For years I would put aside an entire afternoon to make 5 or 6 loaves of bread. I would start a day or two beforehand feeding my starter and getting it good and smelly. Now I find myself just making a loaf every couple of days. It takes about 10 or 15 minutes of hands on labor and about 45 minutes in the oven.
– Posted by Chaz
We finally got The Hub Crew up to The Lost Coast to do some mountain biking at Paradise Royale which is located about 3.5 hours North of Cotati, a little longer if you are riding with Aaron. This is an incredible 12 mile loop of pure single track designed by mountain bikers for mountain bikers. Here is a link to the trail map. Aaron, Raphy, and Sonic Yannick went up a day before Claire and I so that they could scout out the trails and arrange to have sausages on the campfire for Claire and I when we showed up Sunday night after getting our butts kicked at the shop that day. We stayed at the Tolkan Campground that night which was very quiet, and very dark. Aaron, Raphy, and Sonic were in a great mood when we arrived at 9:30, and had even waited to start eating until we showed up. That was quite a feat considering that Aaron had done the loop twice that day and that all three of them had spent a couple of hours doing some downhill runs right at the edge of the campground.
Aaron was a little worried about Sonic’s appetite since he had started gnawing on some firewood, but everyone survived.
The next morning, after a breakfast of Poptarts, eggs, and sausage. We headed out for the loop. The five of us did the entire thing with no major mishaps. The trails were very well marked, and except for some creek crossings, very rideable. Aaron and I were foolish enough to do a second loop.
– Posted by Chaz
Claire and I decided to play hooky from the bike shop today and get out for a rare weekend ride. We did a relatively flat 46 miles through Windsor and Healdsburg. Except for a flat with 7/10 of a mile left, it was a pleasant ride. Here is a link to the ride.
I just thought I would post links to a couple of good road rides that I have done recently. The first one is from the bike shop. It is a good 20 miler on some less traveled roads in the Sebastopol hills. Here is the link.
This next loop starts out in Forestville and finds lots and lots of hills as it heads out towards Occidental and then into the Sebastopol hills again. Here is the link to the ride.
– Posted by Chaz
Well, after three days of drying, the garbage bag full of hops condensed down to 13 one ounce bags. I had been a little concerned about the lack of a real pungent “hoppy” smell, but after stuffing the sandwich bags full, the aroma of fresh hops filled the basement.
I plan on using at least half of the hops in the next batch of beer. Probably start out with some Magnum hops for bittering and then distribute the Cascade hops thru out the rest of the boil.
So we were greeted with a nice little surprise from one of our customers when we returned to work on Thursday. A customer of ours had grown his own hops, and knowing of my interest in beer making, brought by a bag full.
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| Cascade hops drying in the basement |
This ride is definitely an adventure. It is perfect for a cross bike, or if you want to ride your mountain bike, pump the tires way up or get some narrower tires. I did this ride yesterday with Bill, and thank goodness he rode his mountain bike. The ride is probably around 80% on road, but it has some great singletrack in the middle which is relatively smooth compared to Annadel State Park. Make sure you are prepared for anything out there, because it is quite remote. Last time Aaron and I did this loop, he managed to rip his rear derailleur off part way through and we had to cut his chain and he rode home on a singlespeed. We met Claire in Guerneville for some great Mexican food.
This was an “organized” ride that attempted to do all of the single track on San Pedro Ridge in one day. There were around a 100 folks doing it. I rode with Handsome Jeff on our single speeds. We did accidentally cut off around 5 miles and 500 feet of climbing at the end, but both of us agreed that we could live with that. I came away with some bruised ribs and a couple of scrapes here and there from an “ass over teakettle” fall. The last 15 miles were quite difficult since it hurt quite a bit to pull up on the handlebars and when I hit bumps. Here is a link to the course.
Aaron and I went our on Monday and did this great 50 mile loop up through Willow Creek State Park. We managed to do plenty of climbing before we got there and the ride through the park was spectacular. According to Aaron’s Garmin, we were on the dirt for over 40 minutes and most of it was single track. We took turns falling off our bikes as we pushed it a little too fast on our 35mm tires.
The final climb up Duncan Road was very humorous as we both were laughing out loud, since, sometimes it hurts so bad you just have to laugh.
– Posted by Chaz
Here is a link to a YouTube video I made of this years Old Caz Grasshopper race. It was a borrowed camera that I had never used before, and I managed to turn it off during some of the more exciting points of the race. I have divided the video into 3 parts as it is quite long. I did edit out quite a bit because there was a bunch of dirt on the lens and you couldn’t see much. Here is a link to my Garmin data for the day.
As far as the race went, it was a great time as usual. Aaron, Handsome Jeff, and Eric the Fireman were out there representing Team Hub along with myself, of course. We split up pretty early on and didn’t see much of each other even though we all finished within a few minutes of each other. Our plan was to roll out like a carpet, but as usual, we all suffered considerably on the final climb up Willow Creek Road. At one point climbing Willow Creek I started chuckling to myself (since sometimes it hurts so bad, you just have to laugh), a rider next to me gave me a good scowl, so I explained I was only laughing at the feeling of golf balls rolling up and down under my calf muscles.