Tinney's Tavern Hill Climb

I'm a road racer!

Although I doubt I'm allowed to say that officially with hairy legs.  I'm sure there is a by-law somewhere that prevents that.  It just so happened that a little local hill climb race coincided with our visit to Saratoga for Halloween so Dustin and I decided to try our hand at hurting real bad for 20mins with a bunch of other people.

I didn't have high expectations seeing as I didn't know the climb and going full gas from the gun isn't really my forte.  But I figured I should be mid pack or a bit better depending on the crowd and how I felt.  They run this race twice a year, once in the late Spring / early Summer and again in the Fall.  I think there was a higher turnout in the Spring but we probably had about 20 people on the start line.  Looked like a solid mix of serious individuals along with some weekend warrior types.

There is a short neutral roll out and then once you hit the bridge its game on until you make it up to the Tavern / lake about 4.5mi later.  The grade is pretty reasonable early on and things started off pretty civil.  We were probably rolling along at just better than conversation pace for probably the first 1K or so.  Then 2-3 guys decided it was time to quit screwing around and things got painful.

Tinney's Tavern Hill Climb from Kevin Orlowski on Vimeo.

I tried to hop on the tail end of the move and was moderately successful.  I grabbed a wheel or two and was there or thereabouts to the sharp end of the race for maybe the next 1K or so.  Then I started getting this weird side stitch / cramp that I have never really gotten on the bike before.  I used to get them from time to time when I was running more training for my tri a few years ago but never on the bike.  No real idea why or where that came from but it ended up making things difficult for me.  I had a hard time getting a good lung full of air and getting out of the saddle and staying there was made difficult as well because it was hard to stretch out my right side.  That made it hard to stay on wheels as the pace was increased and they slowly started drifting away.

I was hanging tough with Dustin up until the headwall which required lots of out of the saddle work which wasn't really working for me so I did what I could and settled in.  Got passed late by a women whose kids were cheering for her at the top of the final big pitch.  That probably gave her a surge of motivation and she just spun away from me which in turn gave me a surge of demotivation and I let her go and putz'd into the finish for 10th at 22mins flat.

I'm sure I have a better ride than that in me but its a pretty punchy climb and I'm much more of a tempo guy. It was fun though and I would probably do it again.  Great way to measure your fitness early and late in the season, kinda wish they did something like that around here.  To top it off there was a great little mini buffet at the finish with pulled pork sliders, slaw, potato salad and fruit.  If you live in the Saratoga area and ride road bikes and you don't check this race out you are an idiot.

Forecast Schmorecast

Sometimes you just have to tell the weatherman to sod off (sorry British/Olympic fever).

We had had this trip to KT on the books for months but coming into the home stretch the forecast wasn't looking all that hot.  The trip unraveled a bit with some having to bail and others not willing to risk the weather.  I was a bit worried that we would indeed get washed out but I rolled the dice and went for it with Adam and Jake confirmed to ride out the storm with me.

Turns out the weatherfolks didn't have this one all that figured out at least for the Burke, VT area.  It did end up raining pretty hard Friday afternoon for about 10mins but other than that we were treated to a pretty decent weekend.  The rain stopped Friday by around 2 or so and we were able to get out riding by 3pm or so.  I actually really like riding in light rain or just after a rain.  It does a number on your gear but the added challenge of slick roots/rocks and corners makes riding real interesting and fun.

We ended up getting almost 13mi in before we called it that evening, ripping around the Darling Hill side getting loose in corners and having a blast.  I even took some video on Troll Stroll, a new one at KT and already one of my favorites.  I tried the helmet mount for the first time.  Don't really like it at all.  Makes my helmet bounce around quite a bit and the angle doesn't show much detail and really flattens trails out (even worse than usual) but it is easy to setup for quick shoots here and there.

Troll Stroll - Kingdom Trails VT from Kevin Orlowski on Vimeo.

I also tried to get some pics in order to make a photo sequence shot on Old Webbs.  But the shots I got didn't quite turn out how I wanted them to.  I underestimated the view I would get with the fisheye and I don't think the end result would have been worth the Photoshop work.  I'll probably try it again at some point though because its easy to attempt and maybe one of these times I'll get something I like.

Saturday was gorgeous.  Forecast was fairly wrong on that one.  We got a morning run on the Burke Mtn side and checked out Lower J-Bar.  Fun stuff but probably more fun on not my bike.  We snagged lunch back at the campsite and then did another afternoon ride over on the Darling Hill side getting some things we missed on Friday.  We decided to call it a bit early Saturday so we could head over and check out the Trout River brewery.  I highly recommend it, cool local operation; the beer is great and even the pizza is pretty good.

Mike showed up and we followed up beer and food with more beer and food back at the camp.  Good times were had.  Sunday we all decided that Lake Willoughby was the best way to spend our time so we shot up there to take a dip and admire those epic views.  We salvaged a pretty damn awesome trip from a less than promising forecast and it was pretty good prep for the NH100 to boot.  That's 3 straight weekends in VT with a serious amount of awesome.  Hashtag YOLO.

Post Powder

Winter continues its late push (although as I write this its doing a short 180 and pouring rain), PSU was closed Thurs due to a nice little storm that dumped probably an easy foot at the house, unfortunately a bit less up north in the Whites but I'll take it.

It was snowing hard just about all day Thurs and it was all the Echo could do just to get Gina to work let alone Cannon.  As it was I had to get out and push a bit while Gina drove to get over a little hill back by the house and then once we finally got to the shelter I decided I was going to volunteer for a half day so we only had to make the drive twice.  So I hung out with a bunch of dogs all day (whats up Maverick, Dillon, Sorbet, Clover, Sammi, Derby, Vanessa...).  With the impending thaw on the horizon I figured I had to put in for Friday off to try and at least get seconds and hope that there were a few lines people skipped Thurs.

Per usual skiing is always the right call.  Lucked out and bumped into Jim in the lodge and Joel and Craig second chair and we got to business as a foursome.  It reminded me very much of the last few years when days like this were the norm.  Every weekend just show up run into the regular crew and get straight to business, didn't matter where you went it was all good.  We aren't quite at that point even now in March, I still managed to brutalize my skis a bit but I've got no other choice, what am I gonna do? Just stay on Gremlin the whole season?

There were indeed at least a few lines, often skipped or missed by the masses, that were still pretty good.  My go to, Candyland, was great although still a bit thwacky.  We traversed over to lower Gunsight from Kinsman and it was in surprisingly good shape.  Part of me thought that was a death mission but it ended up being ok.  The foursome started to diminish in the afternoon so I spent some time messing with the GoPro and mounting it different ways to see what I could get.  Some of it was interesting at least for little segway shots...I think the edit came together pretty well.  Although I learned a lesson about Vimeo uploading, should have waited until tomorrow to upload it because my free account can only upload one HD video a week.  If I had waited until tomorrow I would have been fine but now it is crappy quality.  Maybe I can update it later or something, I'll have to look into that.  Until then, ENJOI.

Oh hey Winter

If you don't like the weather...

only took a week to go from Spring like conditions and road rides in February to white-knuckle death grip driving and epic VT powder days.  I <3 New England.  The only forecaster I trust in terms of POW location seemed to think the Spine was gonna be a good place to be so we scrambled a meet up at Sugarbush for this weekend.

Unfortunately with it being the end of vacation week and what was looking like one of the best days this year LOTS of other people had similar plans.  But its all good, the energy was palpable and you could tell everyone has been itching to let it rip.  I got my first tracks Friday night on the drive up.  The Echo was up to its eyeballs and my 2.5hr drive turned into 4 and change.  I had to do some sketchy rally driving that I will not elaborate on for the sake of my mother but I made it when other vehicles arguably much more equipped for the conditions did not AND I was getting 30+mpg while I was doing it.

We've got our routine down and were on mountain early fueling up and planning our initial mode of attack.  After that is mostly just a blur of powder. steeps, lower back fatigue, and some more powder.  It was snowing and blowing all day and many of the lines were filing back in during the day.  It was hard to make a bad run choice.  I wasn't riding as well as I had hoped, It usually takes me a few hard and fast days in the woods to get my wits about me.  I was choosing some silly lines at times and also dealing with some weird 'dead back' that had me riding pretty sloppy towards the end of the day.  I think I blame the exercise ball I've been sitting on at my desk lately.

Didn't get much decent footage due to my issues with selecting good lines and with the size of our group there was a bit of stop and go happening, plus even though 'Bush has become my winter home away from home I don't know the terrain like I know Cannon so its a bit harder to get reckless.




It felt really good to be back into the normal winter swing and it sounds like my home base got a decent amount of snow as well.  Looking forward to recouping the back and getting on some of my lines in the Notch finally.  Sounds like a bit of snow in the mountains tonight and Thurs.  Game on.

Sherbie!

A ski outing worth blogging about?!  Kinda.  Resort conditions are so-so right now and definitely not worth really shelling out the $$ if needed so to save D-bone and Amanda some money we decided a little AT trip was in order.

Original plan was to check out the Gulf of Slides Trail but there were no tracks heading out that way which caused us to completely miss the turn off the Sherburne Trail and didn't realize it until we were pretty committed.  I need to get up there more often so I have a better mental map of that terrain.  Plus its gorgeous.

We got a nice day for it and conditions were workable.  Little dusting with a mostly manageable crust underneath.  We went a little bit higher than the Hut just to take a look at stuff.  Still pretty sparse up there in spots.  Right now even getting up to the bowls/gulleys is kind of a trick.  Finally got my Black Diamond Factors into their element for the first time and man did they shine.  Walk mode was awesome and they were super comfortable the whole way up.  I really noticed the decrease in weight as well over my old Icons.  Barely had any fatigue at all after the skin up.  Definitely one of my better random gear purchases to date.  Tried out a new GoPro angle with a side mount on my helmet.  I like the perspective and its a pretty comfortable spot for it.  Weight of the camera distributes well and I think its a good mix of showing what I'm doing as well as being able to see terrain features and distance.  Not sure how well it would work in the woods with it sticking off to the side like that but hopefully I'm not getting that close to trees with my head anyway...  Footage was pretty underwhelming but I made a little edit anyway.

No idea why I went with Buddy Holly.

All in all it was a great way to spend the day and we got to stop in at The Moat on the way home for some local brew and eats.  Then we burned Christmas.

All Hallows at SMBA

Shot on out to 'toga last weekend for some good 'ole SMBA shredding and some halloween good times.  Got a pretty classic fall ride in on Saturday followed by all kinds of shenanigans Saturday night including winning scariest costume AND several inches of snow.

Got some ok footage using the chest mount.  Last time I tried using it the angle was looking down too much.  I added an additional linkage piece thing (what the hell are those things called?) to bump the camera out a bit so I could tilt it back a bit more to look more forward.  Worked to a certain extent, if I'm sitting the angle is good but standing its still looking a bit more straight down than I would like.  I think you really need the slacker geometry of a freeride or downhill bike for the chest mount to truly work.  But I still got a fun little edit out of it...thank god I remembered to turn the camera on when Keith decided to do some beaver dam maintenance.


Fall Ride at SMBA from Kevin Orlowski on Vimeo.

The Making of 'Mighty Chicken: A Tribute'

Almost 3 years ago Scott P., George L., myself and the Tilton School MTB team embarked on the beginnings of a trail project.  A natural ravine at Franklin Falls was begging for more than just the trail shooting down the middle.  Chicken Ravine needed an upgrade...

Our crew spent the morning roughing in what would become Mighty Chicken.  It doesn't quite exist in the same form today as it did that day but its close.  We have probably gone through a few minor tweaks and two more major revisions.  Additional bench cutting, increasing the radius of a few of the turns for better flow and adding a new section on the end for a bit extra tech/excitement.  I am pretty proud of what it has become.  Franklin Falls has been attracting a lot of riders from all over New England lately and usually when bumping into riders in the parking lot they'll be asking how to get to Mighty Chicken.

The word is getting out and I felt it needed some proper documentation and some time in the Internet 'spotlight'.  Plus I've wanted to try making a more planned out edit with the goPro for awhile but have just never had the time.  I got a weird morning time window before an afternoon b-day party yesterday that wasn't long enough for any projects around the house but just about long enough to get an edit filmed.  Or at least I hoped...luckily I was right.

I had a song in mind, and some ideas for shots I wanted in my head but no real concrete plan of attack.  When I got on the scene I started walking the ravine trying to get everything straight in my head about how I wanted to go about this.  Turns out keeping all this stuff straight is actually kind of hard.  No wonder movies need like 500 people on set to spread the work around.  I thought far enough ahead to bring a little notebook so I started drawing rough layouts with notes on where I wanted to get certain shots and then recording which video was which shot so editing would go quicker.

Each turn was numbered and I set up and got shots linearly as I went from top to bottom.  It actually ended up being a pretty good workout because certain shots if I didn't really like the way I rode a section I would stop, dismount and run back up and ride it again trying to go as fast as possible to try and save on parsing and editing time later.

 CUT! ok lets do that again. PLACES EVERYONE! PLACES!

Some of the shots I wanted required some MacGyver'ing.  That's right up my alley so it was no issue.  One bungee cord just about handled any tricky shots I needed.  I used the goPro tripod mount exclusively and was only getting third person shots, nothing on the bike.  Camera was either on the ground on in the trees.

tree-pod

Hey Dad does that tri-pod look familiar?  I believe you rocked that in the 70's with your Nikon.  I think its return on investment is doing fairly well.  Trying to get things lined up was tricky at times.  It is interesting trying to shoot a 'creative edit' without being able to look at anything you are getting until you get home.  I goofed twice getting my finger in my first shot of the trail sign (didn't make the final vid, obviously) and getting the bungee cord in another shot.  That one did make the vid because it was kind of crucial to connect the big sweeping turn 7 into the bottom half of the trail.  Oh well.  Considering I couldn't see any of the shots I was getting and I was rushing some of the setups due to our awesome second surge of mosquitoes thanks to Irene I thought it came out really well.

I got some weird condensation/hazyness in a few of the shots, not really sure why.  The temps were swinging pretty strong.  It was probably 40 when I got started and almost 60 by the time I was done.  Not sure if that was it or not.  Kinda bummed because a few of the shots are lower quality because of it but it does add a weird kind of surreal effect that sort of works I guess.

I'm going to call this a success though.  Decided I was gonna try it Friday morning and I'm posting a finished product Sunday morning that I'm pretty proud of.  Not half bad.  Enjoy.  I'll embed it here but I think its better to watch it at Vimeo with more resolution...just sayin'.

Mighty Chicken: A Tribute from Kevin Orlowski on Vimeo.

Bear Brook Hero Ride

Nowadays between primarily leading weekly NEMBA rides and getting together to ride with friends I don't often find myself suiting up for friendly hammerfests.  This year has changed that a bit.  My involvement with NEMBA Racing has gotten me connected with plenty of folks that love to suffer and are hellbent on getting faster.  Not a bad thing but man does it hurt.

Shawn Smith (AKA the Ride Bully) is exceptionally adept at attracting fast riders to his rides and he loves planning BIG days and seeing how the cards (or riders) fall.  I was on the fence about this one because I had some stuff to get done around the house but Saturday I was very efficient and was able to free myself up to tag along.  Unfortunately for me I started scanning the email thread and the roll call was looking like a bunch of fast guys and some even faster guys for good measure (like guys who race Pro/Elite and two Expert Vet I podium finishers at the NH100, 1st and 3rd, fast).  It's been awhile since I've been one of the slow guys in a group ride of 8-10.

But this is good, I feel like I've plateaued a bit lately.  I've been getting stronger every year but I'm at that point where if I want to get any faster I have to find some local heroes and get on their wheels, or try to get on their wheels anyway.  Today was tough, the heat was actually pretty brutal for Sept and the pace was constant, not blistering but always fast.

I got off to a really ridiculous start, ride was almost over before I even made it a mile.  We were cruising along in the equivalent of a neutral rollout (15mph on flatish singletrack) and I was chatting with Steve about how wide his seatstays were on his new SS and then I was on the ground looking back at Carl asking him what the hell just happened.  Turns out I struck my pedal on a stump and my bike stopped dead and I went flying.  Quite hilarious really.  It happened so fast I had no clue, just a loud noise and me airborne.  For reference imagine securing a braided steel cable; one end to your bike and the other end to a 4 ton cement block in the parking lot.  The cable is about 4 tenths of a mile long...now ride away from the parking lot at a brisk pace.  Unfortunately because we hadn't even gotten a mile away from the parking lot my goPro was not on...woe is me.

Banged up my left knee a bit on impact but it was decent for the rest of the ride (stiffening up nice now though).  I think the heat was affecting some of my trail awareness and reaction time because I was having a real issue with pedal strike all day which is usually never an issue.  And my pedals are now totally whupped, they were old as it was but now one of the bearings sounds like a duck quacking when you spin it.

Unfortunately I hit the stop button on my Garmin with one of my appendages while I continued forward and my bike did not so my data got a bit messed up because it took me awhile to notice.  My legs felt pretty good.  Most everything else didn't though thanks to the heat but I've got some good post NH100 fitness going.  Hopefully I can stay strong through the last few races of the year.  I am really looking forward to some 60 degree riding temps after today.  Can't wait for Fall riding.



Made a quick edit with the footage I got.  Tried a new angle but didn't want to mess with it much because I was too busy trying to keep up with those damn speed demons.  I'm not sure how I feel about the new angle.  I like the perspective but it does a hell of a job flattening everything out.  Even the steep techy descents look basically pancake flat.  Kind of a bummer, I was hoping some of the footage was going to look much better, but I like how it came out.  Time to drive some traffic to NEMBA Racing...for the vid go here.

I heart New England

Seriously.  I've probably said it a few times but daaaaayum is NE awesome.  It's like a 70,000 square mile playground with EVERYTHING.

This past weekend Dustin and I got serious into shredding Pine Hill Park in Rutland, VT.  Second trip back and this time without wet leaves everywhere.  This made things much more awesome and borderline disastrous.  High speeds, ample berms...watch out now!  I'll let the edit do the talking.  I have a lot of fun every time I ride there, 'nuff said.  Got some great 'looking back at the rider' footage...slight tweak to the angle from last time I tried made all the difference and I think its the perfect perspective for these trails.



We saw some idiots on BMX bikes and a crazy bitter grandma who LOVED crapping on anything you said and directing her rage at the incorrect people.  She was awesome.  She spent a lot of energy trying to reprimand us and another lovely couple for something a stupid kid did and then immediately broke the rules of the park herself before walking off.  I pity you crazy bitter grandma.

Also got to chat again with Michael Smith (the supreme chancellor of Pine Hill) and this week he has 430(!!!!!!!) high school kids building/maintaining the trails there for the entire week.  I can't even imagine what NEMBA could do with that much manpower.  We could rough in 20mi of singletrack at our new spot Page Hill in a day or two let alone a week.  Good Lord.

Speaking of Page Hill, I was messing around in the woods there Sunday getting things started with what hopefully will be our own little local Pine Hill Park....here's to dreaming. Check out the details here:

http://www.cnhnemba.org/2011/06/page-hill-trail-day-recap.html

Ramp Up

I just took a peek at my Garmin Connect account and I am getting off to one hell of a riding season.  50mi the last two weekends at 5 different riding locations.  And its only Tax Day.  With a mega road epic planned for Friday things are looking good for having a decent base built heading into race season.

Now all I need are the home town trails to finally shed all their snow...

New Ergon grips are nice.  I think they are going to work really well for me.  I got a bit of different hand fatigue than I am used to during the last two rides but I think that is more my hands getting used to the new position.  What I have definitely noticed is no residual fatigue after the rides and they actual offer a few different hand positions that I didn't have previously.  They give a really nice platform and feel way less awkward than I was anticipating.

Kenda pro form stuff arrived late last week but I didn't have time to mount the new rubber before I hit the road to NY.  Went with the Slant Six for this year.  Looks like a good all rounder, interested to see what they are capable of.

Had a great time in NY.  Footage was a bit lacking, angle of my chest mount needs tweaking and the ride was a bit stop and go and I kept guessing wrong for good times to film longer stretches of trail.  But I did manage to get one sweet sequence on a trail called Here to There and just set it to the theme of the weekend.  Had to be there...

New England is currently MEGA

I can't remember the last time both of my preferred activities were operating at max awesome in such close proximity.  For the last two weeks or so you could get really great skiing or mtb in within a two hour drive of my house in either direction.  Now if we could just get a handle on all this mud and standing water I'd be in heaven...

Shaun already got in a pretty thorough recap of the weekends full happenings, so I'll just post my edit and talk about that a bit as well as my mind over matter, refusal to acknowledge pain odyssey.



I tried to make the edit look like one long continuous run cutting in different angles like I had 3 GoPro's running at once.  Kinda worked.  I didn't bother spending too much time trying to make the cuts look perfect because I don't care enough.  The footage is actually two rides early stuff is Willowdale and later on is clips from Russell Mill.  Used the handlebar/seatpost mount for everything.  Seatpost configuration worked great and I really like that perspective.

Mounting to the handlebar didn't work all that awesome, it loosened up on me both times and I had tightened it enough that I was a bit worried about breaking the plastic.  I have read some posts of people trying a rubber shim to cut down on vibration and give it something to really squeeze.  I'll probably try that next.  I was actually really surprised at how 'quiet' the footage was with it mounted to my handlebars.  I thought for sure riding rigid would screw it all up but as long as I can figure out the mount I think that angle will be cool.  I also experimented a bit with pointing it back at me and I really like what the fisheye did too the trees, they look like they are 1000ft tall!

I also had a really weird experience with some wrist pain that has been bugging me for the past couple weeks.  It felt like some sort of pinched nerve that would only really hurt at the extremes of pronation or supination.  Hadn't been affecting my skiing at all so I just sort of dealt with it hoping that it would go away.  I was hoping it wouldn't affect my biking at all but I was wrong.  First ride at Willowdale was pretty painful at times.  Cross fall line stuff was horrifying and descending with some chatter was awful too, almost lost my grip on the bars due to pain a few times.  Riding was way too good to stop though so I just tried to deal.

Surprisingly after our break for lunch it started to feel a bit better.  The pain was much less pronounced.  At the start of our ride at Russell Mill I would say it felt 65% better than that morning.  The RM ride went much better and that evening the pain subsided even more.  By the start of our ride at LDT the next morning the pain was practically gone and its a good thing because LDT was much more brutal than the other two spots and I would have been in trouble.

So just goes to show you kids if you have weird nerve pain in a joint just beat it into submission.  I'm running the show here nervous system, not you.  Never forget that.

Spring(?) Skiing

This season just won't quit!  I'll be honest I'm ready to be on dirt and roads spinning wheels but this week threw us right back in to the swing of things particularly up high and it could not be missed.  The Whites had seen all kinds of snow over the past week in little spurts here and there.

Driving north Saturday morning things looked prime for a nice Spring day, then I rounded that corner on 93 where the Notch first comes in to view...except it didn't come in to view.  It was completely socked in and as I got closer small little flakes started to fly.  Those flakes got bigger as I got closer and by the time I was at the base there was a nice dusting going on and you could see the deposits from earlier in the week as well.

We took a chance and went powder hunting off the reservation and we were rewarded with some of the best turns I have gotten in awhile and some of the best I have ever gotten this late in the season.  My proof was taken using the GoPro chest mount.  Not sure how I feel about that perspective.  I had to actually slow some of the footage down a tad so that you could see what was going on.  I simultaneously like and dislike the additional motion you can see.  It demonstrates how the terrain varies better but it also makes the footage really busy.  I love the mount though.  So much less hassle mounted to the chest and much easier to deal with.

A great day and a fitting last hurrah for the Icon's...

After riding I stopped in at Village Ski and Sport in Lincoln to have my new boots thermomolded.  If you have AT needs in Northern NH go see them, great no nonsense service and good prices.  The Factor's now fit like a glove on both feet and I can't wait to put them to task.  Maybe MTW next weekend?

Magical Afterthought

This post is more of an afterthought at this point but I figured the whole point of getting the GoPro was so that I could get additional media up here.

We had a great day at Magic.  My first time there and we picked a great day to check it out.  We got seconds on a decently big storm from Friday.  Conditions were pretty variable but still plenty fun and the terrain at Magic is just that.  Very cool natural features all over and nice and steep throughout.  I would definitely hit this place very often if the drive there didn't suck so bad.  Not that far mileage wise but getting east/west in NE sucks the big one.  Especially in the conditions I would most likely be driving in to take advantage of a good day there.

Congrats to D-bone on a solid showing at the Ski The East Freeride Competition taking place that day.  First outing in that format and ended up top 35.  Probably just needed a bit more pole whacking for the win...

I ended up just having a bit of fun with the edit from the footage that day.  Picked a random old techno song and just got lucky with the length of some clips matching up with the song fairly well and went from there.  I only had the camera on in the afternoon and I missed the best moment of the whole day in the morning when Tobin crashed and ran directly into JPMV spearing him in the back with his board.  I was looking right at Jomo when it happened too, would have gotten the whole thing.  At least I can play it back in my head over and over, but bummed I can't share it with ya'll.

Dust on Crust Edit

Yesterday didn't have a lot of promise.  Big 'ole thaw followed by a pretty immediate deep freeze has a great way of turning everything to crap.  Luckily Cannon got a few inches of snow overnight for us to work with.  We made the most of it and got some interesting 'adventure' riding and we were able to find some aspects that loaded up a bit.  No matter the conditions, it was great to be back shredding with a solid crew...really looking forward to getting some more precip and finishing off the season strong.

Had the GoPro with me for the first time with the forward facing helmet mount.  I really like the perspective you get and I lucked out with pointing it at the right angle.  Only downside is the bit of added weight it adds to the front of your helmet that adds some pressure to where you goggles sit on your nose.  Just annoying enough to partially bug me but nothing major.

I am using trakaxPC for my editing.  So far I am really pleased.  Nice little piece of software and so far the perfect mix of newb user friendlyness and cooler more advanced features.  Very easy to do the standard fair for GoPro type edits.  I was able to throw this video together is just about and hour or two with absolutely no prior experience...that is saying something.

Unfortunately I still have some things to learn about aspect ratios and I think I exported in one ratio and then uploaded to Youtube in another which caused the video to be a smaller window within a bigger one...or at least I think thats what caused it.  I'll do some testing and troubleshooting in the future to figure that out but I am going to call this one good for now.

Pinney's Pale Ale

Crotchville Beer LLC has reached new heights.  A milestone if you will.  Officially commissioned for three batches.  I have been entrusted to brew three batches of Pale Ale to be given out as gifts to guests at Shaun and Natalie's wedding.  No pressure or anything.

 tower of power

I'm not worried though my track record is pretty impeccable if I don't say so myself. (just jinxed it Shaun, youre welcome).  These batches are pretty basic but the simplicity was nice, I think I might try and get back in to always having something basic on hand.  Can't go wrong with Pale Ales and I can always start experimenting a bit here and there with tweaks etc.  These batches have 3oz of Cascade hops.  2oz at 60mins and the last ounce added in the last minute of the boil for that added hoppy/citrusy fragrance to the end product.  I think it was the right way to go for a mass audience (see what I did there? DOUBLE MEANING ho ho ho)

I also got to try out a new piece of gear I got for Christmas:

THE BREW HAULER

Way easier and safer to haul a full carboy than grabbing it by the neck and praying thats for sure.

I have to do some tricky scheduling to make sure all three batches get done on time.  My capacity is going to basically be maxed for the first time ever.  Which is good...why else do I have all this damn stuff?  Word on the street is Jen is working on a custom label for these batches.  Can't wait to see it.  I am also thinking about having my students make a label for this batch as a Photoshop assignment...should be good.  Stay tuned as Crotchville keeps pumping out batch after batch!

**UPDATE**
Phew! Have I been busy.  3 batches turned in to 4 and I have been going straight out.  I've worked things around so that I was able to do a few double sessions.  Bottled batches 1 and 2 and the same time as well as racking batches 3 and 4 to secondary tonight.  I will more than likely bottle both 3 and 4 together in about another week or so and then we will have a few weeks to get the labels on before game day.

I also got real awesome / lame and tried out my new tripod mount for the GoPro to make a quick racking to secondary vid.  Never thought I would be using my Homebrew AND GoPro tag on the same post...

**UPDATE**

I'm happy to report that this will be my first batch that will be dressed to impress.  Check out this label made by Jen O'Donnell.  Check out her work, its fun.