Day 25 - Out on the ice again

I headed out to the trails on the Fells behind my house again today. I'm getting more familiar with the trails and finding little stretches of singletrack here and there. There is still a lot of ice outside, but the views are quite nice. 

Here is the singletrack to nowhere - doesn't seem to really go anywhere useful. 

And the view at the exit of the trails. 

Day 23 - indoor cycling and Day 24 - Fells Ice

Yuck - I was lazy but got a pretty good workout in. No pictures for this one!

Day 24, January 30, was a nice ride in the woods with little ice. 

Day 22 - another icy day in the woods - with a flat

I spent part of this morning going for a nice short ride in the woods near my house. The trails were icy, but not nearly as bad as they were about a week ago. Unfortunately, I pulled over a big log and then promptly flatted. It wasn't fun to fix the flat in 15 degree weather but it sure beats riding indoors.

Day 21 - does a 15 minute walk count?

It is always hard to get motivated after a good day of snowboarding, so today's rainy crap and my reticence to visit the gym did not help. 

This is a long way of saying that today might not count, since I just walked a few minutes outside with my wife Anita to meet my daughter Emilia after her flute lesson and then walked home with her. But it is was great to walk with both of them!

Day 20: A nice day Sugarbush with one exception

Today was a frigid bluebird day after a nice 5 inch drop of snow at Sugarbush the day before. I headed up to Mt Ellen with my friend Paul and we had a great time on the natural snow trails including Black Diamond, Exterminator, and Bravo. Unfortunately, our friend Mark hurt his ACL at the end of our second run down Black Diamon due to a log underfoot and he had to be brought down by ski patrol. We wish him a speedy recovery. 

Day 19- off-road snow in Topsfield

I went for a really nice mountain bike ride in packed snow at Topsfield state park this morning with my friends Paul, Rob and Matt. There was very, very little ice and the trails were riding quite nicely. It wasn't even that cold. A great day to be out. 

Day 16 - Janus is cold!

Winter storm Janus didn't bring much snow to our town, so unfortunately I couldn't get much activity in this morning reshoveling the driveway. It did stay cold all day, and I went out in the afternoon to do a hike by the Nike missile site and take a few pictures with my vintage Minolta 28mm lens. 

I love the saplings trying to sprout. 

And here is a selfie. 

Day 18 - frigidly riding on the road in fear.

I road from Winchester to Belmont to meet my friend and colleague Gary Greenberg to talk about work at Vicky Lee's bakery in Belmont. Unfortunately, my phone ran out of battery temporarily due to the crazy cold weather but we found each other eventually. 

I have to say that as I grow older, my fear of traffic increases! A car cut in front of me to make a right turn but aside from that it was pretty uneventful. Just cold...

Day 17 - two wheel drifts and dropping your phone in the snow

Well, I've decided to avoid the gym as much as possible. To that end, I explored in the Medford side of the Fells and took a few pictures with my phone of the chilly morning. It was 0 degrees when I finished !

I also made the mistake of dropping my phone in the snow. Some water got in the headphone hacl and the phone thought it had headphones plugged in most of the day yesterday! 

Day 15 - thank goodness for the snow!

After a full day of conference calls and just getting back into the swing of taking the kids to school this morning, it was hard to think about a workout activity for today. Fortunately, the latest winter storm Janus served up a good excuse to head outside for a walk with my lovely wife Anita and to do some shoveling on our driveway. It was cold, but it felt good to head outside and clear my head in the extra cold air.

Day 14 - a what a difference a few inches and a day makes!

Katie and I had a very good day at Sugarbush on Sunday. The temperatures were colder, we dressed more warmly, and most importantly, a few inches of fresh snow coated everything overnight. Not the snow event the Mad River Valley so desperately needs, but we will take something over nothing.

Here's a video of Katie getting the goods on Spillsville. There was a ton of snow in there and it was riding beautifully.

Day 12 - beat down mountain bike ride, and Day 13 - windy day at Sugarbush

On Saturday, I went for a "beat down" mountain bike ride at Land Locked Forest with my summer riding buddies. They are in incredible shape and I was suffering just to hang on. Fortunately, it is the middle of January, so I am not stressed about my relative lack of fitness!

Sunday was Day 13 of the 70 days of activity as well as Day 12 on the mountain for snowboarding. My daughter Katie and I were dressed appropriate for the day's temperatures, but not the windchill! The wind was roaring, and although it was only mid 20s outside, it felt much, much colder. Conditions were firm and we were waiting around a lot, which did not keep us warm.

The snow was a tease, as there were many flurries, but little accumulation.

We called it a day pretty early - at about 1:30 in the afternoon!

The first "standard" loop of 2014

And Day 11

There is a certain loop I love doing in the Fells. I can do the ride quickly, and it has a great combination of technical challenge and nice scenery. Today it was very slick in spots, but I didn't crash with the exception of trying to fjord some ice at the beginning. I didn't make a lot of the challenge spots, either...

And here is a "selfie" of my shadow!

O dark early in the fog

Day 10 (yesterday)

It was cold and foggy and dark. This made the riding kind of spooky - if someone had said, "boo" I would have jumped out of my skin. 

The roots were really slick, the bridges even more so, but fortunately the rocks had traction. 

Once the sun showed up, the scenery was beautiful in a stark, New England sort of way. 

A nice hike in the woods

I headed out in the middle of the afternoon to do some hiking in the Medford side of the Fells.

This hat has been hanging on a tree for a few weeks now:

I took the opportunity to check out part of the mountain bike loop as well. This shot was not taken with a tilt shift lens - just an old Minolta Rokkor-X 50mm with the aperture set to F/1.7.

This not-winter weather sucks

Another lame day at Planet Fitness. 45 minutes on the trainer, but thank goodness for Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. I'm looking forwards to a good weekend of snowboarding!

The first seven days...

I figured I better document this before my short term memory overloads and I cannot separate one day from the other.

Here's the short synopsis:

Day 1 / January 7th: Sadly, the first day on the bike is 45 minutes on the lame stationary bikes at Planet Fitness. Thank you "This American Life" for the engaging material about "The Thought That Counts", episode #514. Hilarious.

Day 2 / January 8th. Even more sad, the second day on the bike is another day at Planet Fitness. I caught up on the week's news with Tom Ashbrook / On Point. His commentary buddy, Jack Beatty, is unapologetically liberal, IMHO. Although I share his views, I think he needs to move to the center.

Day 3 / January 9. The first day of biking outside! I mounted my 10+ year old Nokian 296 studded tires on my single speed mountain bike and headed out into the woods. The paths were completed covered in large expanses of frozen, bumpy, super slick footprints. It was far safer to ride than walk. Riding on slick ice is always lots of fun - it is a 45 minute two wheel drifting hoot-fest.

Day 4 / January 10. I open my mouth and post to the Rippers email list that anyone who wants to join me for a mountain bike ride on dark, slick ice can meet me at Long Pond at 6:30AM. JD Hale takes me up on the offer. We have a great time sliding around together in the dark on the ice. He showed me some challenging trails (at least through the snow and ice) and we had a blast.

Day 5 / January 11. Meh. Third day of the stationary bike at Planet Fitness. For $10 / month, I really shouldn't be complaining. Fortunately, Ira Glass saves the day again with the "Good Guys" episode. Excellent radio. I bump the level up on the stationary bike from 9 to 10. Woo hoo!

Day 6 / January 12. I head out for a hike with Katie and Anita into the woods. Almost all the ice I rode over on the 3rd through the Medford side of the woods is gone! The trails are a mushy mess, but at least I didn't worry about hitting my head from slipping on the ice sheets. The huge mound of snow  at the entrance to the Fells near my house that was so fun to go up and over is now but a pathetic dirty mound of slush.

Day 7 / January 13. It is just a week and a day short of four months since I was on my last road ride, the Ripper 5 Notch. That ride was long and hard and ended up being 90+ miles with around 8000 feet of climbing. Today's jaunt was a short 45 minute tour of Winchester and Woburn and was under 10 miles and had only 470 feet in elevation gain. Amazingly, I actually scored 2nd and 3rd place PRs on a couple of Strava segments. Who knew? It must be because I never ride those segments!

What's 70 from the 7th?

Inspired by 30 days of biking, I have decided to start 2014 with 70 straight days of activity from January 7th. I chose January 7th because I simply never got around to starting this January 1st.

During these days, I expect to participate in a range of activities, ranging from road riding and hiking to my two favorites: snowboarding and mountain biking. I will also suffer through some silent but necessary days in the gym listening to NPR podcasts and pedaling to nowhere.

In the process, I expect to have fun and get in shape to be able to go on epic rides on my mountain bike earlier in the season than in the past. I am looking forwards to the journey!