Lake Lurleen Hammock Camping and Mountain Biking

On the last weekend of the kids' Spring Break I took the Hammock Tent out to Lake Lurleen State park.  This was probably my last moment alone to do exactly what I wanted, when I wanted, for the year, so it was important to take advantage of the time.  Brenna and the kids were in Tampa with family and I stayed behind to work the week.  Once I got the forecast done I scrambled south to Tuscaloosa, Alabama and then to the park which is a few miles outside of town.

I am not much on sleeping on the ground and bringing along heavy inflatable mattresses (Yes, I'm a wus...I admit it) but the remedy to this is the Hennessey Hammock.

You sleep comfortably in the tent with it's rain flap and bug net, and the best part is with this kind of hammock, you can sleep diagonally in the tent and the sleeping surface is flat.  You can roll over, sleep on your side, and whatever other position makes you happy.  Its rare to find a 3lb camping shelter that takes up barely any room the backpack, sets up that easily and allows comfort when out in the woods.

Enough with the gear review.  Its awesome.  Period.

I did get ribbed by the ranger at the park though.  She was asking "Where's your tent?"  To which I replied, "It's hanging from the tree over there."  She countered eloquently, "That's not a tent, it's a hammock with a doohicky over it.  We usually don't let people without tents stay in the campgrounds but I'll let it slide tonight."

I queried as to why there was a Campers-Must-Have-A-Tent rule the next day.  (Nope, I didn't push my luck debating campground policy prior to spending the night there.)  She said that people without tents tend to "do things out in the open" with all the other campers able to see.  I can only imagine...  The policy isn't for the privacy of the people in the "non-tent" category, it's for the protection of the other campers there and their kids since some people are morons.  (My words not the rangers) After that explanation, I half-understand the policy, but I guess since I didn't look like a drunken idiot, the ranger made a judgement call that my one person campsite wasn't going to be a problem.

The next morning, I cooked up a fine breakfast of tea, eggs and toast on the camp stove and got ready to hit the trails.  Lake Lurleen has about 19 miles of trails available, and I figured I would ride them twice on the rented Gary Fisher 29r rig that I had borrowed from Cahaba Cycles.  A side story is that I had this demo bike because I had broken my current bike frame earlier in the week.  So sad to see the old Ionic fail due to all the miles and splashing around in creeks I have done over the years.

I took out the Gary Fisher Xcaliber 29r and enjoyed it thoroughly.  It's a hard tail aluminum frame with monster truck wheels.  I'm pretty well sold on the big wheeled bikes now although my video doesn't look as smooth as some other ones, the ride was pretty good.

The bike itself was fun and feels really smooth over smaller bumps.  It also climbs really well and I find it rolls downhill faster than my former Ionic.  I figured a good 40 miles of riding on one would seal the deal on a 29r, and it has.  It has also sealed the deal on getting a 29r with full suspension.  Forget all the standing and getting kicked all over the bike when you hit rocks.  I'm going plush on the next ride.  I might even name it, "The Couch".  We will see when I actually get around to picking up a bike.

I flatted 3 tires in 60 miles of riding and that was the only drawback to the two rides I had with this bike that week.  One particularly nasty flat was a front tire blowout as I bombed down a hill and had to make a sharp left at the bottom.  The front tire just rolled under and sent me flying a la Superman.  Glad I didn't hurt too much at the time, but I am still sore two weeks after the fact from that crash where the bike flipped up behind me and hit me somehow.

The trails there were fun and had loads of switchbacks but lacked something.  They would be great to bring a beginning rider that wanted to spend a couple hours covering all the different loops.  There isn't anything that created white knuckle sensations aside from my own ineptitude at staying upright on a bike and inner-tube failures.  One thing I thought was interesting was how the lower into the gullies you rode, the vegetation would change to a lush green, and up on the ridges the trees still look bare and wintry.  

Anyway.  That's a lot of outdoor gear and trail review for one post.  I will sign off with a short video of the trip.  

Or directly to the YouTube HD 1080p version: Here

Blogging, Time Passing, and a Happy Birthday!

I realize that my life, which is the general basis for this blog, is so busy and "fun" that its seriously hampering my abilities to write about it. Something of a paradox, eh? The more there is to write about the less time there is to write about it?  I'm sure you are all like totally..."Whatever dude...shut up and get on with the post.  We could care less about the paradox that you mention since it happens to absolutely everyone."

Ok ok, people... calm down.  I'll get to the point of the post.

I do want to throw in a small note, since all the records that I am amassing here in this blog will eventually help me remember who my kids are when I'm 80...who am I kidding, when I'm 60 with my memory.

That small note being that I now have a 9 year old son.

Holy cow.

How in the flying flippity flap did that happen? Well, I know HOW it happened smarty pants readers... A question like that is rhetorical for crying out loud...

Anyhoo, I got a message from my Dad today as he was digging through his own digital camera archives, and it depicts my now 9 year old son as a 1-ish year old toe head kid sitting on my shoulders at a Christmas parade on a fine cold day in Florida. Yep, it was a frigid 70 degrees. I can tell because we have long sleeves on. When it actually hits 68 degrees, all the true Floridians don their finest leather jackets and parade around like it's Green Bay, WI or something.

Here he is. Wow. What a cute little kid.

And, as one of my best friends mentioned, Wow...how much less hair I have now vs. then. Pffft...whatever.

For current reference, so you can see the amazing change from those photos to now.  I hereby present this excessively over produced silly video.  You can see the biggest change (aside from Bryce not being seen small and on my shoulders) that there are two other really big children of mine in the images.  Neither of which were even alive at the point of the photos of Bryce above.  Wow.

How did that happen???

Oh wait...I've said that already.

Happy 9th Birthday!



Now in 1080p HD if you care...here!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUT2aR1b3tg&hd=1

Reef Diving in Cozumel Mexico

To follow up with my last post, we had a second dive on the outing while we were in Cozumel.  It's the little island in the map below, and if you use the little plus sign on the embedded image, you can even zoom in to see a few cruise ships.  Kind of a cool technology...I wonder if the satellites know where I put the TV remote?


View Larger Map

For those of you that are non-divers, you will generally do a 2 tank dive during the course of an outing.  I'm sure that you can do more, and the guides we were using there stated that they usually did 4-5 dives in a day.

Part of the process is you will do the deeper dive first and then follow up with a more shallow dive after a period of rest on the surface.  I won't go into the details of why this is the sequence, but it has to do with the body absorbing Nitrogen gas in the blood at depth and expelling it through spending time on the surface.  If you get too much Nitrogen gas in your blood and surface, you can certainly hurt yourself since it will form air bubbles in your blood and joints called decompression sickness or "The Bends".  At best, this condition really hurts, and at worst, can kill you.  Hence the very conservative rest period and a shallow dive following a deep one. On a side note, my ever so perfect wife is sure that she can actually get the bends by getting up out of bed too early.  I don't think I have seen good scientific evidence of this being actually dangerous, but what do I know, though?

The video attached is the shallow dive of our two dives of the day.  The water was in the upper 70's and very clear, but after a bit of soaking in that temperature, it definitely produced some pretty good chatters.  It's absolutely worth it to see the marine life though.  On this trip, we encountered large coral heads, but not quite as massive as further down the wall in the earlier in the day.  If you missed the last post, it's here.

I should know what the reef name is, but due to some really strange and unusual factors...like me not paying attention, I can only recall something like.  "And for the second dive we will be diving on the mumble mumble blah blah mumble Reef.", and thusly, I have taken my amazing ability of creativity and  named it "The Reef Dive".  Yep.  REALLY descriptive there, but it has a good ring to it, so I think it will stick...

Seriously people, cut me some slack, and if you know what the reef name was through some random tidbit of knowledge, send me a note in the comments section and tell me.  Yeah, I know I'm typing to myself again, and since I'm probably the only person reading this blog, I will guess the odds of me sending myself the correct information in the comments section are slim to nil.  Whatever...


On with the video, and as always, have a wonderful and safe week.  Get outside and enjoy, you can find the TV remote later!



And, the HD version is linked here, but you will have to go to the YouTube site to see it.  Just click below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdlcpqfq70U&hd=1

Cruise to Cozumel

You can go ahead and thank me for not putting that Enya Sail Away song over and over on my video of this trip, or perhpas the Styx version by the same title.

There I had to do it.  I'm sorry. I'm so Sorry.  You don't have to thank me now...

Cripes...that's tough to listen to and even tougher to recall the awkward years of youth with a song like that actually on the radio...

Now that I have embarrassed myself thoroughly because I know either of the two songs mentioned above, not that it matters since nobody reads this blog and I'm typing to myself basically.  Oh well, I will get on with the post.


Brenna and I managed to get away on a couples cruise to Cozumel with like ten zillion (read: about 20) of our friends and soon to be friends.  The dynamic of so many people all getting along well was cool.  Very low drama and we enjoyed the company of some really great people.

Cozumel is one of our favorite Scuba diving places on the planet.  Not that we have been to all of them, but it's still one of our favorites...

We really enjoyed the cruise and goofing off as the ship gently rumbled and rolled across the gulf.  The winter of Alabama receded quickly and was replaced by the semi-tropical climes that we remember from our Florida days.  The February sun was brutal and had the potential to fry our tender winter hides, but also having some Florida experience and being, well, "older" now, we opted for sunscreen rather than tanning oils and made it through without looking like the lobsters we ate on board the ship.

We were on the Carnival Elation, which is an older ship that travels out of Mobile Alabama, and it was perfect.  No big deal or production to get to the boat from our home and it was small enough (only 2,000 people vs the big ships of 4,000-5,000 passengers) that we could actually get around without feeling like we were on a cattle car.

Brenna and I were really excited about getting back in the water as we hadn't been diving since our St. Lucia trip (which was awesome and can be read about here, and here, and here...Ok, I wrote a lot about St. Lucia...)

We docked in Cozumel and met up with the dive boat which was run by Sand Dollar Sports, and they did a great job of getting us out to the dive site and making everyone feel comfortable.  It was our second time using the shop and they are good.  Check them out if you are ever down in the area.

The first dive was on Santa Rosa Wall which starts off as a sandy bottom at roughly 50ft, has some great coral heads to explore and tunnel through, and the wall itself drops into the abyss.  I tried to find out how deep it was, but I couldn't find anything on Wikipedia to give me a good estimate of the depth, so I'll just say...it's deep.  Like the kind of deep that will easily kill you before you get anywhere near the bottom.

I took the ever so versatile GoPro 960 camera down on its inaugural dive adventure.  I know it was rated as a waterproof housing, but it seems such a gamble to jump in the water with a video camera after years of hearing your dad tell you not to do stuff like that...

As if it wasn't obvious by now the camera survived, and it worked!  It's certainly no dive camera from a professional standpoint, but for all the stuff I do with it, it's great!  Now I wonder if GoPro will send me the upgraded 1080p HD version for all the dang free advertising I give them...Oh, wait.  Nobody reads this blog, so I guess not...  Fudge...

Well, readership or not, I got to use the new iMac I bought after the PC died and edited this video for all your viewing pleasure. I hope you like it, and have a great week.



And as always, the HD link is here since the frame is too big to fit in this blog column.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MapHJ29rG8&hd=1

The Bike Project - Monster truck wheels

I ride and race bikes as a hobby, and if you hadn't figured that out, you probably don't know me, haven't been around me as I babble incessantly on about them, and probably haven't read much of this blog.  The blog isn't entirely about bikes, but somehow my hobby has found a way to take up 2/3rds of the posts I have written.  When I come to think of it, I guess I'll take this moment to apologize to my friends that sit listening to my inane stories, and I must say that, at least most of the time, it looks like you are half way interested in whatever cycling related nonsense I am spouting.  If you are, good, I feel better subjecting you to my one sided discussions of bicycle related stuff.  If you aren't, you should seriously take up acting as a career.  You are good...Keanu Reeves ain't got nuthin' on you talent wise...  In fact...I'm pretty sure you are like way better 'cause Keanu couldn't act his way out of a wet paper bag and yet he makes A-list money for his movies, and I am somehow compelled to watch them all...Whoah ...

Some fine examples of Keanu's acting.

And here...




Ok, I really didn't mean to get off on how much I love to watch Keanu Reeves movies and still bash on his questionable acting.  I really wanted to talk about bikes! 

Yeah. I know...now you're just dying with excitement...

I, for whatever reason find myself in need of a new bike, and yes, I use the word "need" quite liberally here.  Like I need a new bike like I need to breathe or I need food or something of that ilk.  Ok Ok it's, semantics people!  I WANT a new bike...Happy now?!?  sigh...

Let the butchery of the English language continue.

I decided to try out some huge wheeled mountain bikes before I actually purchased something and burned through the family's savings as a result.  See, how thoughtful of me considering that the family might actually need a place to live and food to eat vs me needing a bike.

Ok, I'm running off topic again.  The point of this was the size of the wheels on this particular bike were going to be significantly larger than my current mountain bike.  This would allow me to take my mediocre downhill and technical abilities to another level without actually getting better.  Big wheels don't get stuck in ruts, roots, and rocks as easily as smaller ones.  Note the fine example of alliteration in that last sentence.  Plus big wheels on bicycles are just like totally waaay cool.  You know...like me...sometimes.

I picked up a demo bike from Cahaba Cycles that would be a good test for 29r wheels.  It's a Niner S.I.R 9.  Now you might think that the cycling industry would have some heavy technical jargon that the S.I.R. stands for, so I asked one of the staff there.  "Steel Is Real" was the answer.  High intelligence and engineering jargon coming from the bike manufacturing industry? -- nope.

I took the bike out for a long 35 mile ride around Oak Mountain, and it felt completely different.  This thing would monster truck over obstacles and rocks that rattled my teeth loose on my current mountain bike.  It was a much smoother ride as well, and that simply came from the size difference of the wheels.

The one big drawback I noted was going uphill.  My current bike definitely climbed better due to the smaller wheels.  There is a trade-off in everything it seems.  The big wheels weigh more and have more mass so making them spin takes much more effort to get going or, in this case, keep going up a hill.  Still it was worth it for the enjoyment of the ride, and fortunately, as I was struggling up steep pitches of fire trail, I could look down at the top tube and read the handy little reminder that Niner Bikes gave me.

 

Thanks guys.  I nearly forgot. 

 

I would have had video of the new ridge line trail to post with this high end cycling analysis, but the GoPro rattled loose and it rendered a beautiful bluebird day filled with scenes of the bike bounding over dirt and rocks completely unwatchable.  Looks like you guys, my loyal readers, dodged a bullet on that one.  Count yourselves as lucky.

 

I'm off to demo a full suspension 29r this weekend which would allow for the rear wheel to absorb some of the shocks as well as the front.  That should be a fun ride, and maybe I'll get the video this time.

 

Have a great weekend everyone.

Waiting for the bus

In a moment of quiet, a very sleepy Ansley was waiting for the bus on the stairs since the gray morning had decided to add a bit of cold rain to the morning chill.  She managed to smile for this picture even though she had been going through the morning with her eyes closed.  I feel bad that she is not a morning person and that the school bus comes at 6:50 a.m. 

At least she smiled for me.

The shakes...

I got out a couple of weeks ago to ride with a few friends, very fast friends, at Oak Mountain State Park. 

I love these trails and the fact that there are 20+ miles of trails where you don't repeat a single foot of trail that close to the house is something that I can't put a price on.  Or perhaps I have put a price on it.  $3 bucks on weekends to ride, the semi regular bike repair, bruised shoulders, bloody knees, or head, or trip to the ER for CAT scans. 

Well, maybe I just don't want to think about the actual price of these "healthy" endeavors.

I was trying out the helmet mount for the GoPro and wanted to see what angles would work.  The video is a bit low and I find myself raising up my head while watching it like I could somehow see further down the trail.  I used the r2 setting for 720p x 1280 HD video instead of the "taller" image of 960p.  I think I'll just stick with the 960 from now on since it captures more of the surroundings even though the YouTube video only goes with the 720 format and "reverse letter boxes" the video with black bars on the sides.  It still makes for better video.  You can see what I mean here in another of my GoPro attempts.

The ride itself was pretty good.  The trails had been freezing at night, and that left the low areas muddy well into the day as the ice melted.  The main, and more established parts of the Red trail were in much better shape.  This video has us on the Lake trail and part of the Red trail up to the fire road.  I wouldn't bother videoing the fire road climb since I really feel that you watching me get dropped by these guys in no time flat and then hearing me sound like a very sickly Darth Vader all the way up the mountain would be less than entertaining.  In fact the sickly Darth Vader part may even be somewhat disturbing.  Disturbing in either the, "I wonder if he is going to be OK?  I thought this guy was in shape!" kind of way, or the "This video should be flagged for unseemly content." kind of way. 

You are safe.  I won't film that climb.  I promise.

Ah, yes, the title of this post.  I guess I should probably try to feebly tie in something in this meandering prose to the title I managed to conjure up.  The shakes.  Not the kind Nicholas Cage has throughout Leaving Las Vegas, but a few others come to mind when watching this video.

First, the helmet mount combined with riding a hard tail mountain bike off road.  There is just no way I can figure out to have a smoother video.  If anyone has suggestions to mount the camera better, please let me know.  And no...mounting it on my hammock instead of riding isn't really an option.  Secondly, shaky mountain bike skills.  There is just no way to hide it.  I love to ride, but I am barely staying upright most of the time it seems.  Finally, shaky mountain bike maintenance.  I won't spoil the joke, but you'll see in the video.  It has to do with hairspray.  (Now there's a teaser if ever there was one.)  By the way, it does work, just not that time...with that type of hairspray.  I'll just use spray glue next time though.

There.  I've tied in the title, rambled on about biking, used two movie references, and thrown in a hairspray related teaser to this post.  check check check and check...

Ok, on with the video. 



Below is the HD link since the film was too big for the frame on the blog format. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfepjKlnfvE&hd=1

It's not bad in the smaller frame.  Just giving you options!

Have a great week and get outside...if it ever stops snowing and sleeting.