A weekend where my life was like a commerical for living a good life.

Yeah spring is here. We are all riding SOOO much and we are SOOO fit and have tans and leg veins and all that. 19.5 hours, 305 miles and 958 TSS last week. This is while working 50+ hours too. (seriously)

Friday night, the lady and I went and took in some culture. John K Samson played a show at a yuppie music venue. When I was like 15 I was into the punk band that he was in at the time, Propaghandi (saw in the 90's in philly). Then as I got over that whole thing and he was in a whiny band called The Weakerthans. I remember seeing them play at a DIY venue in Pittsburgh, and it was one of the best performances I think that I have seen. Anyway, much like his fan base (me) he is older, not as cute as he once was, and a little less edgy. He played well and it was memorable.



"I swear I way more than half believe it when I say that somewhere love and justice shine. Cynicism falls asleep. Tyranny talks to itself. Sappy slogans all come true. We forget to feed our fear."



Saturday was a classic ride out to West Virginia. It is amazing how close West Virginia is to home. My brother was out of town, so I was showing his clients some fancy houses in his bmw. The honda fit is honestly a better driving car.




I took my dudes out for ice cream. The stupid ice cream store on Main Street was closed. I had this surprise all planned and they were closed! I have some cash to my name now that I have a job, and it is really hard not to spoil these dudes.

Bike Riding Stories.

As we rode up the hill, me and Babik:
"Man Colin is going to think that this was one of the 5 minute efforts." (colin is his coach)
"Funny I was just thinking to myself that I have never gone this slow up this hill."


As we came upon some old dude on a DOPE retro steel bike the other day...
me: "man that is nice.."
old dude: "I know... you want to buy it?"
me: "oh man my wife would kill me"
old dude:"HA I wouldnt sell it for thousands more than I paid..."

Old dude keeps going back through our group

Brody: "man that is nice"
old dude: "i love it when people lust after my bikes"

At this point I ramped it up to 30mph to drop him cause I did not want to be around him any more. What the hell is wrong with people?

Bicycling to/from the Pittsburgh International Airport. (PIA)

I want this information to be out there, because it is new. I remember in 2003 when Amy and I rode around Europe for 9 weeks, we flew in and out of Amsterdam simply because we knew that we would have no problems riding to/from the airport.

We used to ride a road referred to simply as "the secret airport road". This was a road that was clearly marked "do not enter" and "private property faa training facility"... but we would poach it for 3 miles or so. We once thought that we were going to prison when an SUV sped up to us, but he simply waved and passed.

A few weeks ago I was picking up Eddy from the airport and was stunned that there was a "bicycle crossing" that lead from the woods to the terminal. Then I read on the internet that a local rail trail (the montour trail) had made a spur connector to the Pittsburgh International Airport. I read a cynical line about how if Pittsburgh's transit cuts go into effect, it may be the only city in the world that you can ride a bike to, but not take public transport!

So yesterday we were out riding and decided to find our way to the terminal. It was a mix of old airstrips and service roads, but sure enough we pedaled right to the terminal. Sweet. I honestly think that this will be a big thing for bicycle tourists who want to ride the trail from Pittsburgh to Washington DC and fly out of both.

For some it might be a bad thing that the rail trail does not fully connect to Downtown and
the DC trail (YET!) however it will, and the ride into the city from this direction is not so bad.
Garmin link to map




SKYMALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Google Tags so people like me can find this.
Montour trail airport connector . Bicycling to PIA . Bicycling to airport Pittsburgh . Riding to Pittsburgh airport. Montour trail airport .

Seriously one of my life's biggest regrets at this point..

In 1992 Bad Religion were touring with this band Green Day. They were scheduled to play a small club in Pittsburgh called "graffiti." It maybe held 500 people? I remember not doing much in terms of school and planning on being grounded when the show was to happen. My brother bought a ticket, and I did not... Thinking that I was saving 12 dollars. Anyway I dont think that I ever showed my parents my report card that year and did not get grounded. Dang.

new blog post

I follow a bunch of fake pro guys on the internet. All that they post about is how much they ride. It annoys me for some reason. I think its because I am working and not riding.

Anyway. Riding is fun. Yesterday we did a great ride. People's fitness is all over the place.
5000 feet of climbing in Pittsburgh is pretty tough, cause it is all burg's that are 400 - 500 feet at a time.
Distance: 60.62 mi
Time: 3:42:47
Avg Speed: 16.3 mph
Elevation Gain: 5,131 ft

The ride that crushed Babik's soul.

I created a Tumblr dedicated to how amazing Danny Chew is

iLoveDannyChew

I spoke with Danny yesterday. I love the energy that he brings. After talking to him I get the same feelings that I get when I hang out with my little Somali buddies. They are so wide eyed and happy. Danny is too. The speech he gave the other night after bicycle dreams was awesome. An old friend who happened to be at the movie, but does not know Danny said that it was "the best lecture he had ever been to." Danny Rulz.

36.5 mile hike with 7200 feet of climbing

So the last few years, while not riding my bike, I went for a few hikes. They have been fun. This year I wanted to do another. I think that with cycling, it is pretty hard to get in over my head anymore. I would have to do a 24 solo I think to get the feelings that riding a double century used to get me. Who knows. So I wanted to d0o something fun and get in a bit over my head. Mission accomplished.



The Rachel Carson Trail is a long hiking trail that skirts around pittsburgh. It is pretty brutal, traverses tons of power lines, and climbs 7200 feet over 37 miles. Sounded pretty ideal. Many were supposed to start, however it ended up just being me and super endurance athlete jared babik.

Summary: Started in the dark. Finished in the dark. Walked a freaking ton. I should have trained more (I trained by doing yoga 4 times and walking 1.5 miles to work 1 time).


Garmin File. Temp is wrong, it was in my pocket.

Healthy.


Water crossings in the dark. We had to take our boots off twice in the first 5 miles.



We made a few bridges. The water was usually just deep enough that it would suck to walk through in 31 degree temps. Glad I brought ski poles or whatever.


Powerline climb.



This was a 500 foot climb. If you look closely on the left above the low trees you can see a dot of blue, that is a guy on a dirt bike.


The actual Rachel Carson Homestead in Springdale PA.




The only time I remember New Kensington looking nice.

One of those things you will watch and be like "wtf?"

An Agreeable Sound: Steevo from Matt Dayak on Vimeo.

I guess this is what people do when they have tons of energy and dont race bikes.

On racing Nationals and Worlds.

Obligatory "cycling season is officially over" post. People act like it is a job or something.

Nationals: So I have not raced a national championship since I was 13. It was in Louisville KY on a BMX bike and the results were lackluster. Mr Brett, Amy my wife, and I rolled up to Wisconsin for my first cyclocross nationals. It was Amy's first real cross experience. Up until this point she had only officiated local races.

30-34 National Champs. 2nd row start. 3rd wheel for a distance. First technical turn I dismount to run as a lot of others are doing. I fall flat on my face.
Cycling Dirt Video at 20 seconds in or whatever I just totally slip. Whoops.
The rest of the day was spent getting dropped back to 12th. Rough day.

Elite Nationals. Start too hard as usual. Blow up a bit, work my way back. I started feeling a bit better but got pulled. 43rd. Not really too much else to say about it other than it was a great experience and I wish I was able to race into it.

30-34 WORLDS. Ha. UCI says that anybody with UCI points cant do age group worlds. I am generally the 2nd or 3rd person after the UCI points run out at MAC races, so I figured that I could have a shot at doing well. Again, I wish that I could have raced more leading up to it. Random draw start = me last. Warming up an hour before the race, I crashed and bent my hanger and tweaked my finger. I sucked in the start and struggled to get up to the leaders. I burnt a few matches to do so and they were attacking each other. I went back and forth with some guys. It was all frozen ice ruts, so half of the race was just about not crashing. That was hard. Ended up 5th. In my heart I know that I could have done better, but oh well.


This is all ice. It was post holes. I was worried I would break my ankles running up it.

Dec 31, jan 1

Pittsburgh is amazing.