Neverending Summer

If only I had the means to make a go of nonstop Summer fun. Chase the sun on the horizon, wherever it takes me on this continent. There's still some juice left to this Summer though! This, despite the fact that you have to hear a handful of times each day that the demise of Summer is moments away. No, there is still a lot to do, and plenty of decent weather to do it in.

Local hike in Delaware Water Gap, a spot known as Dianna's Bath

Walking the "stepping stones" path in  Del. Water Gap 

The days are getting shorter in a very noticeable way, however. The trips we take at this point are candidates for "last of the season" affairs. It's mid-September, and it feels like there hasn't been that much outdoor fun this Summer. And then I start going through photos and find that it's truly the opposite. That's a big part of why I write these things.

 Glen Run Nature Preserve

DWG Loop

As we get into late August, there's a discernible change in lighting in my snapshots. Most of my rides are in the evenings, out of necessity. Like a low-fidelity time-lapse, the light slants more and more as we go. I'm just now beginning to pack my lights, and had to fire the helmet mount up two days ago.

Trailhead pack-up at Glen Run

There's a distinct lack of kayaking in this post. Something's gotta give during a frenetic 2nd half of Summer. That's for another post that you'll see here soon, as the paddles were hoisted for a trip to Raystown Lake. I'll leave this post with a few more evening shots and the first appearance of bike lights this season.

 DWG Loop sunset

Glen Run Preserve 

How quickly the sunlight drops, not 20 minutes from the photo above 

SG38, AKA Camelback

Fourteen Days

This is apparently a newly significant span of time. 336 hours. Give or take a few. That's how long it's been between bike rides. I can't truly blame my job this time. We had another wild weather event in the Northeast US whereas it rained and thunderstormed for something like eight days in a row. There was a similar span of time prior to this that entailed eight days of 90-plus degree heat and humidity, which effectively grounded any fat tire adventures for me. I have limits.

The old local loop, AKA the backyard loop. The post-workday loop. The short loop from my garage, through the woods and back is 2.58 miles, give or take the accuracy of the Russian satellites. I had to bang some stuff out. Some mental demons, some weird thing in my thigh that made it feel like stone, which I attributed to inaction. Or a deadly blood clot. Getting older is a shitshow.

Oh, there were other adventures. There's been a few paddles, and you cannot discount their effect on the quality of life.

Delaware river with Tara

Looking north

July 13th, Tara and I put in a Friday the 13th paddle. Despite walking under ladders and owning a black cat, it was all good luck and weather. This was the final day of my staycation, which was mostly devoted to working on the teardrop camper renovation. You can see that here. Paddling was a good ending to the "work week".

We had another group paddle on July 21st with friends from the Tri-state area. The original plan was to camp overnight on the Delaware, but thunderstorms were threatening. Laziness was also threatening.

Group paddle support group

Tara in attack position

We paddled the section from Smithfield to Kittatinny, stopping at Shawnee Craft brewery for a few local beers and some small bites. I had a draft of their Mosaic IPA, which was tasy. This is becoming one of my favorite casual cruises, and you can't beat a six-pack of Apiarius to go.

Today is the last day of July, Summer is racing by. I'm hoping to rock the last official month of Summer with a rigorous schedule of rides and paddles. Sounds exhausting, but you gotta work to play.

-cheers

Peak Summer

You go outside after dark and the first thing you say is, "oof". It's still hot and humid like the inside of a damp duffel bag, and you know it's peak summer. We've arrived, folks. It's been a week of 90-degree weather, which somewhat inhibits my own riding motivation. Hey, it's a "wet heat".

Since my last post, I did manage to beat the heat and snag a few rides at Glen Park and Glen Run. I haven't rode Glen Park in 2018 yet, and it showed. Glen Park is overall pretty technical with elements wading into the downhill and North Shore BC end of the pool. A lot of its trail is pretty chunky, rooty, rocky with fall-line descents sprinkled in. The area even has wooden features to expend your Red Bull upon.

I did not ride any of those features that day a few weeks back. My tech skills are a bit rusty, I've been spending a lot of time on fairly smooth singletrack and relatively comfortable descents a la Glen Run. It's not surprising that my ride was cut short that night. It wasn't the grueling switchback climb to the top that ended me. It could have been though. No, somewhere on the first descent, I snagged my rear derailleur and brush, rocks or branches. That event managed to rotate the whole body back-and-upwards.

The ascent to do it all over again exposed serious drive train issues. I had to bail partway up the mountain, but I wasn't so sure my legs wouldn't have bailed on me rather than the derailleur anyway. I just didn't have the juice to get loose that night.

Four days later, I tested the juice again at Glen Run. We've been establishing what loosely looks like a regular crew for this ride, comprised mostly of DWG townies, some co-workers and always-welcome randos. We run into other small groups - local riders and newcomers to the mountain bike world. It's a great thing to witness. My own struggles with my particular demons any given night melt away with the realization that we're out there as a pack, my thoughts seem selfish regarding how well I'm doing out there. It just seems silly when the cameraderie and shared sweat equity kicks in.





We hit everything there was to ride, a few stretches of singletrack more than once, before the payoff descent to the trailhead. A few of us finished the ride off with beers creekside in the 'Gap. It's the customary dirtbag recovery beverage, my choice that night being a sixer of Lagunitas IPA. I eagerly look forward to the weather to chill a bit until I can churn some more dirt.

-g

May to June Rides and Paddles

Time and events fly by too fast to get regular updates in, so let's get a post out there with roughly a month's worth of fair-weather activities.

Tara and I paddled our first kayak overnighter of the year on May 28th-29th on the Delaware River. The overall route was from the Bushkill access point to Smithfield beach. We essentially witnessed Summer arrive overnight, as the weather transitioned from temperatures in the 60's and cloudy the first day into the sunny 80's the next.

Tara looking back

Gray first day

Yet another hammock contraption to try out

Camp for the night at Hogback sites

2nd day cast off, always lighter

We camped at one of our favorite sites on the river, which is a roomy plot on the first bend of the Hogback. Going back in time a bit to May 14th, we had a nice group ride on Glen Run. We hit some singletrack that was new stuff to me. Here's the embedded map below.




The section that was new to me was fast and flowy, definiUnfortunately, this was my last ride for roughly two weeks. I came down with some kind of cold/flu/allergies that went on for 10 days, at least. Three of us on this ride ended up with the same affliction, makes you wonder if we were infected by some heinous alien fungus. Anyway, here's a shot of the group below.

I'm not affiliated with The Loft, but some of these folks are

I've sprinkled a few more rides in this month at Glen Run and my "backyard" dirt in the recreational area. On the latter, I finally hooked up on a ride with another local dirt pusher who showed off the super secret stash of singletrack in the park.

Trailhead at local stash

Fubars are niiice

Summer if full of steam, barreling along, almost every weekend is booked and the projects are piling up. I'll have to hold on and find the time to do as much of these fun-but-necessary-for-my-sanity activities as I can. If you drink 5 5-hour energy tubs, do you get an extra day?

-cheers

Monday Wakeup, Tuesday Breakup

After a long, hard weekend of relaxing, having a few adult beverages and getting stuff done around the house, Monday snaps you back to the day job. The thing that actually makes you money. It's a rude awakening, but it seems too early in the week to need a head-clearing ride. But it helps.

So I find myself on another ride at Glen Run after a few succinct text messages with my friend Chuck throughout the day. I leave the office a half hour early and we get right to it. I struggle, as I often do, to find the right balance of physiology for after work rides. I might be under-hydrated, under-nourished, sleepy and my muscles are atrophied from desk duty for eight hours.

I just have to punch it. It can take quite a few revolutions of rubber before anything feels good inside my carcass. This day, it was after 40 minutes of some pretty hot legs at the redline. We did a few loops around the pond and ran a few sections of the singletrack multiple times. We squeezed out just under five miles and about 950 feet in total climb.





I discovered that night that I'm still not there yet with my mountain legs. I had to slap some ice on my legs and sprawl out on the couch. But tomorrow I would have a welcome surprise. Fresh gear day would arrive a day early.

Getting new bike parts in the mail is always rad. I'd decided I wanted to break up with the stock handlebar on my Bad Habit... it just wasn't working. I wanted a bit more rise and sweep. I ordered a Chromag Fubar OSX from Jenson USA. In frickin' blue. So sexy.

The blue almost matches some of the blue accents on the bike. Whatever. Maybe I'm reaching. I'm doing less reaching in a literal manner, as the rise on the Fubar is 25mm vs. 15mm on the stock bar. The sweep is an addition degree back and it's also 780mm wide, vs. 760 on the stock bar. It's also 30 grams lighter.

The first few rides with the Fubar have felt good. I think it tweaked the stance just enough to put me in the sweet spot. I'll leave you with a cozy photo from the mod shop session at sunset.

Glen Run Again

I recently hit Glen Run Nature Preserve for a second time after riding it a few weeks ago. It was perfect weather this time, 70s and sunny. I was a little bit faster this time, my fitness levels are kicking in a little bit more.

It will be fun to watch the foliage grow into the area. As you can see from some of these photos, we're not full green in the Poconos yet.

 Fun truck is also a working truck

Them bones surveying the parking lot

Again, it's great to see a growing bike scene again in the Poconos. Where we'd once had Jim Thorpe as a Northeast US destination-level location, we've witnessed some decay over the years. But hey, the dream of the 90's are alive in the Poconos again!

Let's Hit the Country Club!

Visions of visors, white gloves, golf carts and beers in the sun may be dancing in your head, but you've got it all wrong. OK, not the beer part, but the rest would be inaccurate because I'm just referring to the nickname of my home trail. I just laid my first tracks of 2018 on it last week.

New log obstacles arrive yearly 

 Finally, T-shirt weather

These particular trails are just around the corner from my house in the DWG National Recreation Area. It's a local stash sort of thing, so I won't post the map here, but it's probably out there in the ether somewhere. I did the extended shorty loop, which wrangled about 4.6 miles and 725 feet of total ascent.

There's a lot of debris along with a few new log obstructions, so it'll take a little bit of cleanup until it's got its summer shape back in place. That goes for me too!

Glen Run Trail First Ride

I just got my first ride in on the new trails in the Glen Run Nature Preserve. It's located basically between Delaware Water Gap and Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania across 611 from Glen Park in Stroudsburg. The preserve has existed since 2015, so this is some pretty fresh stuff. The particular path I took was about 3.6 miles with a total elevation gain of 734 feet. The first mile from the trailhead on Route 191 is mostly climbing.





The trail is mostly singletrack, with a smattering of jeep roads. There's nothing too technical here, beside an occasional log rollover, and some sections of the singletrack are swoopy and fun. Note that as of this post, trail signage is not yet in place. Perhaps the map above will help.

On the ridge looking South

Back to the North, you can see East Stroudsburg University over my shoulder 

It's really great to see the trail scene growing around the Poconos. I think we're in for a renaissance of dirt riding perhaps.

April (snow) Showers

Mother nature has really jammed on the breaks regarding Spring this year. There were roughly five snow storms since I last posted on DWR in February. The last one squeezed in on April 2nd.

April 2nd snow... noooo

This was coupled with the rapid approach of the unofficial beginning of the Spring/Summer season: Bike 'n Brew with Edge of the Woods Outfitters. I was set to lead the 16-mile ride and I had barely rode at all during this not-so-young 2018. I mean outdoor riding, not just trainer "riding" (and I haven't been doing much of that either).

Finally, the mercury rose on April 12th, just two days before Bike 'n Brew, and I logged just my 2nd ride of the season. This was definitely my ride to shake the dust off, fitness-wise. I did 13 miles on the McDade: Hialeah to the park HQ and back.

DWGNRA HQ with the big rubber

The taco truck gets a gravel outing

I certainly had some rust to burn off. My legs creaked and burned for the first 20 minutes and my breathing was way off, but all this is akin to the fiddleheads making their crunchy emergence from the dirt and dried leaves of last Fall. Warmup ride accomplished.

Map of the Thursday 13-miler

Saturday for Bike 'n Brew brought the best weather you could ask for. It topped out at 85 degrees and was blazingly sunny. While the 16 miles from Shawnee Resort to the HQ and back kicked my ass, it went better than expected. The post-ride beer from Shawnee Craft was highly refreshing.

I only snapped one photo, too busy being "in the moment", as they say. There were about 150 riders this year, the largest collection yet of dirt rollers for Bike 'n Brew ready to kick off the season. I'll post the map for the ride below.

February Bike Rides

That phrase conjures layer upon layer of high-tech clothing, frozen toes, iced-up componentry and frozen snot. In reality, the mercury hit the 50's twice last week and will do so a few times this week. In case you've missed the posting date of this piece, it's mid-February. Apparently that's now a great time for biking!

I hit one of my local trails, the McDade Recreational Trail. It's a non-technical dirt and gravel trail that runs along the Deleware River and through the national recreation area. It's good for just getting out there and rolling, but not for gnarly riding. Sometimes that's just your groove. It's beautiful and relaxing - a good head clearing cruise. I snapped the photo above that captures some of the intoxicating Winter skyline.

It's that skyline and sunset, in fact, that are two reminders that this is still February, your Spring Fever be damned. The sun still sets early as your first reminder, so lights are a necessity if you're an after work rider. Secondly, the twilight skies are decidedly not Summer. The sun slices at an angle out of the West and fires its flares through the clouds as a warning that the night will indeed be cold.

-g

2018 Is Here

Happy New Year, we've made it folks. But where did the rest of 2017 go? I've been asking myself that more than anything in these days surrounding the New Year holiday. Did it just blow by like so much of our adult lives? Did I just work my ass, and time, away while crumbling to bed every night?

No, it's much different than that. The days between the months of June and now have been pretty hairy, especially September through November, after the requisite August calamity of work. I mean "hairy" in the terms of excitement, rather than just grinding the grind of work life.

Of sorts, this is a summary of 2017. It's hard to slice time to write this stuff, so we all get a photo cascade in return.

While the temperature sits at 17 degrees fahrenheit at the moment, I'll take us through a rather more pictorial roundup of a photo montage of the remainder of the Summer.

DWG Recreation area, June

State Gamelands 38, June

McDade Trail with Tara, July 4th

Delaware paddle, July 8th

I'll break here to speak a bit more about our trip to New Hampshire with our good friends Natalie and Paolo to their family cabin on the lake. This was in the 3rd quarter of July, and likely the calm before the storm for some of us.

We'd decided to pack four persons and all baggage, boats and gear into my extended cab Toyota. Tight. This was a six-hour trip... or eight? It's defensible. Nat has a fantastic family cabin-on-a-lake situation. Like real nice nice. I mean, it's a cottage-type situation, but it's a great place on a lake, so certainly kayaks went with us up yonder. We packed our booze, some board games and some distinct lack of giving a shit for several days. We saw loons.

I'll just drop some of the choice photos below from a lovely, relaxing long weekend.

A loaded rig, shortly after arriving. Loaded.

View from fire tower

I also got some time on my new bike in August. I mean, of course I did. I was trying to keep the weird slow frantic grind of August at bay. Part of the remedy was my new Cannondale Bad Habit, which was part of a deal for a cracked warranty claim on another Cannondale bike.

Tara, myself and her brothers and kids had a nice family camping trip in mid August. Something easy and approachable for the kids to get into. We camped at Worthington State Forest, which is as remote as 15 minutes away from home. Not to diminish the campground however, I'd camped here with family nearly every year from the time that I was 3 years old until my late teens. I'll drop the photos below.

Glad I bought a pickup

Once the calamity of late August subsides for me, I have some time to spare. It's time to regroup, re-energize, Summer is still here, despite the department stores full of Winter clothes. In a way, this is the prime time of the Summer. The kids have gone back to school, the tourists have abandoned their forays onto the river, and we have this kingdom to ourselves. We planned an early September river camping trip, and pulled it off nicely.

Out at 6 or 7 AM to drop boats. Peace.

Booze cruise crew. Scott, me, Jaime, Tara, Jen, Jim, Jason

You know what? September isn't done yet. Summer isn't done yet. Let's throw in another Summer outdoors trip, maybe the last one for the the season. This was with the Edge of the Woods crew, up to the Adirondacks and Lower Lake Saranac. It's one of those great caravan-esque trips you get for maybe a handful of times in life. It's a road trip paired with paddling and camping and partying in one package.

And there we have what we'll call the emotional and spiritual wrap-up of Summer 2017. Despite all the other bullshit going on, I can recollect just writing this that I had a pretty decent year. I just want to keep this going... but even better. If anything, I want to be more youthful in the coming year(s). I have to capture some essence of that live wire I had when I was younger. It's the demon of all aging people, but it really means something for me. It's imperative, and essential.

I'll leave with a Christmas tree cat, Tommy, blurry in all his glory, in summary.

-g