Arenberg Forest, Paris-Roubaix

There's a road in our county, not too far from my house, that entices some cyclists and scares the living hell out of some others.  It's a v-shaped road; it starts by going down into a dip and then you climb back out of it on a pretty steep pitch, regardless of your direction of travel.

The enticing part of this road is its surface.  It is paved at either end, but in the middle, on the north side of the road, is an unpaved section.  It is a gravel/mud/dirt/rock combination that scares most guys with carbon wheels and white bikes and excites the fans of the cobbled Spring Classics.  It's the closest thing we've got to a "Paris-Roubaix" style surface, except with a nice climb,where P-R is mostly flat.

The scenery on the road is beautiful.  Not only are your wheels churning along through the gravelly-dirt compound beneath you, the sound of small waterfalls rushing down alongside the road makes it a peaceful, natural experience.

It's always a fun time riding on that road.  Sometimes when making a ride, we deliberately throw it in, either to freak some folks out or to show them what our area of the country has to offer.  Riding Brick Mill Road also reminds you that you are not as "in control" as you think you are.  If your concentration strays for even a second, you can stray from your line and the road will drop away, ejecting you into the foliage on the side of the road.  You have to concentrate and be smart when riding.

We rode Brick Mill today.  We rode down the North (dirt) section and hit the climbing on the paved side.  I buzzed down the dirt stuff faster than any of the other guys, but almost lost it and went in the ditch.  Afterwards, we did some more climbing and then rode back to the shop.  Fun times had by all.

Got a doozy of a ride planned for tomorrow.  Broke a spoke on my Dura-Ace Carbon Tubular wheels today as I rolled up to the shop, so I had to switch wheels and brake pads for tomorrow's ride.  I'm not really happy about it, but as one of my friends stated, "at least you broke it rolling back into the shop than at mile 30/50!"  That must be my payback for leading so many beginner group rides this year... bike karma, baby!

Gotta get my stuff together.  Boggs out.

Just squeezed it in...Well, I'm headed home to South Carolina for a few days.  I'm packing up the family and headed up to Clemson for a family photo that my sister, Bridget, organized for my parents' 30th wedding anniversary.  So... tomorrow, I'm packing the family into the minivan, driving down to the ATL Airport to pick up my sister and her son, and then we're trucking up to SC.

I was fully intent on taking the back seat of the van out so I could get more stuff inside, including my bike.  Since I'm picking up my sister and nephew, I guess I need to have legal seatbelts in the vehicle... so where to put the bike???  If you look at the picture to the right, you will see that I squeezed it in.  I will get a ride in on Friday morning before I head back down to Woodstock... that's for certain!

I'm stoked about riding back home.  The roads and mountain bike trails up there are my favorites.  They're the trails I learned on... I even helped build a few of them.  I can tell you where every crack in the pavement is on any one of those roads I used to ride.  It's like taking a trip back in time.  The old country churches are still there.  Some of the same dogs chase you down the same roads, until like always, they hit their lactic threshold, their barking gets higher pitched, and eventually they turn around and go back home.  When I go back there, sometimes it feels like I never left.

That's refreshing sometimes.  Everybody needs a visit like that once in a while.  Sometimes I still dream about where I want to put MY OWN bike shop up there.  If I ever moved away from the Metro Atlanta area that I live in now, I'd move back there in a heartbeat.

Another good thing about that area is family.  I've always been big on family, and most of mine is there.  As my grandparents get older, I wish I could be closer to help take care of them, as my dad did when his grandparents aged like that.  Mom and Dad are there, and so is my youngest sister and her husband.  There are people there I love and want to be around for.

There are definitely some bridges that have been burned, as well.  There are people in my life that I don't really want to be around, and some that don't really want (or need) me around.  It's my hometown.  Had I not been given an ultimatum by my former employer (and walked away from my job), I would have never met my wife, been blessed with my children, and I would have never had a lot of experiences over the last four years that have made me what I am today.  If I hadn't walked out that door and taken that option I was given, I would probably still be living with my folks and working at the local bike shop there (not that it's a bad shop... Out Spokin's just WAY cooler!)  When you leave everything behind like that, sometimes it's hard to go back.

Things have changed, but it's still home in a sense.  Definitely good to go there, but only briefly for now.  It's hard to picture my life there right now.  I've definitely made a place for myself in Georgia.  I've got a great family, friends, church, and a great job.  It would be hard to leave all that to go somewhere else.  Bottom line.  I'm happy and content with where I'm at, but it's gonna be good to get back for at least a few days... recharge the batteries a bit, you know?

I'll try to send some of my pictures from the next few days to my TwitPic account.  Gotta pack a bit more and hit the rack (seriously... an old USMC term???).  Boggs out.

For the last few years, I've been using Blogger to update my website and keep readers and friends up to date on what's going on in my life.  Because of all the Twitter buzz about #squarespace's iPhone giveaway, I decided to give Squarespace a shot to host my blog.

After a few hours of working on it today, this is what I've got.  I don't have all the finishing touches on it just yet, but it'll come with more time on Squarespace.

Oh, yeah... Squarespace... you can send my iPhone directly to the shop.  Thanks.

Boggs out.

This isn't the greatest picture, but it's a glimpse of my new ride after my last few upgrades. Kevin (my boss) handed me down some Shimano Dura-Ace 50mm tubular wheels. They are sick! Smooth riding, regardless of the giant saddle bag that I have to carry with an extra tire in it. You can definitely tell there's an aero advantage once you creep over 25 mph, too.

Last week, Kevin surprised me again. He wanted to sell his (practically new) BH Connect frame and told me to put the new Dura-Ace 7900 group on my bike! I'm not one to turn down a new product, so I installed it last Friday night. He had a 172.5 crank, so I installed it (even though I'm used to 175's) for my rides on Saturday morning, in hopes of switching it out later.

Did the rides on Saturday; 7am Beginner Ride and 8am Intermediate/Advanced Ride. The shifting was very crisp, although I think it could be a bit crisper if I trim the cable housing down a little bit. I could also definitely tell that the crankarm length discrepancy was going to be a problem... I was spinning my legs a lot faster and my legs started hurting more than usual, due to the effectively shorter saddle-to-pedal distance. Total mileage for both rides on Saturday morning was 50 miles. Got back to the shop and changed crankarms INSTANTLY.

The next afternoon, I had a ride planned from the Cherokee County Conference Center on Bluffs Parkway in Canton, GA. It was going to be around 85-90 degrees at my 1pm start time, but it's the soonest I could leave after church. Three other guys showed up: Doug, Carlos, and Baxter showed for the ride. I had a lot of climbing on the route. I don't know why I do lots of climbs like that... it hurts really bad and I'm not all that good at it. It looked a bit like this:

I knew, that with the soreness in my legs, I should probably go easy for the first several hills to save myself for the big one on Henderson Mountain Road. I stayed in the little ring for quite some time on Sunday. I hung towards the back of the group on purpose, trying to work out the soreness from the previous day's bout with the short cranks.

Some of the guys on the ride had never done these roads, and didn't know what to expect. They were rudely awakened after we rode up Hornage Rd, then turned down to ride up Damascus Road. It's a one lane chip/seal road, that winds and climbs and seemingly never ends. I love it. It's the closest thing I've got to some of the crappy old cobbled roads you see in Belgium in early spring...

As we continued, we hit Henderson Mountain Road with all we had. It's got pitches on it that are as steep as Brasstown Bald in spots, but isn't nearly as long. It's one of the toughest climbs around. I was zig-zagging all the way up, Bax got off and walked for a second, and Doug and Carlos were long gone. We regrouped at the top and worked our way back down, through the country roads and off to some more climbs.

A store stop went down at mile 30 or so. We filled up the bottles, had a snack, and continued. Rode by Lake Arrowhead's north entrance, up to Hwy 108, up Sam Nelson Road, back up 140 North to the second entrance to Sardis Circle (worse climb than the first entrance), up Sardis Road (more climbing), then back to Lower Burris Rd, Fate Conn Rd., and back in on the parkway. Total ride time was around 3:10 and 50 more miles in the books.

A very good weekend of riding was wrapped up with the group of us chilling in the parking lot enjoying a recovery drink, and Bax and myself partaking in some fine Mexican cuisine at Tecali Grille on Riverstone Parkway.

Here's my first impressions of the new Dura-Ace 7900 group:
- The right size cranks do wonders for your legs.
- Shifting is very crisp, although I need to dial the shifters/derailleurs in a bit more for more precise performance. I'm getting a little noise out of the inner front chainring.
- I LOVE the clean look of no exposed shift cables (although SRAM and Campagnolo beat Shimano by 3 years or more...).
- The cranks/chainrings are the stiffest around. There is a definite difference between the 7900 cranks and the Ultegra SL crankset I've been riding for the last 3 years. It gets up and goes.
- I didn't use Shimano's new masterlink in the chain. According to what I hear, Shimano isn't going to continue using their new masterlink. Don't know why yet, I'm just not using it.

That's all I've got for now. My eyes are about to shut while typing. I'll blog again soon... I promise.

Boggs out.

A regular to our group rides and events, and also a regular on the ATLBike.org forum, Micah alerted me to the Rose Pedal photos that have been posted from the inaugural ride on April 18th. Here's a few of some friends and customers: