StewStuph

This past weekend we took a trip to the mountains of Virginia. It is an area we have visited before with the Boy Scout troop, but this time we went without the scouts. I have been riding consistently again for nearly a year after I bought a new to me cyclocross bike. You can read more about that here . After more than 2,800 miles on that bike since last June, it needed some more work. The headset was pretty much shot and would not be repaired in time for our planned trip to Virginia. So Gina suggested that I get a new bike. I ended up getting a Giant Revolt Advanced 2 from Giant Wake Forest . We arrived at our rental house very early Saturday morning. 1:30am in fact. We found a place to stay that was literally steps away from The Virginia Creeper Trail . Saturday was to be a day we went hiking at Grayson Highlands State Park . We met Gina's co-workers at the park just after 10:00 am and started our hike. We have camped at this park before with the Boy Scouts but have never ...

Music is one of my loves. I am constantly searching out new music, listening to music almost every chance I get. This spring I had a full list of concerts that have now been postponed. Against Me!, Tiny Moving Parts, Deafheaven, Grouplove, Band of Horses, The Milk Carton Kids, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Tegan and Sara, Jimmy Eat World, Turnover.  Yes, it was to be a very busy spring and summer of live shows. Now I am working from home listening to music much the same way I would while I was at work. So I decided to start a playlist of songs. What songs should be added to the playlist?

Recently, I joined a group on Facebook to facilitate group gravel rides at Umstead Park . I've been there a few times before and have more bad luck than good. The first time I rode there I had a very bad cramp. Probably because I tried to do too much too early into my reintroduction to cycling. Another time, I was stung by a yellow jacket. However, with this new group, I was ready to give it another try. So I set up a ride this past Saturday. This time was, once again, a disaster. The ride started normally and we ended up having a total of seven riders. My previous rides at Umstead had excluded one trail due to it being closed. This time though, I suggested we take the trail since I had never ridden it before. I got off the preferred line, and into some looser gravel, and crashed. Not a bad crash, but I did end up on the ground. Later, as we are descending on another trail, I hit a rock and my rear tire went flat. After changing repairing the flat the ride continued. I ...

If you have been following this blog you will know that I have started cycling regularly again. In my past, I tried racing. I never did exceptionally well, but I did enjoy it. Now that I am back on a bike and getting fitter, I decided to give a race a try. I saw a notification for Buddhapalooza  and did some research. It looked like the perfect event for me to try racing again. It is set up as a fundraiser, 10 miles long (7 miles on road and 3 miles single track.) It looked like a fun, low-pressure event not so focused on winning and more on having fun. So I registered for the event and showed up to a course I have never ridden. Billed mainly as a mountain bike race, there were several other people on cross bikes like me. It was a Le Mans start, set your bike down in a given area, all the racers are fifty yards away on foot. When the race starts, you have to run to your bike and then start riding. I placed my bike close to the run start line. I think this was a mistake. By the ...

Don't let the title of this post fool you. Yes, I went riding on a new route and I had to get new tires. However, I had to get tires for my wife's van, not my bike. This past weekend we took a quick road trip to Michigan so that my wife, and my step-children, could attend a memorial service for her my wife's ex's grandmother, step-children's great grandmother. Making the twelve-plus hour drive is always easier when you can divide the driving between two people. When asked if I would go with her for what was essentially a one day visit, I agreed even though I would be missing a soccer game, which is difficult for me to accept as a goalkeeper. Then my wife had the great idea that I take my new bike and spend some time riding while she and the kids attended the memorial service. Her suggestion was for me to ride the Lansing River Trail . While I love riding on greenways around home and I am sure this trail would be enjoyable, I was hoping to take my bike on a mor...

I have heard about Brumley and was even told once that I would enjoy riding there with my cross bike . So this morning I drove 45 minutes to explore the trails. The ride started well and I was really enjoying my time on the bike. Shortly after this photo was taken, I encountered a technical, to my novice off-road experience, rocky section. On that rocky downhill section, I attempted to go down with one foot still clipped in and my other foot on the ground. Unfortunately, It was steeper than I thought I ended up going down on the rocks. I tried to break my fall with my hands, which I partially did. However, my left shoulder took the brunt of the impact. Upon picking up my bike I realized my rear wheel was not spinning. Upon first inspection, I thought my brake pads were rubbing on my tires. So I did what seemed sensible. I put the bike on my shoulder, it's a cross bike after all, I started walking down the trail. A fellow cyclist stopped to check on my condition and noticed that...

More than six years ago, after many years of not riding with any regularity, I decided to see what I could accomplish. I headed out one Saturday morning with the goal of riding the Neuse River Trail all the way to the Johnston County line and back. I ended up doing that ride of nearly 43 miles with a time of 3:08:48. Now that I am back on a bike, even though it is a cyclocross bike, I decided to try that ride again. Instead of doing it on cross tires, I took one of the wheelsets that I got with the purchase of the bike and put some road tires on, since I had no plans of deviating from the paved surface. This time my ride ended up being 41 miles and I finished with a time of 2:36:07. June 1, 2013 ride info August 3, 2019 ride info

My new-to-me cyclocross bike I have always enjoyed cycling, but when I was in high school, in the early 1990s, a friend of mine started cycling in a serious manner. I had been friends with him since we were in the third or fourth grade when we played on the same soccer team. I saw what he was doing and it looked like a lot of fun, so I followed along and bought my first road bike from him, a Schwinn Prelude, very similar to this one minus the aero bars. Up until that point I had had a bike of some sort growing up and would ride all over the place. Now I was moving into another chapter of cycling in which I would wear lycra shorts, clip in to Look pedals and ride the narrowest tires I had ever seen. I immediately fell in love with this new type of bike riding. I began riding with him and the local racing club, though I had a hard time keeping up at first, I eventually was able to keep pace with the group. My next bike would be a Trek 1400. It still had downtube shifters, ...

Well, it's been nearly a year since my last blog post . Fittingly that was about my then new turntable. Ever since I received that wonderful gift I have been increasing my collection of vinyl records. This year when the list of records was released for Record Store Day I became very excited. There were several releases which I was looking forward to purchasing. Bingo Hand Job - Live at The Borderline 1991 Green Day - Live at Woodstock 1994 The Minus 5 - Stroke Manor Rush - Hemispheres (40th-anniversary picture disc) Various Artists - Music From and Inspired by the motion picture South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut Violent Femmes - Hallowed Ground Each of the records is a special edition released specifically for Record Store Day 2019 and are limited in quantity. This is what makes this day so special to someone like me.  I started my Saturday, April 13, 2019, at 4:00am. I arrived at the first store of the day, Schoolkids Records , there was already a sub...

And zero microphones. OK, that was a bad joke, but I always think of that song when I say "turntable." For fathers day this year, I was given a new turntable. A Sony PS-LX300USB to be precise. This is the first turntable I have had since, I guess, the mid-1980's. I have been casually thinking about getting one for a couple of years. My son got a turntable for Christmas last year. Ever since then, I have thought more about it as I have bought three records since then. He will listen to the records in his room. I even went to the trouble of waiting in line at the latest Record Store Day to buy a record from Touche Amore . I bought a limited edition record from The Eradicator . Fortunately, each of those records was accompanied by a download code so that I could at least listen to the music that I had bought but had no other way to hear. The one record that I bought, that I knew my son would like, already had a legal download of, was American Football's first LP....

Well, the kids are getting older and today our eldest received his license from the state of NC. So that means our insurance will increase, dramatically. Not only that, but we are once again a 3 car family. The wife has the Kia Sedona so that we can accommodate the family of six. We still have the Dodge Charger, and last week I bought a 2016 Hyundai Veloster. Gina and I had been in discussions for a couple of weeks about the "car situation" and I had been tentatively shopping online for a small hatchback. After searching Autotrader , Carmax , Carvana I found the Hyundai through Autotrader at a local dealer . So I messaged them online to make sure the car I had seen was still available and to make arrangements to see the car and take it for a test drive. I left work last Wednesday at lunch and made my way to the dealer. After driving the car I decided it was the right price and just what I had been looking for. Gina was away on an overnight field trip so I sent some tex...

This past weekend I went camping with a Boy Scout Troop of which two of my boys are members. The adventure started Friday afternoon with the Troop meeting at 3:00 pm to make the drive, estimated to be four hours, to the mountains of Virginia. With this plan, we would all be able to set up camp before dark. However, as is often the case, drivers on the road failed to keep their vehicles from colliding. We ended up in traffic jams on more than one occasion. After the traffic, and an additional 30 minute rest stop, we arrived at our campsite, Grayson Highlands State Park , at 8:30 pm. A grand total of 5:15 travel time.By that time it was dark but we had plenty of flashlights and lanterns that made setting up camp go smoothly. Saturday was to be the busiest day of the trip. We had plans to ride bikes on The Virginia Creeper Trail . The Troop had done the same thing the year before, though I did not make the trip. We left our campsite and drove to Damascus, VA to rent bikes from ...