The Misfits at Allaire (by Utah)

So I have been hearing about the awful sand, flat and boring conditions at Allaire for 3 years now.  Frank has been trying to convince me to never ride there as it is indeed not worth the drive.  Well despite the negative reviews I figured I would hit up the Misfits ride and see for myself.  Misfits ride as in a ride for owners of misfit bikes.  Matty B originally organized this ride for all misfit owners as they are apparently some sort of hells angel gang of bikers who wear tights rather than leather.  However, the ride was in fact an all-inclusive and I was not harassed for riding my conformist cannondale.

After meeting up with Luke and Eileen, we made our way down.  Arriving in the parking lot, I was surprised to see it completely jam packed with riders.  I would name names, but there were far too many to list.  The misfit drivers soon came together for a picture

Soon followed by the rest of us….Mitch took the picture, but sadly could not join us on the ride.

So after some social this and that we finally hit the trails with Matty, Frank and Chris G leading the way.  Within a few minutes the train was moving at high speed and we were having an absolute blast.  Cant understand why Frank dislikes this place so much J.  It’s a really nice change of pace from the rocky and technical trails that surround my hood.  I can’t remember when I have been on a group ride this large and seen it move so quickly.  Got to do some quality chit chat with lance, walt, spence, lou and even some james pearl commentary!

Train was crazy long

Our locomotive

James Pearl must be in cross season

Eventually we made our way over to this thing…Luke kept us there for 10 minutes until he cleaned it

Nail it Wookie!

The pines

In total we racked up about 15miles in an hour and forty minutes of moving time which was dam good considering the size of the group.  Cant believe I waited this long to hit this place up, its an absolute blast.  I only wish it was closer to my house.  Great times and a great tour…Thanks to Matty and Frank for the guidance.

After the ride, about 15 went for some post ride refueling..good times!!!

A Time of Thanks (by Pooriggy)

I love this time of year, bike races are winding down, the weather is still good for getting out and it’s the kick off of the holiday season…which means less work and more time to bike and spend with family. Mountain biking is now more about going out on an adventure and less about training for the next race.

This was a different Thanksgiving for me this year. Instead of going to the in-laws for the usual turkey dinner I spent the day at the hospital. My dad had esophagus cancer 4 yrs ago and due to complications from the operation to remove the cancer his lungs are in poor condition. Thursday it got to a point that he had to go to the hospital so he could be put on a respirator. In the past 4yrs I have become somewhat numb to events like these, I mean I hope for the best but am ready for whatever comes at me. These days I try to focus on being there for my mom, she needs the support.

My support for dealing with things like this is getting out on my bike with friends. As we all know getting out on the bike can turn one’s mood around and help us to make the best out of any situation. The day after Thanksgiving I spent the morning mountain biking with Utah and Falco at Ringwood State Park. No matter what crap goes on in our life cycling seems to make everything feel better. I am grateful to have my health and buddies to share a ride at one of my favorite parks in NJ.

We met at Ryerson School and rolled out at 7:45 as other cars began to filter into the parking lot for post Thanksgiving rides. Despite the frosty grass and cool temp’s it didn’t take long for the climb up warm-puppy to warm us up. With Falco up front we got into a nice rhythm as we headed out toward Shepard’s lake on Skylands trail. Our 29” wheels flowed over rocks (with an occasional dab) that seemed to be created by the geological process. Its hard to believe these trails where built by Jorba, they feel so natural.

Bombing down a fire road Falco ripped his sidewall and got a hole in his back tire. Yes the boy works at a bike shop and was too lazy to set up his tire tubeless. No worries he uses a Gu pack as a boot on the sidewall and has a spare tube, oops wait he has a hole in his spare. Utah pulls out his spare tube from his bag of tricks and discovers that his has a hole as well. This reminds me of HS days of carrying condoms around in my wallet that break before they ever see any use. I pulled out my condom and gave it to Falco, no hole…good to go.

After the Shepard’s lake area I have no idea where I am, but I do know we are heading toward the old boy scout area on some of the most technical trails of Ringwood. By the amount of fresh leaves on the ground you can see that this is the path less traveled. The rocks are now more randomly placed and menacing. At one point my hand slips off my handlebars while going down a rock and I start heading over the bars only to be saved by my stomach hitting the bars. I think it may have been better if I went over, ouch!

The old BSA area brings back some fuzzy memories for me; I camped here in the late 70’s as a scout. It’s tough for me to recall this area on a bike; if I had more time I’d hike around here to jar my memory. I’ll settle for a picture instead.

The ride back to the school from this area is incredible. Some sections are crazy rocky, some are floweee rocky and some offer great views. This section beat me up some more and I started to get sloppy as my body began to get tired on the uphill technical stuff. After descending the downhill rocky switchbacks we came upon a stream crossing that Falco picked the perfect line across. Utah aimed for that line but slid off a rock and his front tire sank into 3 feet of water. This is never a good thing; he did his best to stay dry but ended up doing the backstroke in the current. Which I must say the stream crossings where certainly at high tide this time of year. Luckily we didn’t have far to peddle to make it back to the cars.

Rolling back to the school in less then 2.5hrs we managed to cover about 14 miles. My Garmin 500 is never 100% accurate in the woods. This ride was exactly what I needed to deal with stuff that life throws at you. From time to time everyone has unpleasant things to deal with but we can all be thankful for our family, friends and the opportunity to get out on a bike and enjoy ourselves. Keep on bikin!

Special Delivery: MTBNJ Socks

It was dark when we started. It's an interesting time of year, in that riding at 6:00 isn't an exercise in cold-pain management, but at the same time, the sun isn't remotely close to waking up. In fact, it's not even thinking about the snooze button yet. It's just plain dark out. Witness, too dark to even focus:


We hit the road at 6:23, lights fully blazing. The cast of characters for this one was Chris RU, Kirt, Utah, and myself (Norm). Iggy wants to see a picture of the author for every post, but at this point, the last thing the world needs is more pictures of my ugly mug (at least this early in the morning). Young Rob was close to joining, but he had to work at the shop at 10:00, and it wasn't likely we'd be back in time to allow him to swing that.

We set sail with a mission in mind: get the socks to Fred. The aim was to get one of the few remaining pairs of MTBNJ L/XL socks to Fred so he can deliver them to a special, yet-to-be-named, guest. I had mailed out a top secret letter the day before to go with the sock delivery. If all goes well there will be more news on that front in the future. For now, let's just hope this bike ride will be the beginning of good things to come.

But hey, at worst it was a good bike ride with some good friends. Here we regroup at a traffic light on route 22, the sun having just come up not too long ago. From left to right, Kirt, Utah, and Chris:


You may recognize these guys from...well, pretty much everywhere. To the far right is scorekeeper extraordinaire, Chris RU. You know the short track results that are emailed to you within 1 hour (truth!) of the race being over? That's him. For 2012 I've promised him a monkey with the ability to type 90 words per minute, so you can expect those results to hit the airwaves in less than 4 minutes, 15 minute protest period be damned.

Anyway, on we continued to Fred's house, where he was letting his dog Nacho get some business done before he tried to drool all of us into submission. Fred was getting himself and his bikes ready for the first of his back-to-back cross races down at Granogue this weekend. No comments on the Beastie Boys stache he's got going on:


So I delivered the socks, we had a quick chat in his kitchen, then we were off to tackle the informal Zion Road Time Trial hill climb. We stood around just enough to cool down, so when we hit the road again we were all pretty much freezing. In a few minutes it was business as usual and before long we hit the base of Zion Road, far too deep into the ride to post any meaningful results.

In the end, only Utah and I took a shot at it. He led most of the way up the hill, but towards the top I jumped around him and did my best to make the top 5 of the overall. Alas, due to my proficiency at eating ice cream, I failed in that quest. I rang in a bit of a disappointing 9:52 which puts me in 8th place.

Here's the end of the run, a picture taken with Robin from another day. As much fun as it would have been to ride with her she wasn't around for today's festivities:


From there it was an about face, cruise back down the hill, then a route home which was exactly the way we had come - a true out and back. Normally I'd try to make a loop out of it, but with time constraints we needed to be as efficient as possible. The day was warming up on the return, but it continued to be a breezy one. The wind hurt more on the the front half, and going home we had the pleasure of picking up some tailwind. But as anyone who rides the road knows, the wind is against you something like 80% of the time. So it was on this day.


We rolled in just a shade over 3 hours, which was more than enough for me. Just like cross season last year, my ability to ride much more than about 90 minutes at a time disappears. In addition to the day being a special sock delivery, I wanted to help remember that big base I built way back in January when I was riding overseas for 6 weeks while everyone here was snowed in. Not sure that 1 day is going to do it. But of course, 1 is a bit more than 0.

When we got back, my daughter Julia ran out and greeted us with smiles. It was a good day, and it was nice to see her so excited to come out and say good morning. She's in this goofy stage now where she can't smile normally when a camera comes out, so this was purely for the moment. Notice the clasped hands and left foot slightly twisting off the ground. Where do kids get this stuff?


In all, a good day, sock delivery or not. I enjoy fall riding, be it mountain biking in the wet fallen leaves, cross races in the mud, or plain old road riding. No matter which way you slice it, this ends up being a great time of year to be out on your bike. Yes, it can be a bit chilly in the morning. But I love the crisp air and the changing season. Do yourself a favor and get out there while it's still nice out.

-Norm