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New Tires
My trusty Surly Disc Trucker had been out of commission for about a month due to a flat rear tire. Normally, a flat wouldn’t result in that much downtime, but I was out of patches, and didn’t have any spare tubes to fit. The two tubes I had that were the correct size had Schrader…
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Winter Biking Update
It has been a very slow winter for biking. Sub-optimal trail conditions kept me off the MTB for most of January and February. I tried to ride last week after about 48 hours of above-freezing temperatures, but the trails were still extremely muddy from the freeze-thaw cycle — about the worst I had ever seen…
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Ride Notes
After an aborted attempt last week, I “rode” my hard-tail MTB to work today. I put “rode” in quotes because I ended up hiking about half of it. Last week, it was a little too soon after the snow fell, and there was too much deep snow for me to want to deal with. Today…
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Snow Commute
Today is my first work day of 2025. I took a little bit of extra time off during the holidays, and this week’s snowstorm delayed my return to work for 2 additional days. As a result, I hadn’t been to the office in 19 days. It’s nice to finally be out of the house again,…
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MTB Deep Freeze
After attending an early-morning geocaching event, I arrived home wide awake at 6:45am, so I hit the PVSP trails for a mountain bike ride. Temperatures were in the upper teens to low 20s, but there wasn’t much wind. I started out on Belmont Trail and rode Morning Choice, Old Track Loop, Nacho, Garrett’s Pass, and…
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Back on the bike
After a great fall mountain biking season, December has started off slowly. Today’s ride to work was my first time on a bike in 3 weeks. My last commute was Nov 27, and my last bike/geocaching ride was Nov 24. Weather, health, and travel have been the culprits — the fall drought finally broke around…
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MTB Season Again
I haven’t been doing much biking lately, outside of commuting to the office once or twice a week. My weekend biking/geocaching excursions have become fewer and farther between, due to a combination of busy schedule, running taking priority over biking, and lack of interesting caches being hidden within biking distance of home. I expect I’ll…
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Summer MTB Commute
Historically, I have not done much mountain biking in the summertime. The main reason is that the slower speeds and shorter bursts of exertion tend to get me extra hot and sweaty. Conversely, with road biking, there’s a consistent cooling breeze from air resistance, and the amount of exertion is more uniform, allowing for better…
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This and that
Yesterday, I participated in my first organized run in almost 22 years: the inaugural Open Gate Gallop. I ran the 8-mile route from the Guinness Brewery, into PVSP, out to the swinging bridge via the Grist Mill Trail, and back via River Road. It was a great time. As a long-time solo runner, it was…
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Ride Notes
Bad weather and scheduling conflicts conspired to keep me off the bike in January, with the exception of several commutes to work and one mountain bike ride. That changed today, as I took a ride out to West Friendship and back by way of Ellicott City, logging just over 40 miles. The temperature was right…