Channel 3 Fun Ride and Short Track

June 3, 2006

What: Fun Ride, Bike Repair and Skills Clinic
Where: Channel 3 Kids Camp
When: 11am on Saturday, June 3rd 2006
Cost: $5 per person, $10 per family
Registration: Register at event
Contact info: Matt Soucy soucymatthew@yahoo.com 860-712-2951
or Vernon Cycle vernoncycle@msn.com 860-872-7740

Description: Come join us on Saturday, June 3rd at 11am for a skills and repair clinic along with a guided instructional trail ride of the Root 66 race course. Learn how to:

Fix a flat * Repair a broken chain * Patch a tube * Downhill techniques
Uphill techniques * Clear obstacles

Rider’s should all have a mountain bike in good working condition, a helmet, and water they can carry with them on the ride (water bottle or hydration pack). All ages and levels welcome.

We anticipate an exciting day. There will be music, a bouncy for the kids, snackbar to purchase food, and a short track race to watch at noon.
FREE BIKE!
All participants will be entered in a raffle for a free Specialized 14″ or 16″ mountain bike!
Any Fun Ride participants that are inspired to race in the Channel 3 Cross Country race on Sunday will receive $5 off their race entry fee. Check out root66raceseries.com for race time and details.

No charge for racer’s pre-riding the course Saturday!

Directions: From Hartford take I-84 to 384. Follow I-384 to end, bear right and follow Rt. 6 for about 4 miles. Turn left on Hendee Rd. Take first left onto Huchinson Rd. Take the first fight onto Times Farm Rd. Channel 3 Kid’s Camp is at the end of the road.
Channel 3 Volunteers:

Saturday, June 3 volunteers are requested from 11 to 2 to participate in the skills clinic and lead the fun ride.

Sunday, June 4 volunteers are requested throughout the day for parking, registration, marshalling, water station, and cleanup.
See Matt Soucy on arrival Saturday and Sunday to find out what spots need to be filled.

The has been posted on the Root 66 message board and the Nemba forum.

Don’t forget to promote the raffle!!! Vernon Cycle is donating a 13″ Specialized mountain bike for the raffle and the proceeds will go to the club. So buy tickets and tell your family, friends, neighbors, etc to show up on Saturday or Sunday to buy tickets.

Nerac Earth Club License Stickers

I just received the “Club” stickers for our Norba/USA Cycling licenses, also our names have been added to the USA Cycling database for Nerac Earth, Thanks to Dave Werling of Nerac/Outdoorlights.com Pro Cycling and Diane Fortini of NEBRA. If you would like Nerac Earth on you license (without having it reissued), let me know and I will give it to you.– John

More Affiliation Established

We now have affiliations with Rosso Bikes, Bikeparts.com, Mountains Plus, Beyond Carolina and Hydrapak. Remember to shop from these links, since the club will get a percentage of every sale. I am working on a few more affiliations and hopefully will have them up soon. If you think of any others that you would like, send me an email and I will look into it.

Final Sock Design

The final sock design is in from the Sock Guy. The jersey, bib and socks should be in by the week of June 19th.

Bluff Point Beginners Ride

Ride Pictures
This story goes out to our brave beginners:
Once upon a time there was a place called Bluff Point in the southern reaches of a land called Connecticut. There were scary trails and there were fun trails and there were just plain nice trails too. On this particular day we had a group of fun loving elvin mountain bikers who decided to lead the new lady elf and the super munchkin elf into the deep, dark, rocky forest. There were many obstacles to overcome, great big stinking mud bogs, smirking gray rock gardens and logs that had been exiled from the woods and left in the trail to hinder unsuspecting trail goers. As all of us experienced elves know you must be enchanted to come out the other side of the woods alive. To reach the fire road on the far side is indeed a daunting and courage laden task. Obviously our lady elf and the super munchkin elf had an extra dose of enchantment because through all the challenges, obstacles, the crazy creatures hiding behind trees, the strange smells, and eerie sounds in the forest our 2 enchanted ones made it to the other side with all their parts intact (body and bikes).
The moral of this story is – Well if you haven’t figured it out, I’m not telling. Go to the next beginner ride to see how the tale continues!
Riders: Andy, John, Mike, Chris, Nick, Dave, Tracey, Doug, Jill

— Jill

Coyote Hill Race

Race Pictures Race Video Race Results

Left home at 7:30 and headed up to West Fairlee, VT. I drove about 2 hrs then Michael drove the rest of the way while I napped. Stopped at the local convenience store to take advantage of the last “real” bathroom for a while and ran into Erin and Wonder Woman (Mary Lynn) on the way out. Said Hi while some local yokel made jokes about Pippi Longstocking (we all had pigtails).
We arrived at the race just as Doug was finishing. He said there was still some mud out there but definitely better than the last 3 races. Parked, registered and went to cheer for Rick while Michael put up the tent. Said Hi to Rob from Team Yippee, got a quick “Go Rick” in and headed back to the car to get ready to pre-ride. Course is looking pretty good, a few mud bogs that I carried my bike through on the pre-ride. It’s toasty out and I’m enjoying the pre-ride, it’s almost all single-track with 2 fire-road climbs. Head back to the start line just in time to get a quick course recap from Rick and we’re off.

Course starts climbing immediately through a soft field then hangs a right onto a fire-road climb before clicking a right into the single-track. By the time I get to the top my legs are screaming. The 1st set of single-track is incredible. Very fast and fun, decide to ride through the mud bogs this time. Mistake. My bike doesn’t like it and stops shifting. Every time I click into the easy gears it won’t settle and I can hear it keep trying to shift over and over but not actually getting to another gear. This trail kicks me out into the other fire-road climb and I grind up and back into another fun stretch of more technical single-track. As races go, this is more challenging than most. Lot’s of roots, rocks, stream crossings and the mud bogs to get through. The pre-ride was deceivingly easy, race pace is another story. At the end of the 1st lap I caught up with a guy I recognized from the Thursday night MV ride. I believe his name is Carl but John says it’s Bill, we suffer up the hill together then he kindly lets me jump into the single-track first. On the 2nd lap I decide to run through the mud bogs. After the start of the 3rd lap I realize I am out of water and I’m only at mile 11. The 50 oz bladder that I’ve been using all winter and for the last 3 races is not cutting it on an 80 degree day. Struggle through the last lap with no grace whatsoever and finish. This race was tough!

Our tent was extremely popular for this race. Thanks Michael for setting up the tent, making sure our crew had shade, surviving a great big wet doggy sneeze from “Honeybear”, explaining the Nerac logo (critical research, patents, and alerts) to the curious, and for sporting the ultra cool Nerac Earth black cap. — Jill

Woodside

Component Pictures

We had such a great time the previous ride that four of us (Kevin, Matt, Chris and myself) decided to go out for another ride. I had brought my bike back to Summit Bicycles the previous day and Josh had the wheel fixed in no time. Matt was torn between going wind surfing or riding, and in the end he chose to go for a ride, then get some wind surfing in later in the afternoon. The conference had finished around 12:30, with Matt being the proud owner of a pink Magna kids bike that was given to him by one of his clients as a joke about his passion for cycling. Now we had the whole afternoon…at least until 6:00, when the rentals had to be back at the local bike shop. This time we wouldn’t do the big climb, but explore the valley a bit. It was extremely windy, so we all had to work pretty hard. When we reached Woodside we stopped at a small market and grabbed some eats. While we were eating we saw no less than two Aston Martins and some other type of car that Matt recognized and was drooling over… I think he called it a Solo. it looked pretty wild and he said that it was extremely fast and powered by a motorcycle engine. I’m sure he will let me know later what it was. We apparently rode past Larry Ellison’s home, but we didn’t know which one it was. Near the finish of the ride, Matt wanted to take advantage of the windy conditions and go wind surfing. Kevin and I headed back to the bike shop to drop off the bikes while Chris stayed and watched Matt surf for a bit. When we got back to the shop, Josh showed us a beautiful Scott CR1 that he was assembling with the new SRAM Force Double Tap road components with lots of carbon bits. It turns out that the bike belongs to Charlie Walker, an executive at SRAM, who was in the shop. We chatted with him a bit and unbelievably he offered to let us try out his new ride, before he even tried it, what a nice guy!. Kevin took it out for a spin and remarked how nice it felt. I usually don’t like riding other bikes, other than my own since it causes all sorts of internal strife with myself and my family when I realize that I want a new bike. I threw caution to the wind.. after some prodding by Kevin and Charlie and went for a test ride. The ride was extremely smooth and flawless. The shifting is accomplished with only a single lever on each side. Push the lever until you hear/feel it click and it shifts… push it further until the second click and it shifts the other way. Very easy and solid feeling without the brake lever being all floppy/sloppy. I have a few pictures posted of the bike and components, but the pictures are not very good, since all I had at the time was my camera phone. Kevin and I had to walk back about a half mile to the hotel. On the way we were heckled at a crosswalk by one of the Velo Girls in their car, noting our nice bikes (or lack of) as we were walking back in our cycling kits…. Nice way to end the day 🙂 . — John

Kings Mountain

Ride Pictures

We were out in San Francisco, CA (actually Burlingame) for a Mark Logic Users Conference. Matt of Mark Logic thought that he would try to get a group road ride going with a few of the attendees and employees of the Mark Logic. Five of us all rented our bikes from a bike shop across the highway in Burlingame, called Summit Bicycles, while one of the guys, Chris, brought his own bike out from NJ. The bike shop was excellent and did their best to get us all bikes that would fit us. We decided to the the Kings Mountain loop, which is about 40 miles long with a big 3+ mile, 30+ minute, continuous switchback climb. The road out to Kings Mountain was flat to a slow rise so it was pretty easy going. A spoke snapped on my rear wheel, going up a slight grade about 10 miles into the ride and one of the guys, Jeff, offered to “take one for the team” by giving me his bike. Instead, I pretended not to hear him and proceeded to wrap the broken spoke around a good one. The wheel had a warp in it, but I just opened the rear brake all the way and only had a slight rub. When we hit the climb we started to spread out a bit, but we all hit the top within a few minutes of each other. No one had a computer, so I don’t know what our average speed was on the climb, but I did have my heart rate monitor. For a brief time it was at 202 bpm, but then steadied out between 195-198 bpm for the whole climb, so I would guess the other guys were feeling the same type of stress. The last part of the loop was a lot of downhill back into town via the skyline boulevard. We all agreed that it was a great ride, especially considering the fact that we had never ridden together before. I also stand in awe of the amount of will power that Jeff had making that climb up Kings Mountain. I don’t think I can ever whine about a climb again. Riders: Kevin, Matt , Chris, Jeff, Mike and myself. — John

North Stonington Classic

Race Pictures Race Results

Bluff Point

The funny bunny ride (Bluff Point/May 17th)

Riders: Glenn, Mike, Jill, John, Rick, Andy, Doug, ArchOk, I admit it – I never stopped talking and laughing this entire ride, except when I pinballed off two trees and was stunned into silence. Hmmmmm, this hurts pretty bad, take the glove off to inspect the damage. Doesn’t look bad, but getting the glove back on was horrific. Doug rides by, I can see I’m getting no sympathy so I get back on the bike and resume yapping to whoever is nearest. Andy, Glenn, and Arch ride down that crazy, sick downhill. I still have the scar on my leg from last year when Michael “nicely suggested” that I do it. Conditions are great considering all the rain we just got. A few standing puddles but mostly dry. Incredible loop this time, I think Glenn is loving the hills on this ride, everything sort of fits together and it feels like all new single-track. Everyone is riding like a star, no slackers tonight, everyone wants to get back to have pie. Well, I want to get back and have pie. And I did, a great big slice of homemade chocolate smore pie with real whipped cream and oversized chocolate chips. I give this ride 5 out of 5 stars, my favorite one this year so far. — Jill