Spooky RP ride

1830, Wednesday night, Halloween nite, PyZahl meet with K & C at the north east RP parking lot for a nite ride. The three fearless riders headed into the dark woods of RP/RCA areal and merged onto the winding trail -- into the deep dark forest. Little confusion at the intersection of the first black diamond section, looked so different in the dark, but they figured it out right and from them PyZahl led the group all the way and lighted up the trail with his dual TripeFire (TF) LED Light setup -- at max it out put 12 Watts bright LED light each:

Just a bit about Py's LED lights:

One Triple LED (4W max ea) light with 12/12/30 Degree Optics on the handlebar for fast far vision and the second TF with 30/12/30 Degree Optics on the helmet for perfect trail illumination... A total of 24W LED light, about 6x 80..90lm -- have to say Py's TF was designed and build in 2004 by himself and CF, so LEDs are a few generations old -- with today most state of the art LEDs you could get up to 100 lm/W -- that would be 2400 lm at 24W -- hard to imagine, need to see some time!!
However, even so, it is still more and better than most on the market, also his feather light LiPoly Battery, which lasts for over 4 1/2 hours at full power -- much longer if the light is just turned down a bit, he can adjust it continuously from off to 100%.

Just little into the ride we saw a light of some rider in the woods, not sure if ahead or behind. He seamed to hammer and joined us for the ride, as he missed buddies today, and was happy to hang on -- so four rider kept going. We moved good and at comfortable safe pace for Py. It was just a great warm Halloween nite -- and a little spooky also, as there was a bat(man) flying along... and crossing Py's light beams. Little later, a drink stop, and warm enough to take off one layer.

Flying over the Rocky Pt Trail @ nite really rocks!!!!! Not to mention flying at full warp scary speed through the two fast narrow tunnel like sections with lights -- Py was leading, it must look and feel even greater sitting at the end of the "MTB pace line"...

Passing the main parking lot the fourth rider left them and the three dived into the West Side.

Here PyZ is looking and pointing his helmet light on his buddies, K just fixed some minor technical trouble.... (no speedlight used!)


Here the speed light of the camera was enabled in addition:


C's new light turned into emergency mode, as the battery was not fully charged... so he got in the middle position to get light from the other two... Worked out pretty good, as we kept going still at a good pace, little more care full going. They finished the whole thing with a moving time of 1h47.

What a ride :-) and a perfect last time in there for the season, as this trail is closed from November for bikes.

Planning for the BIG RIDE 2007

Last years BIG RIDE was a big success and full two day of fun with one big pasta party in between, read here, almost one year ago by now:

http://pyzahl.blogspot.com/2006/11/big-ride-x-long-island-by-mtb-in-two.html

Please go here if interested, Topic "Big Ride 2007":
http://groups.google.com/group/usual-suspects-cycling-crew

We can do it again! We need you to make it fun!

Last Early Birds Flight of the Season

This Sunday PyZahl made it to the last Early Birds flight of the season. The sun was still below the horizon and the moon was up high positioned in a great clear sky.

It was fairly comfortable temperature for that early morning hour, but the wind chill was significant. Expecting wind gusts up to 30mph soon...


More showing up, that's good, more legs to push the air away...


Some birds seam to have a turbo charged photon warp drive enabled bike -- if this is UCI conform...???


And really colorful bird...


Ready to fly...


The flight started out at warp speed of about 40km/h on the North Route and a reassembly slow down -- they were surprisingly nice today -- took place at Edwards, as some riders must have got dropped at the first miles already. From then on comfortable moving in a small head group with heavy cross winds form left (NW) and bad head wind on Doctors. Moving east on Sound was much better again and was like flying -- only on big branch came in PyZahls path at good moving speed and had to be cleared by hopping it as there was no chance to get around, worked just find, wheels were barely touching it :-) The usual sprint at the tanks separated the group again and a second group assembled soon and they reached the Cutchogue Deli for a hot Coffee :-)


On the way back the head wind component was strong, the last days rain storm must have washed some debris on the road and a rider got a flat -- they did not had a flat stop in a long while at all!


And all together fly back home.

PS: Read the nleg blog for complimentary ride details.

Annual Camp HF MTB ride

At noon a group of bikers gathered at the gazzeeboo for the annual HF ride in on sandy double track in the back woods of the Camp:


They started out and a good moving pack of six riders formed the head and nicely stayed together, a quick and fast ride. There was a new face PyZahl did not know yet with some "campuscycle" on a blueish shirt. Nothing special, just a good ride.

5k Race at the Camp - Health Fest 2007

2007 annual 5k Camp health fest run was rescheduled for today. Still not the greatest day, but alright. PyZahl attached his number to his Asymptotes jersey, put a warm Fleece on and went to the start to check out what's up and some little warm-up. Terry was already jogging around, but nobody else but the staff setting up the big timer... Little chilly. Twenty minutes to start. Scouting it all out and getting the engine little running and warm... Campers slowly gathering at the starting area and moving around in a brownian motion way. PyZahl found a good place on a branch to put his jacket and water bottle. All seamed like routine, but his first Camp 5k, the second timed 5k over all. Finding a bathroom in a long building close to the start was not as easy as suggested.

The Course

12:02, a few minutes to start, the crowd moved to the start little down the road. Ready and Troeoeoet -- the pack stared out. PyZahl tried to keep his speed little above 15km/h by using his GPS, but limiting his HR below 185 or so -- well, in theory. If he would have had set that damn thing to "data every second" and "no auto pause" and would have had adjusted the damn HR belt better to stay in place... all hi tec was a bit fu**** up -- so what, there was a little number of runners ahead at good pace, but they seam to drop back soon and he had to take care not getting stuck behind one slowing down, but keeping up his pace, he felt good and easy going, regardless some fluctuating useless GPS speed numbers around 13...20km/h -- very precise BS. At about km two there was only Terry far ahead and two more in between Terry and PyZahl, he getting little closer to those ahead. He started out to slow it seamed and was going pretty easy, to easy. HR numbers were useless fluctuating, and fiddling with that belt was not so efficient for running either...

Somewhere at km three at the loop at the Science Museum, a wide gap behind him, no one, and a decent gap in front, that's bad, nothing to hang on, there the route folded back into itself and he run into the upcoming riders (Uoops, runners), he was not sure when to pick up speed, he had no good clue about his HR but felt alright, not even burning legs, nothing, all good. With one km to go he decided to go for it and picked up little speed, came closer, but the finial sprint was not sufficient to catch Nº3 within a second or so...

Something was odd, where was the big clock, but no time. It gave up due to some rain, how funny. But luckily, they had a backup stop watch. Seams all hi-tec wasn't working proper today. But the runners were working OK. Most important. Not knowing any time for a while... 19:42 seamed to be the number later.

At the finish, the drizzle got little more intense, the later the wetter they got.... Here Randy, good job!


Little more hanging out with colleagues in the still intensifying drizzle... well, it is getting cold, it is getting wet, he picked up his T and wend back to his office, looking for a warm shower. Not really sweating at all, weired, just to chilly to sweat. He should have or could have run faster today. So what. Let's try out that all new shower in that all new Nano Camp home. He wanted a hot shower............. but all he got was cold water.............. for several minutes............... what dude did designed that house infrastructure????? He started showering fairly cold, slowly, very slowly, it really got warm. There must be miles of pipes to warm up.

10k Bluestone

Just for the training log: Today 10k Camp Lunchtime "Bluestone".

PyZahl just made it to the start at the Reactor, as he was in a meeting until last minute and got in extra "warm up" sprints in between buildings on the Camp -- how stupid -- and did not even found time to drink water before, but needed to run into a random building on the go to find a tap at a random men's room, used his hands as a cup, last minute before heading into the desert like woods... sprinting once more to catch up.... what a weired way to start a run...

Attendance: 4 runners

Weather: really warm for the season, quite windy

Pace: good moving

Distance & Time: just estimates -- may be over all 10..11km, time some thing from 12:05 .. 12:58 including water stops, sprints, etc, etc............

Purpose: Training Just4Fun & Healthfest 5k

Scary Night Ride

Missed miles and a with great mild day coming up PyZahl had to jump on the Tarmac and ride to work. But with our planet earth pointing more away from the sun he needed to rig up the bike for an eventual late night ride back home from his office at the Camp.

Unfortunately he has to leave his great bike friendly office and environment in 555 ......... and move into the all shiny new building -- great, but some down grade, nicer, yes, but smaller and still all kind of cold and anonymous atmosphere (THIS HAS TO (BE) CHANG(ED)). Not even a place, hook or anything alike to hang a coat or jersey, a bathroom, well, yes, but less nice and bright and a mile away -- he still wonders what bright dude did that design. Funnily, the new Center of the Camp is called "Functional...", but the building, for sure, is far from that.

(sorry about that crude stitch)

So the day went along sorting things, packing things and getting some other things done. Time flew along at the sun was already setting as he left the Camp on the usual Cross course.

Is was so nice and comfortable as the was dusk setting in, he added an extra hilly loop and stopped by at the Reactor (well, view at it) what never came online at WRB.


Riding back home on NC in total darkness on a fresh paved absolutely black and non reflective road with still almost brand new shiny white road marking looked kind of scary cool (no photo, to scary for the camera) in the bright bluish white LED light of his 12Watts Stonebite TripleFire prototype (yes, prototype, he designed the Light with his buddy CF in Switzerland a few years ago), Stop and other signs refecting and looking brighter than ever, even behind trees.

It got really scary back in Rocky Point.......

The nite ride machine.