View from the top of Lincoln Peak at Sugarbush this past friday. I took a day off of work to go snowboarding....without the crowds. It was a good plan. They had gotten 10" of snow last week and the weather was perfect.  

Looking out my kitchen window I can see 17 other houses. This weekend I went up to my sister's house in Vermont. Sitting at their kitchen table you can't see another house. NONE. That's pretty cool. This is a picture of their barn out of their kitchen window when the sun's coming up.

10F and the sun's setting  

The River at the rock... starting to freeze 

Winter's Back and Long Trail Ale

I went for a ride on Monday in the cold. I had the day off for MLK and needed to get outside. Even though it was wicked cold(10F with 20mph winds... windchill -10F) I decided to go for a ride down to the river.

I put my 7spd wheel back on my bike.. my knees have been hurting for a while on the singlespeed. Wow... I forgot what it was like to ride a bike with gears... pretty nice and easy... until that stupid derailer started skipping and making a racket. Turned up the ipod and kept riding. I need to get back in shape to go back to the silence of singlespeeding this spring.

You know cold biking is not too bad once you get going.... as long as you dress for it. Long johns, snowboarding socks, windbreaker, all that good stuff. I'm sure I look like an alien clown when I'm riding but whatever... I was out there and it was a pretty sweet trip. Check out the pictures.
The trails are frozen now... made them pretty fast.

I had a some Long Trail Hibernator when I got home. Yummy Long Trail. Long Trail Ale was the "official beer" of RAMHADAB this year... we ordered a keg of it for the weekend. On Friday night we were heading back to the ranch from the beer store... the sun hit the keg on the way down Mt Tom in Arcadia the keg shone in the back of EP's truck like it was made of pure gold. Ah Beer. We love beer.

Oh Yeah! I heard today that Long Trail is the next beer at the Up River Cafe Beer Dinner. Those of you not in the know, the Up River Cafe is a pretty decent restaurant in Westerly RI, right on the Pawcatuck River. Once a month they hold a Beer Dinner, a 4-5 course meal with appropriate beers. Past favorites were Brooklyn Brewery and Sammy Smith Night. Of course... those of us here at Pandapas made reservations MONTHS in advance for the Sammy Smith Night. The dinners are a bit spendy, but Up River acts like we wish all businesses would... they serve locally grown produce, fish, fresh dairy and damn fine beers.
Hope to see you there!

Just some general fooling around in the backyard. The plan was to take the bike down a shoveled path and hit the 15" of snow and see what happened. Surprisingly, I didn't just go over the handlebars. I was able to ride all the way down. You can see my tire filled with snow in the picture.
Then we got out the sleds and went down a bunch, but got bored so we built a jump. No one got hurt that night, which was really a goal for the night. I was doing everything I could think of going down the hill to wreck, backwards, laying down, someone on top of me (which made me feel a little funny). Nothing would happen. I wanted a battle wound. The next day, it froze harder and I flipped over, landed on my head/neck/back and got wrecked. It still hurts. Good times.

Summer in January

I live in southern New England. That means most days in January have a high temp of 10-30F and a perpetual foot of dirty snow on the ground. The last few weeks have been in the 30-40s, and the last couple days were a full 55F.... enough to melt what snow was left and dry out the trails a little bit. Sh*t.. that's almost beach weather around here.
I went outside at lunch and sniffed that clean fresh 50 degree air.... I knew I couldn't stand being in cubeville any more. I finished up what I was working on and was able to escape a full hour early.
When I got home I took a short ride down to the river... most nights after work in January I wouldn't brave the icy-cold-pitch-blackness for anything though tonight was actually pleasant, and it was light enough out to not need the headlight until I was riding home. Man.. only three more months of winter... I can't wait for spring.

Not dark out yet 

The bottom of the dam 

Greased Up Deaf Guy's on the move.....

I've got your ipod remote..."you're never gonna catch me"...

Hose Clamps and the VitaMeataVegaMobile

I have a 98 VW TDI. I bought this car last spring to replace the last (hopefully) in our string of disposable cars. (Disposable Cars... they barely run but have new inspection stickers you can buy for $500. Sure they're cobbled together with duct tape and baling wire, but whatever.. they run, they're cheap, and it beats the h*ll out of spending $350 a month on a car payment.)

I had spent the last 4-5 years wearing out one of these cars a year, and it was getting old. I decided to get a "new" car so I started searching.... I wanted a decent diesel to run on vegetable oil.

Yeah, I'm one of those freaks. I'm not going to bore you with a ton of background or the politics of biodiesel/vegetable oil, there are plenty of other websites for that... the long story short is this: vegetable oil is 100% C02 neutral, is grown in the USA, and it is a 100% renewable fuel.

A couple cars back and a few years ago I converted an 84 Jetta to run on straight vegetable oil (See it here->http://www.geocities.com/gogetbent74/VegCar.html) so I knew it worked, I just needed to find another diesel. And yes, It smells like french fries/chinese food/donuts/fish and chips/etc.

I got this latest car off ebay, a VW TDI is pretty tough to find in decent condition. They didn't make too many of these, and people who have them hate to sell them, and if they are selling them it's because they have a billion miles on them. This one had 98k miles and was local. Anyhow... I got it last March and love it... gets 47 mpg, is pretty quick, and has plenty of room to stuff all kinds of bikes/boats/people in and on.

This weekend I had planned to install a block heater which required I drain the antifreeze, remove a bunch of factory hoses, remove the oil filter etc. At the same time I was going to install the Ts into the heater hoses so I could cobble together another veggie system later this winter.

"No biggie" I thought.......... Then I read the directions.

When a manufacturer writes a line in their directions like this (paraphrased... I can't remember the exact text): "Factory Hose Clamps may seem inaccessible and may require a spring clamp removal tool or Dremel type tool for removal" Yeah right. MAY SEEM INACCESSIBLE my @ss. I spent about 6 hours removing these things, tucked up behind the oil filter, can only be reached from under the car. I tried channel locks, needle nose pliers, vice grips, and ended up dremeling them out, all working within the space about the volume of a softball.

So, if there are any VW engineers out there: What happened to positioning parts so they can be removed with the engine still in the car, using normal tools, and by normal humans, not double jointed aliens with magic tools and a lift ?!?

Owell. I got the car back together last night and my knuckles are torn up. I ripped out all the steel spring clamps on all the lines and replaced them with normal, stainless steel worm drive hose clamps.

You can open those with a screwdriver or a 5/16th socket.

From the top of the car.

Using normal human hands.

Arggg

OMG... I plugged in my ipod this morning to load some new songs on it... and somehow all the songs got de-selected in itunes. ALL of the songs got removed from the ipod. I had to leave it at home and will probably set it back up this weekend. With my crappy @ss computer that only has USB 1.1 it will take DAYS to load all that back on there. Those of you who know me know I can't function without the ipod playing constantly.
This is going to be a rough couple days.

NYRAD Vol 1 

snowy 

Mmmm Black and Tan 

my bike 

view of the river 

talent.  

Brian walking up the hill by the dam 

NYRAD Vol 1

So I was thinking over the weekend about a winter bike festival to complement the other local festivals my friends and I put on throughout the year (RAMHADAB and FARTAB... more on those another time..)

Then it hit me... New Years Day... whats better than riding around with friends and having some beverages. NYRAD was born... "New Years Ride and Dr*nk". Quick phone calls made and emails sent. Everyone liked the idea, but already had plans..mostly recovering from hangovers and watching football. BAH! Nothing like a little hair of the dog, and we've got Tivo.

No matter.. Brian and I would kick it off this year. So.. yesterday we got up, got loaded up, filled the hydration packs with some beverages and off we rode. Instead of loading up the car and driving somewhere, we rode down the street to the local rail trail. I rode my single speed, Bri rode my 3 spd commuter. Yeah, it had snowed a couple inches overnight but whatever... we were rode anyway. Quick ride on the street, down the embankment, and off we went. First stop was at the top of the dam, cut through the woods, then back to the trail. Second stop was at the river for a 22s of the finest barley pop. We rode around the woods there for a while, slipping and sliding in the snow, generally messing around. I took a few funny pictures, then we headed back to the dam, then home for some homemade chili... yummy.

It was fun, couple hours of riding, with frequent rest stops. Didn't see anyone else out there except a couple kids goofing around too.

I didn't even have to move the car yesterday... now that's a good day.