time she rode, due to her shall we say, intestinal distress. She ended up in fourth place in Solo SingleSpeed Female with 6 laps, while essentially riding only on oranges, cliff bloks, and water.

I had only 1 more lap for a total of 7, placing me at 24th in the Solo SingleSpeed Male.

Only after the race (and into the next day) did I appreciate her will, as the evil virus found me and completely incapacitated me. I could barely get out of bed. We even had to stop 2x on the way back to Tucson, so I could vomit/lay on the side of the road and moan.

Funny thing is, we both loved it and Verča, especially wants to go back soon!
(eds. update: although last year 2009 didn’t happen for $$ reasons, and it looks like we are maybe too busy for 2010.)

state college gets less than two months of sun a year.  the winters are long and sloppy, not cold enough for serious snow accumulation but cold enough to get the occasional 2-3 feet.  but when the sun does make its presence felt, it is remarkable, perfect temps, scattered clouds, deep blue skies…  as a side note, i lived on the side of mount nittany, and in my last year there i had a close encounter with a bear.  returning home i hear a noise in the bushes about 5 feet to my right.  i look over and see fur moving: a deer.  the deer stands up and emerges from the bushes, inches from the road.  i think, oh, thats odd, a person in a bear costume. right as i breeze by, i realize it is of course a real bear, but i am past and no harm has come and it happens so quickly that i do not have time to get scared: looking behind me i see him ambling across the street.  i believe he was checking for cars.

ahh but back to yesterday.  i stop for coffee at mile 120, (or so), at a proper david lynch roadhouse, with wood paneled interior, waitresses in smart red uniforms and thick diner mugs of steaming hot coffee, served too weak to bother with cream.  in proper lynch mode i buy a squishy donut.  back on the road the sky blackens from a flannel grey to a muted midnight.  the wind tosses the car half across adjacent lanes.  the mountain passes loom ahead, made eerie by the crack of good weather i can see at the top.  descending the backside of the twisting road, passing thousands of acres of thick pines and tiny deep blue lakes, i emerge into a world sheltered by 1200 foot mountains, which serve to hold the cold front at bay, roiling just a mile back in my rearview mirror.

i arrive at the yellow wooden post office with bright white trim in Lemont, the same post office that i picked up packages from for 2 years.  i am to meet a fellow named whit, who will be the ride leader, a philosophy major turned pro bike racer turned philly english teacher.  we will generate a cue sheet for the ride, i will drive, point things out, make the right turns, get us mildly lost, and he will diligently record our path on a custard yellow note page with a dying pen.

i have already driven 4 hours.  i am about to drive 8 more.  onward.  i point out local oddities, the house with the stream under it, the barn filled with rare bikes and roosters…  our journey takes us through rolling, impossibly scenic farm lands, past tiny streams, chuttering black buggies with dour amish drivers.

rusted cars about 3/4 of the way to milheim

on a side note, my toes are unreasonably tingly right now.

our rough mid point dumps us in milheim, a squalid down shoved at the bottom of a mountain pass that no one uses any more because the timber industry has dried up.  we are looking for food.  the local pub is closed, not open for 4 more hours.  turning back to the car we see what appears to be a missplaced western hotel, a rambling brown wood fascade with a wooden sidewalk/porch, and a carved painted sign reading hotel milheim: fine food, spirits, and lodging.  we walk in.

we wander thru 3 ancient dining rooms, the last of which oddly has old iron bathrubs serving as salad bar containers.  our journey ends in a darkly paneled bar, attended by a sparely tooth’d woman with a cackling smile and hair that looked like an eminent fire hazard.  we ordered the special, and 2 drafts of cheap local beer and sat back in our cracked fake leather bar chairs and taked about racing and not racing and marriage and gear ratios and beer and i think, how strange, i have only just meet the guy.

pine swamp road

leaving the hotel, meager bill paid (28 dollars, 4 beers, sandwiches, fries, and soup!) we emerged into a torrent of rain.  epic rain.  fitzcarraldian rain.  i had left my window down.  i sat on a soggy fabric seat and we drove on.  the road twisted and turned past sinking creek, now a flooding river, mere feet from the edge of the road.  logs drifted down like whitewater rafters.  we turned over a bridge and left the river behind, climbing into the mist on dirt roads that were build to connect logging communities that no longer exist.  the visibility drops.  mist hangs like spanish moss from the leaves of laurel, pines press in close, their tops obscurred in white.  we slide thru muddy turns and bump over sharp rocks, the suspension protesting and chattering.

penn

ahh the reason for the ride.  penn’s view overlook appears suddenly on our left, a shear drop of 1000 feet to the winding river we left below, mountains stretching out only to dissolve in the gray curtains of rain.  white clouds scatter at our foot steps.  whit has to snap a few pictures.  i hide under a scrawny pine, clinging desperately to granite boulders.
more views await, the car sliding around turns as even downshifts will not slow our progress.  we emerge on the otherside of the ridge, passing a lake that has been recently drained for dam maintenance, an oddly visceral site, like a corpse post autopsy.  soon we are climbing again, road names like vonada gap, synagog gap, mountain church road, locust grove road.  we drive a twisting ridgeline, and suddenly turn down, barreling down the mountain back toward the valley.

pine swamp view

midsentance i yell: fuck.  i slam my brakes and slid across the road.   i have almost run over a giant yellow cock.  the rooster is making his way across the road, oblivious to the fact that his death was nearly imminent.  whit chases him back home with his camera, and in fits of laughter we continue our descent, but at a more stately pace.

ahh i need more tea.

yellow cock!

so.  well.  how much more is there to tell?  those are the high lights.  we were mildly lost at one point, but after looking over a huge topo map that whit thoughtfully brought i divined the route (ok not really, we just sorta kept going and found the road) and we finished with no more yellow cock run-ins.  i took a slight break from driving and poked in an antique store for old cameras.  when i emerged, it was snowing softly.  i drove home having consumed 2 more cups of coffee and a bad gas station sandwich.

11 hours after i started, i returned to frederick a tired tired tired man.  mission accomplished though, and that’s the important thing.

all photos used up there are whit’s.  see more photos from this recon, whit’s last recon, and past state college rambles.