Burning Bike Festival

The first ever Burning Bike Festival was held at Ontario County Park this past weekend. OCP has come along ways, it was once just a stopover as the Finger Lakes Trail ran thru it. Now it's being fully utilized and many new (and awesome) trails have been put in, and are in great shape and ready to ride.

I skipped out on the Friday night festivities as it was pouring out and I had no desire to camp in the rain. I got everything together Saturday am and headed over to the park. While a few were out riding, I managed to get a ride in on the singlespeed (with my new Black Ops Carbon Fork!) with Evil Steve and Andy August. After a few loops they dropped off and I decided to put the SS to the test and descend down off the hill and over to Cutler to climb some hills and do some more descending. The fork and the bike ride great and it's a fun play bike.

After the ride it was chow-time and then over to camp. Original plans were for a night ride, but the heavy rains and beer consumption kept that at bay.

The Burning Bike

Evil Steve's Glow Bike

mmmm...tasty

Schwarty having a Yee-haw contest

Schwarty moments later

It poured all night so Sunday was a crapshoot, but after a good hearty breakfast, and some consumption of non-alchoholic beverages, Casey, Jer-Bear and I headed out for a ride. We did a good loop around OCP on the slick trails, then decided to explore a trail we had never ridden. A top secret descent off the park. It was a great descent with a good mix of tech, super steep, super fast and fun. After that we headed over to Cutler and did a quick loop on the orange trail. It was a good day, a bit humid and windy, but much nicer than the prior day's tremendous rainstorms.

This week will be some short rides, wait for the cross bike and prep for the Whiteface Race and Roots, Rocks and Ridges race. My final weekend of XC racing!

back to laying on the couch.....

Car trumps bike...everytime

For the first time ever, I was hit by a car on my bike. Luckily nothing major, no bike problems, no injuries and nothing really to report other than a little soreness of my right knuckles.



This past Saturday, weather was decent (mid 30's and windy) and it was time to get out for a nice long ride. I headed out of town via my usual route of down Main St and then head South via 444. It has some nice gradual climbs that are perfect for getting warmed up on. I was in the left hand turning lane behind the 3rd vehicle. I made sure to sit far enough out that the driver could see me via her side mirror and rearview mirror. I could hardly be missed as I was wearing a bright yellow jacket. As the driver rounded the turn I stayed about 10 yards back in the same position, just off the right quarter panel of the minivan. I was accelerating standing up at an even pace with the vehicle. The driver slammed on her brakes and makes a quick right hand turn into the very first driveway on the right. Well as I'm on the right hand side of the road and had just finished accelerating, that puts me in a little bit of a bind! I had my hands on the hoods and was just staring at a big ol side of a vehicle in my path. I slid back on the seat, squeezed the brakes turned to the right a little bit, and BAM! smacked right into the rear quarter panel with my left hand. Luckily, I didn't even go down! No pavement action for me. I had shielded the front wheel perfectly and absorbed the impact with my right hand and a little bit of the right shoulder. I had vision of a tire crushing me and my bike, but never went down like that.



After some calm exchanges of words and apologies, the driver admitted she had seen me and it was her fault. No damage done to either party and we parted ways. I continued on my ride and managed to get some good mileage in for the day (~ a little over 4 hours or so) before I the wind took over and I had to take shelter inside.



After that I was a little more cautious than usual in giving vehicles space...



Saturday night was a blowout at Mark and Suzanne's. I had a short lived but good time...(note to self, don't eat so many damn brownies!). There was some good chatter about doing a double highlander, which amounts to about 200 miles and 22,000ft of climbing! We'll see how that one shakes out..



Sunday was recovery from the party, the crash and the end of a recovery week for myself.



Hopefully this week is the last of the deep freeze and can get out to the Giro's and some xtra time!