Friday and whatnot...

Well its here...

Good ole' Mr. Friday.

Bout time too. I was having a not-so-awesome week so hopefully these few days off will chase away the funk I've been in rolling in for the past few days...

Sometimes the not-so-awesome things in life have a tendency to pile up on you and this week I experienced much piling of disappointments and funk causing incidents...

Phase one of funk:

Not this kind of funk....

My most favorite mountaincycle tires ever have been placed on back order. This means that my Canfield Bros. Yelli Screamy, aka Thelma Lou, wont have any "meat on the ground" until mid December. Yeah its a bummer but to me they are essential to make awesome mountaincycling in the forest. Worth the wait...

Insert Silver Lining: This means that I'm "forced" to ride Charlene Darling until then... or my crossgravelcrossbike aka Aunt Bea. Not having a light-ish/fast-ish hard tail mountaincycle to ride will make me stronger and better for it. Hopefully

Phase two of Funk:

Nor' this kind of Funk either...

After learning that my most favorite mountain cycle tire of all time would not be in my hands until December I decided to chase the funk away by going for a nice gravelcrossgravelcycle ride on Tuesday. My new crosscrossgravelgnarcross tires showed up on Monday which boosted my spirits a little. I had to get out and see how they rolled. Its been dark as shit every night when I try to ride so we're in full night ride mode on all my weekday excursions. However, my boosted spirits were soon squashed when I realized the my light charger no longer charges my batteries. So I was left with 2 half charged batteries. No prob though. Grinding gravel roads doesn't require 1000 lumens and I could easily get my ride in on what little battery I had. 

I couldn't find anyone to join me so I took off solo from Rice Pinnacle Trailhead at Bent Creek. The plan was up Rice Pinnacle Road to Ledford Branch to Bent Creek Gap Road to the Parkway (sufferfest climbing) back down to South Ridge Road to Hard Times Trailhead to Powerline Connector back to truck, Fairly ambitious after work ride but I had all day and I needed the exercise and the boost in morale that cycling gives.

About the time I passed South Ridge Road going up toward the Parkway I became extremely aware that the shifting of my gears sucked. I stopped and investigated. My rear derailleur was a little askew and as I attempted to straighten it... SNAP!

The derailleur fell into my hand.  Broken hanger... Damn.

So there I am 5-6 miles from my truck, no chain tool to convert Aunt Bea to single speed so I could at least pedal out, dark as hell, very little battery in my light, wearing stiff-as-hell SIDI mountain bike shoes...alone. 

Enter the funk...

Definitely not this breed of funk as well...

So I put foot to road and started walking out.

Thankfully it was fairly mild and I had brought a long sleeve base layer for the cold descent down from the Parkway. Also thankfully the road back was a good mix of up and downs so I could at least coast on the bike going down the hills. I had zip tied my derailleur to the frame because the only thing worse than a broken derailleur hanger is when your derailleur is flopping around and decides to hug your wheel spokes at high speed coasting down a hill. Bad times.

After a long walk (and many people passing me without asking if I needed help) I made it back to the truck. I was a little pissed because if I saw a person pushing a bicycle way the hell out Bent Creek Gap Road I'd at least stop and ask if they were OK. This sort of behavior was almost never seen on the trails in my old stomping grounds. I guess Charlotte riders are more friendlier than Asheville riders. I am starting to see evidence of this more and more unfortunately. I have found that AVL riders aren't as quick to be helpful, let alone friendly with random strangers on the trail as were my friends back in Charlotte.  Its a bummer too because having such awesome riding surely would create awesome riders both in skill and in attitude. This seems not to be the case.

Im sure David, Burton, Tom, Emily, Mike and all the others wouldn't tolerate this behavior and so I suppose its up to me to set them straight. Douchebaggery shall not be tolerated on any trails where my tires roll... 

Phase three of Funk:

This funk is not the same as well...

Its getting stupid cold here in AVLUSA.

Not that I have any control on this whatsoever but it still sucks. Riding bikecycles in sub-freezing temps is not fun. Its fun riding but it really puts a hurtin' on motivation and my desire to get fit-as-hell for 2015. When its colder than Hoth outside apathy and laziness creep in.

So lets recap:

 -5 week back ordered tires

- Bike light charger and or batteries suck and I have to buy new ones.

- my attempts to ride my bikecycles are squashed by unforeseen forces of a mechanical nature.

- It's cold.

This may sound alot like childish complaining and yes I am on both counts. I have alot of "First World Problems" and in the grand scheme of life on this planet I am still 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 times better off than many people. At the end of the day I still have a beautiful wife, a roof over my head, shoes on my feet and a Lil' Debbie snack cake stash that K.A.W doesn't know about so life is good...

I just have to take this funk and shake it off...

Booze & Tunes:

I have already treated you to a menagerie of music in this post so lets just get to the booze... how 'bout it?

Its cold and this only means one thing... Stouts.

Last Saturday after doing much home improvement I treated myself to Samuel Smith's Organic Chocolate Stout. 

If your into super duper chocolaty stouts than your sure to enjoy this one. It was gooooooooooood.

So there ya have it folks. Go forth and get rad this weekend. 

Stay warm...

The weekend that was...

Happy Monday ya'll...

Hope that this past break from work was wonderful and you raised all kinds of hell and did some memorable things and that Facebook's servers exploded due to the amount of awesome you attempted to post...

Things were actually pretty tame around Greenview Manor the last few days. K.A.W and I have pretty much been go, go, go since our nuptials a few weeks ago. So facing a weekend with literally nothing to do... we made a list...of things to do. This list was comprised of various and sundry things of mostly a "home improvement" nature...

Luckily for me, K.A.W follows my mantra that "All work and no play make Banjo go something, something..." That something is ill and in need of forest fun out in PisgahGod'sCountry, USA. So we came to an accord, and with that the Great Compromise of 2014 was signed into action...

"K.A.W will have Banjo for unlimited housework as long as he is allowed to play in the woods for at least some of the day."

 C.A 2014 et. al. and so on.... 

The plus side is the K.A.W works a 5 day week and I only a 4 day week. This leaves me with all of Friday to do as I wish. Now this is a double edged sword... Do I expedite Saturday's radness and knock a chunk out of the list on Friday while she is at work? Or do I get rad on Friday and save Saturday to do all the chores?... hmmmm..

Friday:

Well I bunked off house work and went for a road ride up on the Parkway....

It felt great to get back on the road. I havent done a proper road ride in a while, and with so many fast, twisty descents, panoramic views, and leg-exploding climbs AVLUSA is really a roadie's paradise. I dont know if you count 28 miles as a "proper" road ride though. I like to hit at least 30 miles but my time was limited and hopefully I made up for it with all the climbing I did.

After that it was off to the bank to do some financial-adult things. This whole "legal union" requires an absurd amount of bureaucracy...

But after being adults for an hour K.A.W decided we'd had enough of that. So we shook it off and headed downtown to attend our first of hopefully many, Free Dead Fridays at the One Stop Deli.

Dancing and a singing and a carrying on...

Local Grateful Dead cover band Phuncle Sam hosts a free show every Friday at the One Stop and K.A.W and I had to get our Dead on and check it out. The boys did not disappoint and we danced around to "Bertha", "Fire on the Mountain", and a like with a bunch of other Deadheads and it was great. Best way to cut loose after a long work week is a couple beers, good music, and good people...

Saturday:

Housework.

Off to Lowe's to get all manor of materials, tools, things we do or dont or might need but we might not, and "hey do we have this?" and "hey what about this?" 

Its great fun to improve one's home but sometimes the preparation is harder than the task...

Before we even began we had to fuel up at our newest neighbor... the Whole Foods Market. Hotbar was calling our name and even The Goose got in on some Hotbar action...

"I can haz Whole Foods?"

I'll save you the boring details and how many times we had to go back to Lowe's but at the end of the day we ended up with a new sink faucet, a better bikecycle storage situation, and our guest bedroom is now free of wedding stuff. Plus I bought materials to build a shelf. Boom! 

Sunday:

Woke up late with plans to hit the trail. Its been a long time since K.A.W and I did a big day hike. Its something we both have been sorely needing and a little woods time does a body good. Plus according to "The Great Compromise of 2014"... it was obligatory and binding.

We set out to do a classic trail up in Montreat, NC. The Greybeard Trail is an old standby for quick hikes that dont require much planning. We had hiked Greybeard many, many, times. This time however we'd be summiting Greybeard and returning via the West Ridge Trail aka "Seven Sisters", 

Greybeard can put a hurting on you if your not careful. It starts out mellow enough but the closer you get to the top the steeper and rougher it gets. Its important to be prepared...

Dynamite Coffee is mandatory when summiting mountains...

approaching the summit...

We made it up fine (despite a near loss of The Goose when she pulled loose from her leash) and before long were basking in the mountainy goodness on the summit.

Heading back down the West Ridge Trail gives a unique vantage because your literally walking a knifes edge with Montreat to the left and the North Fork Reservoir to the right. Its pretty cool to have that much vertical fall on either side of you. The Bear and The Goose seemed pretty stoked to be out.in.it and so were their owners...

The Goose getting after it...

After it was all said and done we ended up around 8-9 miles and a couple thousand feet of elevation gain. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday...

Plus I got to try out my "seasonal socks"

...if Wal-Mart can put out Christmas stuff before Thanksgiving then so can I...

Have a spectacular Monday folks.

Fridayz

Hey gang,

Hope your Friday has started off with a jovial sense and that it goes quickly to expedite the radness of the weekend to come.

Things have been pretty mellow 'round Greenview Manor since Wednesday. Work, work, sleep, work, banjo, mountaincycle, and now typing on my computer.

Thursday night's ride was a short one. I met up with the the folks I've been meeting up with and we dispersed into segregated groups of gravelcrosscycles and mountaincycles. I was back on Charlene Darling so with the mountaincycles I went. Up Ledford Branch, Ingles Field Connector, right on Ingles Field, Down Wolf Branch, blah, blah, bluh...

It was fun to just pedal around not trying to crush it. I cut out early to make it home for K.A.W's awesome cooking. For those who dont know, K.A.W has been fitcrossing it at her gym, LT's Primal Fitness, for a very long time now. She is in crazy good shape and in order to keep the fitness strong she has been practicing the ancient art of eating healthy shit and getting her Paleo on for as long as she's been fitcrossing.

The Paleo Diet is different from other diets because it allows you to eat a normal amount of food. It doesnt so much restrict portions as it restricts tasty processed and sugary delights like my beloved Fudge rounds... among other things

tasty delights...

A basic breakdown is these are a No No on Paleo:

- Processed Sugar in any form

- Junk food (like fudge rounds)

- No Grains (Wheat, Barley, etc.)

- No Legumes (beans, pnuts, etc)

- No Dairy (Milk, Cheese, etc.)

- No Alcohol (yeah right hahahahahahahahahahahaha)

- Drink at least 64oz of water a day (I added this one because it works great for me)

I have to say that I havent gone 100% cavemandiet yet but I'm about 75% there. I still eat P-nut butter sandwiches on whole grain bread, beans, and of course Beer. I mean Beer is "Proof that God loves us" and It will be a cold day in hell that I dont drink a cold beer after a mountaincycle ride or vigorous landscaping session here at Greenview Manor.

That being said I have almost totally eliminated dairy, junk food, and processed foods from my diet on all but the rarest occasions. K.A.W and I like to allow ourselves at least one cheat meal/day a week because if Beer is "Proof that God loves us" then pimento cheese is proof that God not only loves us but he has clearly selected us the chosen few by giving us this ambrosia from heaven. I mean seriously... its amazing.

However, aside from our cheat days I can honestly say that good clean living has been working for us. I feel better, sleep better, wake up ready to go, and overall have a much more pleasurably disposition. 

This diet coupled with my fitness goals for the Winter will hopefully get me where I need to be come next spring... Destroying mountains on my mountainbikecycle and generally enjoying life much more.

Now...

Since it is Friday you know that it is time for your Booze & Tunes...

Your booze for this weekend is one of Asheville's Favorite beers. Proudly brewed in town by Highlands Brewery. The Cold Mountain Winter Ale hits the streets pretty soon (11-17-14) and usually goes quick.

You know the beer is good when it makes the newspaper.

I'm not a big fan of Highlands' Beer, That sucks because its only a 10 minute bikecycle ride from Greenview Manor. However, Highlands has done good with this 'ern, This beer is good and If you can find it in your neck o' the woods get some and drink it.

Your tunes to make it all better this weekend is this classic from The Allman Brothers Band. The best part, aside from the music, is the awesome clothes and mustaches.

For those that don't know The Allman Brothers Band has hung it up and will not longer be performing as a band. The band rocks and I suggest you jam out to some ABB this weekend...

So go drink some Cold Mountain, grow a sick mustache, and have a fantastic weekend!

See ya folks.

and the darkness consumes me...

Well hello there...

Midweek action is on in full blast mode and its not much to discuss.

K.A.W and I have been chillen out at Greenview Manor since returning from our whirlwind weekend. Monday, chores and whatnot got taken care of and I sat around pickin' banjo while K.A.W hit the gym to work on her fitness. 

Speaking of fitness... I have made the determination that I will NOT let the damp, dark winter get me down both emotionally but also fitnessly. Winter is hard on outside folks like us. Short days and cold temps lead to apathy about getting rad in the forest. You kinda gotta force yourself to "suck it up and hammer down!". 

I dont understand Day Light Savings. I mean, I know why we have it or at least why it was implemented but to me it really sucks. And for crying out loud, Arizona and Hawaii dont recognize it! What do people driving across the border into AZ have to do? Change their clocks every time they enter "The Copper State". Crazy. Although Arizonians also voted not to celebrate MLK day... I mean if your racist then thats your problem but to give up a free day off work!? C'mon AZ... get it together.

The only plus side of DLS time is that now my bleek, dreary, drive into work that is normally void of all light is now tinged with the orange glow of dawn. Its pretty swell seeing the sun come up over my beloved mountains every morning...

"Just give me a Mountain and nothing to Dew"

The flip side of that is it is pretty much dark by the time I get home. Bummer.

However, my goal of emotional and fitness-al positivity will not die this winter. Im planning some big things come next spring and I need my mind and body to be on a level never before obtained.

First step is getting the stoke level going strong with some fun night rides. 

Yesterday I hit Bent Creek for a mellow solo ride on my backup mountaincycle affectionately called Charlene Darlene. Charlene (Santa Cruz Nomad for you bike nerds) is 31 lbs. of mountain crushing, gnar shredding, soul crushing on the climbs... beast. Believe me, I feel every ounce of that 31 lbs. on climbs. Ever since I switched to a hardtail back in the spring, Charlene has been neglected. But now thanks to a lack of tires on my HT, which hopefully will be coming soon, Charlene is back in rotation. Its actually good for me to pedal a chunky gal like her up the mountain. It does nothing but expedite my fitness goals and plus, she has 6" of mountain shredding travel. This makes for super fun times going down hill. 

non-driveside photo...at night... on a hill.
pro as shit.

Plus, again, thanks to my current work situation, Charlene comes equipped with the best in mountaincycle suspension technology...

DB Inline... go buy one now... Do It!!

The ride was great and I'm starting to get used to night rides again. Its always a little sketchy hauling ass down a mountain on a bicycle at night. I might to need to upgrade my light source soon...

Anyway,

You've all wasted too much time screwing around on the interwebs. Back to work! All of you'ns!!

Happy Wednesday.

Straight outta AVL!!!

Crazy mother trucker named Banjo....


Hey folks,

Weekend recap will be a little short today. As I'm typing having just returned from a whirlwind trip around the state (well sorta) and I'm wore slap out.

Here we go...

Friday:

Started out with a nice mountaincycle ride with some dudes from Charlotte. They needed some help getting showed around, and up, and down Bent Creek so I obliged them. Ended up doing a nice 15 miler or so and taking advantage of the sun before Wintersnowapocolyptalsuckfest 2014. Rad times were had by all and I'm sure I wont be seeing the last of them at BC...

Morabito gettin' er' done' on a log pile... with only half a fork too!

Blurry gnar gnar of yours truly...

"Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me free candy even though I never asked politley nor dressed up for the occasion...oh and Im 17 years old..."

What happened to Trick or Treating? The festive holiday of giving out large quantities of sugar to strange children dressed in costumes... when costumes were mandatory? Apparently that's not the case any more. Dont get me wrong, plenty of kiddies dressed up, asked politely "Trick or Treat" and were rewarded with many a "fun size" candy (on a tangent the "fun size" is not fun at all nor ever will be. Whats fun about less candy... a Butterfinger the size of a cinder block??... now thats F'n fun!). However, many "children"... I say with quotation/rabbit ear finger thing in the air..."Children", because many seemed to be 15+ years old and didnt have any semblance of a costume on at all... WTF?

Trick or treating is over at 13. Done. 14 year old's and up should be out making mischief and trying to score beer at the local gas station like normal High Schoolers. Get it together Millennials.

All this aside not a "child" was turned away and they all received a maximum of 3 pieces of candy. Despite the rain and cold, Halloween at Greenview Manor was a success...

A special thanks to Mom and Dad Morton for assisting us with the handing out candy to the chilrun...

Papa Mo' showing us Trick or Treating is hard work...

After that it was a few more libations and off to bed.

Saturday:

We awoke to find the Wintersucksnowapocolyptalsuckfest 2014 had exploded all over Greenview Manor. And, much to my chagrin there wasn't nary a drop of milk or crumb of bread to be found inside...

Never the less we endeavored to persevere. So The Bear and I set out on foot to face the great white menace head on... much like the brave mountain men who carved their lives out of the rhododendron and laurel a hundred years ago... Or simply put... we went hiking!

The Bear enjoying the snow...

I always take advantage of snow to get out and put on my expensive winter gear that only gets used a few times every season. However, now that Im full timing it up in the hills, expect to see many more posts and pics of me doing dumb things out in the cold.

After we returned, K.A.W and I headed down the mountain to for some family time down in the flatlands. We had to attend an old and dear friends baby shower. The best part is that these folks know how to throw a damn baby shower! Ice cold beers flowed like snow melt off of a seventy pound Labrador and we all reminisced about olden times and made plans to have more future times.

Sunday:

My nephew/greatest human on planet earth was being baptized and I wouldn't miss this for the world. Im an Episcopalian so our baptisms are a little different than most folks... Its very much like this...

In all seriousness it was great and awesome to see my family. I dont get to see them near as often as I like but thankfully they're just a few short hours down hill.

After the christening, It was off to Mooresville, NC, USA for a bridal shower for our dear and close friends Shawn and Tiff who will be nuptualizing it in a few weeks. It was fun to meet their folks and they were showered as good as it gets. Once the showering had ceased it was back up to AVLUSA and home...

I hope you all had a killer weekend and here's to Monday! may it lead to Tuesday, and then Wednesday and so on and so forth until whenever... 

whatever...

Talk at ya later...

Flats, Friday, and Freaking snow... tires too.

Friday!

well hello there...

This will be brief cause its Halloween and I have 11354 pieces of candy to eat before K.A.W gets home. I also have chores and a bike ride to attend with some Charlotte dudes. Cant be late cause Im playing tour guide and its alot of woods to show around.

Its also supposed to snow like 23 feet here tonight so theres that... I almost forgot I was living in the mountains until it went from 70 degress to 30 over night and now its supposed to snow...on Halloween...great...

I went for a ride last night with some work folks. My mountainbikecycle is still off line so I had to ride the crosscyclebikecycle. I had torn a hole in the tire bead of my mountaincycle on last Thursday's ride/run and its not worth repairing so these are on the way...

Add caption

Maxxis Ardents. A good, decent tire. Nothing too aggressive but likes to get rowdy.

So last night I wasnt alone crosscycling around Bent Creek. A few of the other folks brought their crosscycles to ride and it was good clean fun. But!... I flatted twice on the same ride. This makes me 2 for 2 on Thursday night rides and 3 for 4 on flatting the last 4 times Ive ridden the crosscyclecrossbikecycle. So after determining that my Kenda small block 8's arent enough for the gnar of Bent Creek gravel roads (HA!) I have a set of these on the way...

WTB Nano race crosscyclecrossgravelbikecycle tires. They come highly reviewed and look to be tough enough for the super gnar gnar of light duty gravel roads... I hope. 

Something I would really like to do is go tubeless but K.A.W and my savings account doesnt like the idea of dropping $500 on a set of tubeless wheels... So we'll see how these bad boys roll and hopefully this will lead to flat-free cyclogravelcrosscrosbikecycle fun.

In other news...

Halloween is tonight so for in honor of it and/or because of it here is your Booze & Tunes for this day...

I have it under good authority that this actually works and delivers pumpkin beer to your face quickly. Now, the person who told me this was yelling at a fire hydrant downtown and had leaves in his beard but he seemed legit...

Seriously its Halloween. Just drink something good and hand out candy to strange children. 

Musix for today will be a sampling of what we will be blasting out of the house as small children and their parents approach our home to receive candied treats. K.A.W wanted "The Monster Mash" but nothing says "satan's favorite holdiay" like some Dave Mustaine... So crank it to 11 and rip...

IHappy Halloween and have a rad weekend!

Random stuff...

Last Sunday I ate an entire medium pizza and half a box of chocolate chip cookies.  This is irrelevant to everyone but me. However, the side effects I have been experiencing are quite interesting. This led me down the rabbit hole of cycling nutrition, human physiology, and guilt tripping over bad food decisions...

http://www.bikerumor.com/2014/10/24/physiology-and-nutrition-your-gut-is-an-alien/

I get most of my health advice from cycling websites. who needs doctors. HA! bunch of quack sawbones telling me what not to eat!

However, I have felt like crap since my dietary sinning went down and I plan on exploring this more in depth. K.A.W is already "drinking the Kool-Aid" of diet v. brain feelings and Im on my way. I think its time to get back to eating well, riding like a stole it, and generally attempting to be as awesome as possible in every facet of life. Advice on how to accomplish this is appreciated...

On an unrelated topic it appears the the beverage of choice for many a dirty Southerner now comes with the flavor enhancement of anti-freeze...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/28/frathouse-favorite-fireball-whiskey-recalled-in-europe.html

Something that is that tasty, and gets you inconceivably intoxicated had to have some automotive chemical in it right??

On another unrelated topic, I rode my cycling-cross bycycle yesterday. This was an attempt at regaining my past glory of early summer. From the way I felt climbing up to the BRP yesterday its going to be a long row to hoe...