31/31 ---> JULY 2017! CONTEST! WIN $100!

Kaleidopete

Well-Known Member
Did a nice 8 mile ride this morning. 1.5 miles in I saw "the bear", stopped and looked and thought there could be another behind me, so I took off.

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1speed

Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
Day 15 - Got out early because I have plans later in the day. Kind of unpleasant this morning because of hip pain for th last 8 miles. But I did get to meet some new friends ...

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This guy came right up to say hello this morning ... he and his buddy weren't the least bit shy

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This is his buddy coming to join the party ...
 

Patrick

Overthinking the draft from the basement already
Staff member
Day 15 -

Today was a split double-header for my kid's baseball team. The original plan was to head out around noon for a couple hours.
Visit the Sourland Mountain roads. Maybe drop down to Ringoes. Around 8pm last night, they cancelled the morning game,
so I checked in with some of the people I haven't ridden with in awhile. Found that my friend (an AG winner at half-iron distances,
and her coach - also an AG winner and ironman)
wanted to do a spirited ride which covered the course of her first group ride, where she got dropped out of the parking lot.
Luckily someone stayed with her - they turned around at an odd place, cause they were worried about mileage building up.
Upon arriving back at Marty's:Randolph, she realized that she was close to 30 miles. So kept going. Out to Rt 46 in Kenvil.

Great - we are going to ride on rt 46, and climb the western side of Mine Hill (Dickerson Mine area), then head out Canfield ave, and bomb down
Rt 10 back to Marty's. All this with the traffic on Sussex tpk, North, South, and Main St in Chester, and Dover-Chester road.

I committed, with a 7:15 start at Randolph Lake (Behind Marty's) - Left the house around 6:30, and arrived in plenty of time.

Was a humid start, but the temps came up a bit, and cleared the haze. Roads were still wet, so tight drafting was out. Road water has a distinctive salt taste to it.

We kept the pace up on the flats, and pushed some of the hills. Legs didn't respond well, given it was 15 hours since the last ride. Oh, and for the second day in a row, I woke up at 3am. I did manage to sleep for an hour before heading out.

31 miles 1:47 https://www.strava.com/activities/1084427189

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Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Day 15

Part 1 of the day was marking the Stewart 45 course. In all we were out there 4.5 hours and I rode less than half of that. Then I went to get pizza. Met D & Zac for a second ride & pre-sweep before the official evening sweep. D did the whole loop but Zac and I did 10 miles of it.

July Challenge Day 15: Stewart 45 Marking Crew reporting for duty

2:15:52
16.6 miles

July Challenge Day 15, part 2: Afternoon ride With Zac and Partly D, doing a little course pre-sweep

1:25:28
10 miles

Overall on the day: 3:41:20 & 26.6 miles.

Overall

Days: 15
Rides: 18
Time: 39:07 (9:07 over goal)

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Patrick

Overthinking the draft from the basement already
Staff member
Day 16 -

Initially thought we had an early baseball game today - so the trip to Stewart was out. Result, drink a couple of beers.
@Roadie sent me a message about a morning ride, and the baseball game was pushed into the afternoon, so off we went.
Chris mentioned we were going to climb long hill, which @stb222 had been taunting @rick81721 and me about a couple weeks back.
That's fine, figured I'd make somewhat of an effort there. Managed to make a PR by 80 seconds or so, which puts me
within a minute of Kevin and @pearl. Wasn't able to catch Rick, but closed the gap.

Top 10 MTBNJ.com from strava

Kevin McElwain Jun 15, 2012 13.0mi/h - 305W 1,060.1 5:47
2 james pearl Jun 7, 2012 12.4mi/h 192bpm 281W 1,013.4 6:03
3 Ilya C. Jun 11, 2012 12.3mi/h 148bpm 321W
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1,007.8 6:05
4 Rick Robinson Mar 29, 2017 11.8mi/h - 284W 963.0 6:22
5 Sean Runnette Aug 21, 2011 11.3mi/h - 616W 926.6 6:37
6 patrick mariani Jul 16, 2017 11.2mi/h - 281W 917.3 6:41
7 Eric Capers Jan 12, 2014 11.0mi/h - 242W 897.2 6:50
8 Chris Swayze Oct 13, 2013 10.7mi/h - 256W 873.7 7:01
9 alex kochetov Aug 17, 2011 9.8mi/h 174bpm 228W 803.2 7:38
10 O.J. Lopena Apr 6, 2014 9.8mi/h - 235W 797.9 7:41
10 Dave Clark Nov 18, 2015 9.8mi/h - - 797.9 7:41

Felt good right out of the gate this morning - weather was perfect. My gloves smell like feet, only have my road helmet - and i forgot to clean the shield..
Nothing was going to distract from a great morning. Plenty of people out there riding and running too.

38 miles 2.5 hours - https://www.strava.com/activities/1086286998

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Round Valley doesn't look so tough from here!
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And looking in the other direction, the sourland ridge from a couple miles away.
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rick81721

Lothar
Day 16 -

Initially thought we had an early baseball game today - so the trip to Stewart was out. Result, drink a couple of beers.
@Roadie sent me a message about a morning ride, and the baseball game was pushed into the afternoon, so off we went.

Hey I can get up earlier once in awhile!


Chris mentioned we were going to climb long hill, which @stb222 had been taunting @rick81721 and me about a couple weeks back.
That's fine, figured I'd make somewhat of an effort there. Managed to make a PR by 80 seconds or so, which puts me
within a minute of Kevin and @pearl. Wasn't able to catch Rick, but closed the gap.

Pfft yes it is so impressive that @stb222 is faster than guys old enough to be his dad :rolleyes:
 

Patrick

Overthinking the draft from the basement already
Staff member
Hey I can get up earlier once in awhile!




Pfft yes it is so impressive that @stb222 is faster than guys old enough to be his dad :rolleyes:

alright, i'll txt you next time. 7:30 usually gets some pushback tho

are you including me in old enough guys ? :D:D:D
 

1speed

Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
Day 16 - I had a problem uploading this ride, but ultimately I was able to get it uploaded using my phone connection. Not sure how that will work out long term, though. It would have been a PIA if I couldn't get it uploaded, although I did have this as a backup (not sure if this would have been acceptable since all it says is "today" without the date:

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So all that aside, this was a pretty good ride, but it's kind of a recon ride more than anything else. I'm planning a new long ride for the near future and this ride allowed me to get some info on that route - basically, it allowed me to view the heretofore missing link between Valley Forge and French Creek.

The ride itself was the trails at Green Lane and then a trip down the Perk Trail to the SRT to Phoenixville and beyond. Nice little Sunday ...

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On the Blue Trail, Green Lane ...

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On the bridge connecting Blue Trail to the non-color coded singletrack sections across Knight Road ...

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Waiting out a traffic jam ...

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I think I've mentioned before that Green Lane is a great place to ride but with only 18 miles it's tough to justify a trip this far for folks living outside the area. I think I'd probably want to take that back ... GL is a fantastic place to ride, with a bit of everything. My buddy leads the trail maintenance crew there and they've done some great stuff. If anyone wants to take a trip and check it out, give me a shout - this is one trail I'd love to share ...

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Okay, this is just wildly cool ... When you enter Phoenixville on the SRT, you have a choice of two routes, one of which continues the SRT northwest toward Reading. The other route is a more primitive trail that winds along the Schuylkill River and ends at a park below a farm with a bunch of animal habitats. They have some pretty cool animals there -- a buzzard sanctuary, several water fowl areas - but by far the best was this one: they have two grey wolves! I guess on one level you could say it's sad to see these guys inside a cage, but they look healthy and they are insanely cool to see up close. They both "stalked" me as I was taking pictures. I love how smoothly these guys move -- domestic dogs have lost that special something these guys do when they move - they flow like liquid. Easily one of the coolest things I've ever stumbled upon while riding.

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The trail spur that leads to the animal sanctuary runs along the river -- like, RIGHT along the river. I had to cross a few sections of spillway to get to the end.

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I was here ...

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This is as far as I went today ... but stay tuned!

So, so far that's 16 days down.

Tale of the tape, so far:

20 rides
516.83 miles
Total Time: 41:36:26
And (just for kicks): 32,033 ft elevation gain
 

rick81721

Lothar
Phoenixville and beyond. Nice little Sunday ...
Okay, this is just wildly cool ... When you enter Phoenixville on the SRT, you have a choice of two routes, online of which continues the SRT northwest toward Reading. The other route is a more primitive trail that winds along the Schuylkill River

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Phoenixville is my home town. Bro still lives there (and he's a roadie). Gotta ride there soon, great write up
 

1speed

Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
Day 17 - Had to get out early today to ensure I got the ride in at all. I have an appointment this evening and meetings over lunch, so it was early or nothing. No photos, but one noteworthy happenstance: I did a road ride on the carbon SS and never once had to stop for a light the whole time. And I did hit a lot of lights, too. I can't recall that happening - pretty much ever.
 
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