Cold Hike

Posted on January 21, 2012 by Bone

Long, long ago, I mentioned that I wanted to hike all 798 miles required to earn the State Forest Trails Award.

Last weekend, I went out into the frosty mountains with Klinutus and my evil sister. It was about 16 degrees up in the snowy mountains.

I got to try out my Subaru’s AWD in the snow for the first time. It worked very nicely.

My Outback in the snow

There was a lot of rocks. I hate rocks. Especially when they’re under the snow and you can’t see them.

The trail

Because I am a very clever boy, I had a thermos full of coffee in my backpack. So, I was fully caffeinated for the hike.

Coffee Break

There are a lot of nice views on this section of the trail. Here is Klinutus contemplating endless infinities or whatever.

Klinutus contemplating endless inifities

At any rate, it was very nice, except that I twisted my ankle or something out there, and have been out of commission for the past week.

Klinutus brought along his camera tripod, so we could pose for our end-of-the-hike group photo.

Group pic

Another four miles down, only 768 left to go!

Posted in Hiking, Trail Award Quest | 4 Comments

That’s a little better!

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Bone

The first week of 2012 is in the bag! I’ve lost 10 pounds, and already ridden twice as many miles as I did in the whole month of January last year!

Lard-ass logging

Yesterday, the Sloth and I circumnavigated the Capital Area Greenbelt on our bicycles.

We stopped around the halfway mark to brew up some coffee. Sloth had a new coffee filter he wanted to try out, and I had a new stove that I wanted to play with.

Coffee Break

I had an entire pannier’s worth of coffee brewing accouterments. Stove, fuel bottle, extra water, pot, french press, etc. It all adds up to a lot of pannier space, but was well worth it.

Due to some miscalculations while lighting the stove, I ended up with a small fuel spill, and a gigantic ball of flame. This seemed to amuse / horrify the joggers and dog-walkers who were passing by.

Nonetheless, we had our coffee, and it was good. Personally, I think coffee / tea breaks should be mandatory on any ride over 15 miles when it’s less than 50 degrees out. Anything less would be uncivilized.

Bikes!

Fortified with caffeine, we soldiered on through the gigantic traffic disaster of the Farm Show. We made a few wrong turns (the signage on the Greenbelt is a little spotty), and ended up with about 21 miles — my longest ride for the week/month/year!

The new year appears to be off to a good start, and ambitious plans for a multi-day tour are already underway.

Posted in Cycling, Lard-assitude, Ride Reports, Weekly Summaries | 1 Comment

First Commute of 2012

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Bone

Today was my first day back to work after the winter holidays. It was my first bicycle commute in many months, and the first one ever for my Cross Check.

First Commute!

Temperatures were in the mid 20′s both ways, and it was snowing. No fewer than three of my coworkers made comments about my mental health.

Huzzah!

Posted in Cycling | 2 Comments

Year in review, Resolutions, etc.

Posted on December 29, 2011 by Bone

So, this year is pretty much shot. Around this time last year, I made some New Year’s Resolutions. Let’s see how I did.

Resolution Outcome
Lose 52 pounds Fail! Lost 20 pounds
Ride 1820 miles Fail! Rode 742 miles
Ride the big hill without walking Success!
Fit into my MUSA pants Success!
Ride a metric century Fail! Never even tried

One other accomplishment – I didn’t list this as a resolution, but I did manage to finish my degree program at Penn State this year.

Graduation

Being a grown-up with a job, mortgage, etc. and going to night school is a good way to loose your mind. It eats up all your free time, and leaves you with very little time to pursue other goals.

I’m going to blame part of my resolution failure on that damn degree. I was actually doing pretty well with my bike / fitness goals up until school started in August.

Lard Ass Log

I was losing weight at a lovely clip until August, then everything went to shit, and I gained back half of the 40 pounds I lost.

2011 Dailymile stats

My cycling mileage numbers were starting to get respectable (for me, at least) until August, as well.

At any rate, I won’t have school to use as an excuse this year, so here’s what I’m gonna try to do in 2012:

Lose another 70 pounds
The primal/paleo thing seemed to work for me, as long as I stuck to it. I lost 40 pounds in 7 months on it — an average of about 6 pounds a month. If I can maintain 6 pounds a month through the whole year, I should be down 72 pounds for the year. That would be huge. I know bicycling was a hell of a lot more fun when I was lighter.

Ride 1000 miles
There’s really no reason this shouldn’t be doable. I’ve done more than this in years past. I’d only have to ride my bike to work 100 times to meet this, and that’s not even counting recreational rides on the weekends, etc.

Metric Century
Leftover goal from last year. I’m even setting a date, so I don’t put it off and think I’ll “get to it sometime.” September 29th, 2012. This is happening, come hell or high water.

I think those are goals enough. I have more, but I’ll probably have enough trouble meeting these.

So, if anyone out there still reads this blog, happy new year! I hope you have good luck with whatever you want to accomplish in 2012.

Posted in Cycling, Lard-assitude | 5 Comments

Now, I’m ready.

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Bone

Cross Check Marathon Winters

Bars are wrapped. 700×42 Marathon Winter tires are mounted. MKS touring pedals for maximum shoe versatility.

Posted in Cycling | Leave a comment