Old Croton Aqueduct Trail and the Croton Dam

 I set out for a flat hard packed dirt ride on the trail that was home to NYC's water supply beginning in the early 1800's. The starting point was the Croton Dam seen above. As you can see it was active and quite majestic.

 The elevation of the dam was freakin high. Really high!!

 This was the fireroad that led up to the trail which runs from Croton down to NYC. I only rode down to Ossining and back.

 In the picture above you really can't see it but that the Hudson River in the background. The views were incredible. Most of the trail ran parallel to the Croton River and it was like looking into a canyon it was so high.

Pic above shows what most of the trail looked like, but as you can see by my GPS data there were a few insane climbs as well.

Singlespeed XC Xmas

I have gotten a good amount of rides in lately. It was 53 degrees on Thursday and I did 22 miles on the newer northern section of the North County trail with my road bike; a great ride! Today I rode from home and for the first time took the Cannondale ghetto rigid singlespeed into the forest. I didn't actually hit the singletrack Upper Gussy trail. Instead I rode the 2 miles from home to the fireroad. Continued on the fireroad up and over to the blue trail and then down to the boat ramp. Then back home via the paved roads. I was curious to see how i handled hills on dirt with just one gear. Not too bad. I need to try the singletrack next time.

New Route

I tried a new section of the North County Trail in Westchester today on my singlespeed Cannondale mountain bike. Its all new pavement and it is so much nicer than the lower sections of the trail. They did a really nice job designing this section with bridges and tunnels. You never cross over any roads. Next time back here I have to do more of it and on my road bike. Elevation gains are minimal which hard to find in Westchester. Actually the section I rode went from Carmel to Brewster which in Putnam County. I hear it connects and runs all the way up to Columbia Cty.

Its Cold Everywhere

47 degrees in Florida for Mike......

and about 20 degrees this morning for me. This was about the coldest I have ever felt out riding. I did about 45 minutes on the road bike and it was brutal. My face and head were frozen even with the balaclava. I think I need to get a thicker one for temps this cold. My ride was pretty lame in terms of mph and distance. I just didn't want to go that fast because the wind just hurt too much. Crazy!

2012 Events

Race and ride schedules are starting to come out. So far I am looking at the following 3 events for the spring

April 7th- XC Race- Bunny Hopbrook at Middlebury CT

April 22nd- XC Race- Winding Trails at Farmington CT

June 10- Century Ride- Tour De Cure New Haven CT

I'll be racing CAT3 for XC races hoping to be at mid pack or better. Winding Trails is where I finished 6 out of 11 in the First Timer category last year. Knowing a bit about the terrain and some of the mistakes I made I hope to improve over last year. I also have a more structured plan with more volume and a purposeful base period.

Tour De Cure is a charity road ride for diabetes. There seems to be a lot of these fully supported non-competitive charity rides around and the dates works well for me. This will be my first century. I'll have a full 7 weeks between the last XC race and this century. Plenty of time to shift gears and prepare for lots of road miles.

OK bruthas, lets see your 2012 planned events!!

Another Newtown-Monroe 20 miler

Early morning road ride. 31 degrees and a beautiful sunny day. I am trying to get lots of easy to moderate road miles in as a base in preparation for the mountain bike race season. I am also doing the Friel Cycling Bible Book's weight training program. I am feeling stronger and 20 miles doesn't feel nearly as much as it did a month ago. Today was a little tough in the motivation dept because of all the eating yesterday but I never doubted being able to handle this ride confidently. 

Heart rate data is not accurate because it wasn't registering for the first 15 minutes.

Florida Cold

QUOTE OF THE DAY

You don't stop riding when you get old, you get old when you stop riding