Buying a Full Suspension Bike

After ten minutes of internet research, the inside of my brain kinda looked like this. 

So you’re thinking about buying a full suspension bike.  Maybe you’ve been riding a hard-tail for a few years now, and have worked up the courage to conquer some drops, dips and other more technical terrain.  Maybe you’ve decided you have way too much money lying around.  Or maybe you’re just tired of coming home from Leominster feeling like you’ve been kicked in the ass all day long.  Whatever your reasons, if you’re like me, you probably need a road map to navigate what seems like a foreign language of parts packages, bike names, and bike styles.

The Green Mountain Showdown

If you like mountain biking and photography, boy do I have something for you.

Last weekend, before the unwelcome arrival of Irene, five photographers duked it out for the right to be the winner of the First Annual Green Mountain Showdown.  Okay, maybe it was less of a fistfight, and more of an artistic display, but you get the picture.

Each photographer was charged with putting together a portfolio of work to represent Vermont bike culture.

While only one winner was named (Bear Cieri), we all kinda won with five stellar collections of mountain bike photography.

Check out the stunning final slide shows here.

Thoughts on Road Biking in Boston

I think I see Massachusetts plates.

If you haven’t figured it out yet.  I can’t stand road biking.  It’s not the lack of suspension, thin tires, awkward body positioning, or spandex shorts that I can’t stand.  Frankly, the ten pounds you shave off a road bike is worth these indignities.  I can’t stand road biking because it takes place on roads, where inevitably I will find drivers.... Boston drivers. 

Kingdom Trails: Numbers (August 21, 2011)

Cowpath or Bike Trail? 

Four hours. Three thousand feet.  Thirty miles.

Those are the cold hard numbers that can't begin to convey the more meaningful experience of exploration, exhilaration and downright joy that I found on my third trip to Kingdom Trails this year.

Beyond the Minuteman: Whipple Hill (August 2011)

A Fells-ish spot at Whipple.

I was upside down, completely underwater and with my bike on top of me. Despite the thought of being trapped, I found it hard not to laugh at my predicament.

It was the summer of 2008 and I was biking the Nanamocomuck trail with a couple friends who had gotten far enough ahead of me to be out of sight.  “The Nan” was a wild trail, littered with blow downs, running along the Kancamagus Highway.  A long section of the trail ran atop an elevated berm with occasional water crossings. The first few of these crossings were only inches deep.

-Trip Report- North Tri-Pyramid Slide (February 2009)

A glimpse of the slide.

There is a serene beauty that envelops you on a winter night in the mountains: a clear sky, a fresh foot of snow softening your surroundings, and the silence of a hardwood forest asleep for the winter.  These are the peaceful memories that sustain you during a stressful day at the office.  It helps however, when you edit out the “port-a-potty on game day” smell of the inside of your tent.