About the flying Birds and Pumpkins

Sunday Morning, PyZahl still had all the clocks on sommer setting, but that in mind one hour more to get to the birds launch at 730. Some little storm was going on... They flew out to Cutshogue in no time.
But then there was the return, gusts were blowing riders almost off there bikes, but thanks to a secret alternate route home all the birds made it back.







Later the day PyZahl went to a Pumpkin-Carving party, here is the result.

Off the trail

PyZahl went out for a fun Wednesday night ride at CP. 5 riders showed up...
He tried out his new Stonebite Triplefire with helmet mount and Camelback monted light control the first time under real riding conditions at the tight and winding trail in the woods of CP. It was a 100% success. The trail riding was almost as good as at day time, using a dual TF setup, one on the handlebar with narrow beam (12-12-35 degree beam) and a wider beam on the helmet for perfect near vision (12-35-35) and the ride turned into a night flight . The little extra weight on top of the helmet from the stripped down TF with external control was to PyZahl's surprise no issue at all, he did not even felt it at any time. He used a buff under the helmet, because it was cold, this also helped to hold the helmet in place and worked out perfect. Could not have been better.

And as usual, PyZahl is taking the picture and hides himself -- only the bike mounted TF showes it's light beam at the far left , a little outwards.

So we all were flying along the trail, got separated at times, some fun... and managed in a way to go wrong way and a little off the main loop and did some extra riding. Hell of fun.

Monday is National Autumn Century Day

Review of Monday's ride.

Here is the long awaited photo & GPS report for the "NACD" we did this Monday in CT. Meeting was at the 8am Orient Point Ferry and start and end at the Ferry Dock in New London.















GPS Log:

20061023-NationalAutuumCenturyDay-CT
	Here is the real route and GPS track log of todays National Autuum Century day -- well, a little more than a 100mi, but see yourself and chack out the cool Track-to-GoogleEarth feature and all the other links and data tables :-) Check this out! You can view this activity online at MotionBased. The Map Player is especially cool because a 'Dot' simulates the movement on a map.

ride your bike, sand, mud, logs, slippery wood

Saturday early morning, PyZahl dose not know what it was, fond himself biking at 8am starting at Pleasure Drive into the woods with a few more early birds. Sand, sand everywhere nothing but sand, pine needels and a few -- no big deal -- muddy water holes, he managed to dip the left shoe into one of those and got a soked sock -- nothing really was there to stop him from moving -- no technical challenge at all, but wait, there was one issue PyZahl was fighting with, yes, yes the jungle, bushes and trees and branches were blocking the vision, hitting the helmet and making it hard to find both, good traction and cleance to go the right way. He missed the last log on the only one of the climbs which was a little steeper, but there is an good excuse, his worn rear tire, it just spun without any tracktion, but so what, the weather was great, the few views on lakes magnificant for the island :-)

BNL MTB ride -- or was it a race?

Even later...

PyZahl did not wrote a line on Friday and was too busy cleaning and maintaining bikes on Saturday, a full drive train maintenence and dissassembly was due for the road and mountain bike after several km passed by as dirt and road grime accumulated.

However, on Friday, the 13th the BNL HF MTB ride was held at noon. All sorts of BNLers and bikes were there, as the crowd took off for some dirt and fire roads the fun began and a head group took of in a fast pace and we had lot's of fun :-)

Beeing back some of us decided to do an partial extra loop for cool down...

Good ride. Work proceeded as normal.

NYC MS 100mi ride

Better a late blog than none :-)

just a few notes about the MS NYC ride 2006 on Sunday, October 15th. As promised I did the 100mi loop -- thanks once more to all who supported me in fund raising for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society New York City Chapter - 2006 MS Bike Tour -- here is my fund raising site again, fund raising is still open!

The team "Asymptotes" from BNL -- you will see more and more of our team jerserys soon -- gathered in NYC at Pier 94 around 6:30 for dropping off the start envelope, this was a big mess and took forever... -- to be improoved -- finally around 7:45 a huge number (?????) of rides were filling up the start and very very slowly it started moving...



I still have no good idea how many bikers were around there... I guess Manhattan was soon fully surrounded by riders until the long distance riders left via the Lincoln Tunnel. 4 of us did the 100mi, Art and myself rode it together. The route along the Palisades was just awesome and some good views. See link to some more photos below.

We retuned via the George Washington Bridge to Manhattan.

This is my ride log,
the route, my GPS track on MotionBased.




And here are some more photos, click it:

Sunday Early Birds

Nothing in particular about cycling, just the sunday early birds, north route.



Freezing cold the first 1/2 hour, one flat
just around the "2nd major corner"
...

But just a littler later into the ride it was a great picture pefect and comfortable day out there.



At the Deli stop...

Not a fixed gear but a fixed focal length

What a day today, little refreshing wind, but who cares about wind riding RP? Clean and clear air, picture perfect. PyZahl grabbed his big Camera and decided to go back to the roots and take a powerful but fixed 50mm optics jumped on his Humvee like, fully suspended bike -- compared to the road toy -- and went for a decent fast ride all over RP, not missing a single black diamond today -- only slowed by a series of picture stops on the 38km loop.

Here the first photo stop on the first hill top

before the quick down the hill


What a pleasure for the camera, can any garden be better? A must stop here.


And these colored farns in the sun...


And some natural art work


Here is entrance to the really cool narrow speed tunnel


The main entrance, PyZahl never is using...


Here we have some of the abandoned radio towers of the former RCA areal, the trees got hold of them



PyZahls favorite rest stop some where in the middle of the park, no real rest today, just a photo


before heading back home, but not missing the very important refuel shop stop at Tilda's.

Last warm day before fall is comming?

PyZahl was putting in some km this morning to the laboratory on his favorite north country route adding the Wading River duck pond hill loop and fighting a warm and humid south wind on the following long flat section towards the north gate, but nice and warm so no need for leg warmers this morning. Passing through some dense foggy patches, the sun was barely visible, it all looked so nice and the trees all start to show great colors -- this is a beautifull season!
Passing the lab gate, nothing too special today in the lab. Still ongoing cyber crasyness -- no more words for that.

Time is flying by, it got time to hurry up for the last We night hill ride of the season an add more km and hm to the odometer, a good group showed up as usual, also Moveitfred.


Back home, usual chilldown and a need to fill up some Joules with pasta.

Heavy rain this morning

and so PyZahl did not got up early for the birds ride. Instead he was hacking html, php, js, css, did image processing and other bit and bytes manipulations to get the Stonebite Word Wide Web presens going. He did some photo shooting of the revolutionary Triplefire bike light he invented with Stonebite in 2005.


Not to mention some GXSM hacking as usual.

So this sunday went along without any miles and PyZahl figured he missed a whole weekend of fun as he did not participated the South Hamptons "Whitmore's Landscaping Super Cross Cup Long Island Cyclocross" event :-(