Foot-plus in October?

Glad I snuck a ride in Saturday afternoon before the snow came. Not really supposed to be engaging in that kind of activity yet, but the way I see it, there is less force on my ankle and less flexion than walking, and I am allowed to walk around. I went over to the Nashua River Rail Trail, which was deserted. Nice quiet 25 mile ride at tempo pace.

Saturday night sucked for us. We live on a hill in wooded area. None of the oak trees have dropped their leaves yet. Wet snow clung to them like black flies to a sweaty body in May.  We have some big ones right above the house. By 6:30pm, our power went out. Later in the evening, the sky kept lighting up in brialliant blue flashes as power lines shorted and transformers blew up.

We normally sleep with a noise machine on in the room. With no power (I didn't want to lug generator out in the dark in a snow storm), it was dead quiet in the house. Every few minutes, we heard a tree come crashing down in the forest. Some hit the ground so hard it made the house shake. I thought surely we'd have an oak tree come through our roof. Not a good sleep night.

We got the generator going in the morning and got our food cold again. My neighbor's husband from across the street is in Germany on business right now. They have no generator and just stocked up $800 food in two deep freezers. Rumor is, some areas could go five days before lights come back on. They helped my wife Cathy out a few years ago during the ice storm when I was down south cycling. I took some heat for that one. Now it was my turn to return the favor by kluging a power cord to a 220V outlet in their garage. Got their freezers and water well going for a few hours. Might be time-sharing my cheap 5kW generator for a while.

Of course, we had little gas. I drove through four towns before I found any power. A little piece of downtown Nashua has power. Merrimack, most of Nashua, Hudson, Pelham, all out. I drove down to Starbucks in Chelmsford this afternoon to find Internet access. No power. Tyngsboro is all out too. Many, many wires are down or shorted out by fallen branches tangling up the wires. I saw zero utility crews in six towns. The Pheasant Lane Mall has power.  I think this is worse than the ice storm a few years ago. Crazy.

We completely lost 4 of 6 trees in our front yard. I've been tending these trees for up to 14 years. Now we have to start over. Makes me cry.

Here's a few pics from this morning around my house.

From front step of my house.

From road

12+" of snow over night.

Down street.

Lights Revisited

My primary night riding light is an old NiteRider HID I bought about 12 years ago. The battery has long since died. A replacement NiMH battery costs almost as much as some new LED based light systems. Plus that battery weighed a ton.

Enter 2011.  LED technology has finally crossed the 100 lumens per Watt threshold. My HID was around 50 lumens per Watt and required heavy ballasting circuitry. Nobody uses NiMH batteries anymore either. They are lithium ion these days. NiMH batteries pack about 100 Watt-hours per kilogram density, while Li-ion pack more than twice that. So with the lights available today, I can get twice the lumens for twice the run time for less weight than my old system. That is a four-fold improvement just over 10 years.

I ordered a new XML-3 and updated 400L+ from DiNotte Lights this week. I was holding them my hands the day after I placed the order. Standard shipping, no charge. Benefit of buying local. Visually, the quality looks impressive. Reviews on the forums are quite positive on any DiNotte light. I spoke with Rob @ DiNotte when placing my order and he was happy to answer all my geeky technical questions.

The XML-3 and 400L+

I bought the XML-3 to go on the bar. It puts out 1200 lumens in high setting. My old HID did 500 lumens, and I thought that was way brighter than anybody needed. The new light weighs a fraction of my old light. The 400L+ will see dual use. Riding, it will go on my helmet. Rob threw in a headband mount so I could also use this light for XC skiing at night. I'd only need to run it on low in snow, so it would run several ski sessions on one charge. You don't want to look into these lights. You will see spots for a VERY long time afterwards.

I updated my metrics table from a prior post. A few other companies have updated their lights. Almost everybody uses Cree XPG or XML diodes. The XML's are newest with highest efficiencies. Performance metrics between lights vary widely. Many companies boast theoretical lumens, as in what some data sheet says is possible under some specific condition. Others will measure their lumens.

Lights to avoid are designs that push an extraordinary number of lumens per emitter. I believe anything over 500 lumens per XPG LED is asking for trouble, in terms of shortened diode life, overheating, and degraded efficiency.

You can see DiNotte compares favorably with the best. I highlighted in green the options I have to work with. I have one 2-cell and one 4-cell battery. You can see just by putting a bigger battery (2-cell to 4-cell on the 400L) on a light, you can improve the performance and cost metrics.

I would have liked the XML-1 instead of the 400L+. The problem is, the XML-1 wasn't designed for headband mount. It is tiny and very efficient. I could probably have cobbled something together, but Rob's headband for the 400L+ is one of the better headband light systems out there. I had to wear my bicycle helmet to use my HID light skiing. Goofy.

Exposure Lights boast some of the highest performance metrics in the industry. With batteries integrated right into light, they save on cable weight. Cost metrics are ok, but not best.

Generally, more LEDs used to generate the lumens raises the performance metric, but lowers cost metric. Lupine pushes this to the limit. They have the brightest, most efficient lights, but for almost $1000. The new DiNotte lights derive their high performance metric from the XML LEDs.

Could be a while before I get to use my lights. Need to let my leg get strong again. I'm walking pretty normally today on no pain meds, a vast improvement from yesterday.  My HR hasn't gone above 60bpm in three days. I was contemplating jumping on the trainer for a bit. But noooo. Apparently Dr Heaps recognized I would be Jones'n for fix before my first check-up next week. While I was in recovery Tuesday, he had a word with my wife. Cathy was instructed to block any attempt of mine to do something stupid. Bummer.

Done Deal

My hardware extraction went well this afternoon. I think I was heading back home within an hour of coming out of surgery. I was given general anesthesia, but very light dose. They gave me a nerve block behind the knee to kill any sensation from knee down. General anesthesia is risky, and deep general anesthesia takes a while to come out of. The after effects of the block suck though. Now seven hours later, I still have no sensation or movement in my lower leg. Touching my toes is the weirdest thing. It is like that limb doesn't even belong to me. Creeps me out. I have to wear my boot cast with crutches for now as a protective measure until I get my feeling back. The only pain I experienced so far in this process was finding the sciatic nerve behind the knee for the block. I laid on my stomach and they told me to hug the pillow. They couldv'e given me something to bite down on too...

Progression from fracture, to pins and plate, to no hardware.

Note large voids left in both tibia and fibula where screws came out.

In the middle x-ray image above, you can see how the two pins protrude from medial bump on my ankle. It was those that gave me the most grief. The right image suggest I may have a more normal looking medial bump when the swelling subsides. Hope this makes significant improvement in XC skiing comfort.

Titanium trophy collection. Scale in centimeters. Plate is shorter than

 I thought it would be. Pretty stuff. Shiny and very light weight. The

pins are hollow, and all screws look just like self-tapping sheet

metal screws.

I now realize there will be a little more down time than I first believed. I'm to do nothing until I see the orthopaedic surgeon in a week, when my stitches come out. Bummer. I was at least hoping to ride on the road this weekend. Oh well, I got in 13hrs of riding, rollerskiing, hiking and running last week, and I had a good 10k run this morning before surgery.

Wonder what I'll feel tomorrow when the block wears off? They gave me a 'script for percocet. Hope I don't have to use it. That is nasty stuff.

Long Live Long Rides

We had ourselves a nice little posse for riding the New Hampshire woods on Sunday. Dave, Rich, Isaac and I planned a loop around Massabesic Lake, hitting parts of FOMBA, then heading north along snowmobile corridor Trail 15 to Bear Brook State Park. A 50 mile loop though these areas only begins to tap the available number of trails. You will rarely see pavement too. No two rides I do here are the same.

Riding with a bunch of slow-twitch freaks is a sure way to get my hurt on. It didn't help matters that I did a fairly strenuous hike with my son the day before. Oh well, I needed to get my fill now, as after Tuesday, I won't be doing much of anything for a while.

The pace was lively around Massabesic. In no time, we were in FOMBA land. We opted to hit just Woodpecker and Hemlock, then check out a nearby clandestine trail. Turns out FOMBA & NEMBA have put the kibosh on illegal trails in the greater watershed area. Probably for the better good, lest we lose what we legitimately have.

We headed north along Trail 15 towards Bear Brook. Rich had a plane to catch that evening and split off. Dave, Isaac and I motored on. With the recent improvements in Trail 15, most of the easily inundated spots were high and dry. This was great after much recent rain.

Dave wanted to keep the ride under five hours, so once in Bear Brook, we had 1-1.5hrs to kill. Only the best of the best would do. Up and over Hall Mountain, then what was formerly known as the I-trail, Hedgehog Ledge (I even rode the steps this time, first time in years!), then over Bear Hill. Almost all superb singletrack.

Hill Junkie, Isaac and Dave on I-trail

Bombing down Hall Mountain at break-neck speed, my front wheel flipped up a grapefruit sized sharp rock. It nailed me square in the shin bone, "pinch-flatting" my skin. Instead of white Stan's oozing all over, red blood oozed out. F-bombs! It hurt so badly I could have hurled. Little did I know, another lone rider was sitting on a ledge overlooking Hall Mountain. He couldn't see us, but he could hear everything, including my tirade down the mountain. Moments later we came up by him. He said somebody must be having a bad day with a chuckle.

Pinch-flat in shin skin

I couldn't afford to get hurt and delay my surgery on Tuesday.  I was taking more risks than usual and hoped this was all I would escape with on this ride.  On the rock outcropping overlooking Hall Mtn, I sucked down a Clif gel with caffeine. About 25 minutes later climbing on Hedgehog, both inner thighs locked up on me. No warning. We weren't going race pace, but there was very little down time in this ride. This made me think back to Bob's comments on cramping and caffeine. This sucked, as we had another couple climbs to go and 20 miles of trail back to the car. And I didn't want to bog Dave and Isaac down. I bought a carton of these gels and they are almost gone. I will strictly stick with uncaffinated carbs in the future.

We backed down just a tad. I made it to the summit of Bear Hill without totally seizing up somehow. It would be downhill for a while from there. On Ferret, Dave nearly met with disaster. Putting bike sideways at 25mph in a rocky ATV trail will give you pause. Somebody was watching out for him. Not long after that, I got caught in a rut and nearly ate it too, going almost as fast. There was always somebody up front towing the line on this ride, and the other two were hanging on. Pace-lining on choppy, rutted ATV trails is a scary thing.

My cramping incident appeared to have been isolated. Maybe because I consumed no more caffeine, it subsided. I have significantly curtailed my coffee intake the last couple weeks, perhaps 30-50% reduction. I drink only two cups per day now, and at reduced strength (but still strong to most people). I was able to start towing the line more as we neared FOMBA land. The descent to Tower Hill Pond was a blast. I had about 45mi on the odometer at this point and felt like I could have ridden another 45. It was funny how we finessed around muddy bits heading out to Bear Brook, but on the way back, it was full-on speed fest, slowing down for nothing. We all had near biffs.

After a couple more miles of sweet singletrack by Rt 101, the ride was about over. We got back to the cars with 49mi on the wired computer. Not acceptable. I coerced the other two to spin a half mile up the rail trail and back to make it an even 50 miles. Finished with 50.2mi, about 3900ft of climbing, in 4.7hrs. One of my finest FOMBA/Bear Brook days.

51F and Sunny...

The forecast looked highly favorable for a hike in the Whites on Saturday. My son Aaron is home on leave from the Navy and wanted to hike something he hasn't done yet, maybe 5hrs/10mi kind of deal.  I've been up the Benton Trail on the north side of Moosilauke, but never the south side. Aaron has never hike Moosilauke. It is relatively easy to get to. The old carriage road path seemed like a good choice. Not too technical, 3000ft+ net gain in about 5.1 miles.

All the high peaks in the Whites were socked in when we got there. Bummer. Seems every time I hike with Aaron, views are obscured. The lower carriage road was pretty muddy in spots. There was grumbling. It was nothing compared to what came later.

Aaron a couple miles in

I hiked a moderately aerobic pace, waiting a couple times for Aaron to catch up. I wore only a medium weight Casteli jersey. I threw a wind shell in the pack "just in case." No hat, no gloves, no extra thermal layers.

At about 4000ft elevation, it started snaining (snow and rain mixed). I thought it would blow through in a minute, as the forecast couldn't be that wrong, right? But the people coming down carried ominous signs: their hats and packs carried heavy tufts of wet snow.

When we reached the ridgeline above treeline, the snow was going sideways with about 100ft visibility. A slurry of slush was building up on my bare forehead. On the bike, I thought I experienced the most intense ice cream headaches possible, but this took top prize. I had nothing to put on my head. I stopped and questioned out loud to Aaron the wisdom of continuing. We were probably less than 500m from the summit based on Garmin readings. It was slick as snot. I decided to make a sprint for it.

Aaron was horrified. "What if you roll your ankle?" Um, then I freeze to death in less than an hour? At first I thought maybe he was concerned for my well being. But then a deeper realization dawned on me. I think my son realized I was Darwin Award material. The only problem, I wasn't taken out of the gene pool before reproducing. Ponder that from his perspective.

Summit

We reached the top in near blizzard conditions. Hard to believe how mellow it was just 3000ft below. I spent no more time at the summit than needed to take a picture. Then it was a race down to treeline without splitting our heads open on snow covered rocks. It is pretty easy for me to keep my core warm, but my hands and head were a different matter. Everybody else up there was in full winter gear, and still freezing. A woman even offered me a hat.

Coming back down, near tree line. 10sec shutter from cairn.

The snow let up momentarily when the sun tried to poke through, but then came back with a vengeance. As we descended, the snow turned to a steady rain, which sucked even more. I don't descend well, and there was no way for me to go down fast enough to generate any kind of body heat. As careful as I was, my feet still went out from under me. I was lucky to miss all the pointy rocks with my elbows and pelvis.

The hurried pace didn't help my IT band issue either. It flared up with about two miles to go. Not surprised really. I was just back up to 5mi/40min runs with no issues. This was 3+ hours into a rigorous hike.

It was nice back at the car just off the Sawyer Hwy.

Looking south, away from Moosilauke.

The total hike took about 3.7hrs moving time and covered 10.2 miles round trip. The descent took 6 minutes longer than the climb. This turned out to be an epic hike. I had hoped for a more leisurely pace and to hang around at the summit for a while. The view on a clear day is quite grand.

Carriage Rd path to summit

I would love to come back to this trail sometime when it is warmer and dry and run up this beast. The trail is pretty rocky in spots, especially above treeline, but good foot planting can be had in most places. The grade holds 20% or more for a couple miles in the middle.  80 minutes to the top maybe?

Pulled the Trigger

I'm going under the knife again. This time voluntarily. I've decided to get my titanium hardware removed. My last bicycle race was a week ago. Normally I like to start getting on the rollerskis this time of year in preparation for the ski season. But I won't be doing much of anything for six weeks. My surgery is scheduled for next Tuesday.

Dr Heaps, who put the hardware in, will be taking it out. I like Dr Heaps. He understands the needs of an athletic person and appreciates my concerns and desires to get back into action.

After my first rollerski session late last week, I knew I would struggle all winter again with misfitting boots and pain. I called for a consultation with Dr Heaps. The medial screws are definitely contributing to the pronounced knob on that side of my ankle. There is reasonable probability that I will have much less discomfort in a skate ski boot after having the hardware taken out. Why struggle with this the rest of my life?

A few weeks ago, I had a chance encounter with another cyclist on the Kancamagus Hwy. He broke his ankle in an alpine skiing mishap. He had EXACTLY the same hardware put in, a plate with six screws in the fibula, and two pins in the tibia. The following winter, he had to deal with severe discomfort in a downhill ski boot. He had all the hardware removed and hadn't had any problems since. That was probably 20-30 years ago, since this happened to him when he was 29. Hearing this was kind of a deal clincher for me.

The deal with taking this stuff out is it leaves behind voids in bones. These voids create stress risers when the bone is put under force, and stress risers can lead to fractures if you are not careful. Dr Heaps does not want me doing any running for six weeks after surgery. No rollerskiing for at least four weeks, but prefers six weeks for that too. A fall on skis with a twist could set me back a year. Walking will be fine as soon as I'm comfortable with it. Same with cycling, I can get back on as soon as I'm ready, but probably not mountain biking. The screw voids need time to fill, which take about six weeks.

I was hoping to try a few winter triathlons, which start in January. I will still probably do these, but with a big lull in running and skiing, I have to adjust my expectations accordingly. I rollerskied again today, this time with some hill content. I must say, the combination of running this year and regular push-ups and sit-ups has put me in much better shape for skiing than just rollerskiing alone in the past has done.

Speaking of running, not all has been flawless on that front. I didn't say much about it here, as it gives the Buckley's out there "told you so" fodder. About four weeks ago I dabbled in trail running. I liked it. On my fourth trail run at lunch one day, I developed sudden outside the left knee pain. It nearly forced me to walk. I limped all the way back to work. The pain went away as soon as I stopped. I didn't think much of it until I ran again. I didn't get a mile until the same debilitating pain set in. I started with zero pain, than bang, just like a switch, it starts. Talking with runner colleagues and searching the web, it was classic IT Band syndrome. The trail running must have put me over the edge or tweaked something just enough.

I started icing, taking NSAIDs, and stretching. I bought a foam roller. What a torturous device! At first I couldn't do it at all. Maybe after I tore all the fibrous connective tissue loose that isn't supposed to be there, it got more confortable. I do other ITB stretches too. I was disheartened for a while. I couldn't run more than a mile or two before the pain set in. Eventually though, time and stretching worked things out. I ran 5.6mi at 7.4min pace yesterday with negligible pain. It is almost gone.

Maybe it is a good thing this happened, as I'm super tight in so many ways, and a warning volley like this forces me to deal with another aspect of tightness. Hamstrings are my historical problem area, and the IT band is closely related.

What else... Oh, I created a forum for the Six Gaps page on Northeastcycling.com. Hopefully Six Gaps enthusiasts will embrace this for sharing information and seeking out companions to do the ride with. I also created a mountain biking specific trail map for Bear Brook State Park. This is my favorite local place to ride, and the official state map has always been lacking.

That's all for now. Looking forward to holding some titanium trinkets in my hand. Thanks for reading.

Color Tour of the Whites

Saturday morning I got up early to check the weather. It looked like the last of the rain was clearing the state soon. I pulled out my old Topaz bike routes map for New Hampshire. It identifies which roads are gravel. The trails were going to be much too wet to ride, and I really wasn't in the mood for a road ride. Off the beaten path dirt roads with the cross bike sounded like a good compromise. I very quickly put together a loop in GPSies.com and loaded it into my Garmin GPS. My plan was to park in Campton, hit a few familiar climbs like Campton Mtn and Sandwich Notch, but then explore a bunch of other dirt roads I haven't been on.

It was brilliantly sunny at my house, but pretty gloomy in the mountains. Cool and gloomy was fine as long as it didn't rain. I did not bring knee wamers. It was colder than I thought at less than 50F. Oh well, I'd be climbing double-digit grades shortly anyway.

The climb up Campton Mtn from the west begins paved. About 70% of the way up, it turns to gravel and turns skyward. I saw grades of 22% on the Garmin. My less than fresh legs balked at the biggish gear I asked them to push on the cross bike. That hurt. After reaching the high point on Taylor Dr, it was pretty much all downhill to Rt 49. The few paved bits were treacherous. The road was plastered with wet leaves, which were like riding on ice without studs. There were a few switchbacks I didn't think I would make.

Climbing Sandwitch Notch Rd

Typical Algonquin Rd conditions. Gated. No Vehicles!

More Algonquin Rd

Sandwich Notch Rd was in good shape, escaping hurricane Irene pretty much unscathed. I hit this climb fairly hard too. Is there any other way? At the top I already had 2500ft of climbing logged. The descent was wet and juicy. I forgot how pathetic cantilever brakes are, especially when they get wet. Not a single car passed me while going over the notch.

There were a bunch of cars parked at the junction of gated Algonquin Rd. It is hunting season now. At least with the gates still closed, I would have the road to myself. Algonquin Rd runs along the Beebe River. Hurricane Irene was not nearly so kind to this double track road. The finer aggregate in many places washed away, leaving only larger, chunky rocks. There were washed out areas with water running across them too. This was marginally doable on a cross bike, and extreme risk of pinch flatting was continuously present. On a MTB, I've bombed this 20-25mph most of the way before. Today, I doubt I averaged over 10mph. Somebody else beat me to this road this morning though. There were freshly minted MTB tracks in the mud.

Bump Bridge

Perch Pond. I think those are Loons. Too bad the sun wasn't out

to light up the color.

Bombing back down to I-93 on Pulsifer Rd

Instead of continuing on to pavement and Rt 175, I turned left and headed south for more dirt road goodness. The sequence of roads I mapped out circumnavigates Mt Prospect, a highly scenic area of old farms, covered bridges, lakes and streams with mountains all around. The best part? I barely saw a car the whole time. This section, roughly miles 17-30 of my ride, took a toll on me though. There were many seriously steep but short climbs all the way around. You tend to push into these pretty hard, knowing the burn will stop in a couple minutes. All those deep digs added up, and I paid for it later in the ride.

A couple posts ago I commented about the need for Northern Pass,

a very high power line run from Quebec to southern New England.

This was the only pro-Northern Pass sign I saw out of many

hundreds of anti-signs. Sounds like a heated debate and it would

take some balls to put a sign like this in front of your house. Good

for them.

Crossing over I-93, I hit a dirt road climb I did once before from the other direction. It is Bog Rd. After bombing down the other side, the route passes through Rumney and begins climbing paved Stinson Lake Rd. It seemed no matter where I rode, I was always within earshot of rushing whitewater. Instead of wrapping around the west side of Stinson Lake like Dave and I did last time out here, I went around the east side, which was gravel and climbed a bunch more. I thought surely that would be it for climbing and it would be all downhill back to the car from here...

Brown Brook Falls near Stinson Lake

The descent on Ellsworth Hill Rd was anything but a descent. The two 200ft, 15% grade climbs before the real descent began about killed me. On the plummet back to Campton, a dark cloud moved overhead and it rained briefly. Timed that about right. I didn't get very wet. I could see more cells of rain to the north from the expansive views along Ellsworth Hill Rd.

Views along descent of Ellsworth Hill Rd

I got back to the car fully satiated. With over 6600ft of climbing in 62.4 miles and 4:28hrs, that was probably one of the hardest cross bike rides I've done locally. Spooky how close all three of these numbers are to my Ironcross race last weekend. Today's ride was more fun though. No stress, no flats and no cramping.


On the way back home on I-93, cars were suddenly slamming on their brakes, nearly stopping in the traffic lanes, before pulling over to the breakdown lane. WTF people. People were even getting out of their cars to stand in the highway and take pictures. Turns out there was a pretty spectacular rainbow directly behind us. I refuse to stop on an interstate unless it is an emergency. Where is Darwin when you need him?