Fat Chance Yo Eddy 69er Mullet

While walking P-Valley with the State's Land manager, James Beschele, I shot a bunch of pictures of this mountain biker coming down the red trail. It wasn't till I downloaded the pix and wanted to get a closer look at the bike that I noticed it was rigid. The next thing I noticed is that it looked like it had a bigger tire up front! What's this? A Fat Chance Yo Eddy 69er and mullet to boot - disc brake up front and a V-Brake in the rear.

I know this bike! I was talking to the owner earlier this year when I noticed another rigid riding brother. After checking his bike out, I noticed that he was running it mullet style with a Surly 1x1 fork, so I suggested that he put a 29er wheel on it because it will fit perfectly. Looks like he did it! I don't recall the owner's name but I think he lives in Trumbull.

Here is a sequence shot of him after crossing the stream.

Bike (Race) Porn: 29ers and 69ers

In front of the the green Surly 1x1 (rigid single speed 69er) is a Cannondale 29er. The Surly is what I want for my next 69er. I like the green but would really like one in Orange.

To the Lake and Back

Yesterday's ride at Upper Paugussett might have been the longest I have done in the State Forest to date. It lasted 2.5 hours and I covered 8 miles! I hit just about everything include the Brody Road climbs, Upper Gussy, the old road that turns into Al's Trail, Al's Trail, and Mulikin Trail. I did the whole ride on my Fetish Fixation, which is a single speed and has a rigid fork. So, I felt every bump and was tested on every climb. Still, like the 29er, the 69er performed flawlessly.

Still can't tell whether there are fresh ATV tracks entering across from Silver City or not. I thought I saw fresh tracks entering the yellow trail, though. I think I am going to have to ride the horse trail to see where the tracks lead. When Tom and I walked in that way earlier this spring there wasn't any apparent damage from the ATV over the winter.

Started out on the Brody Road. Cleaned every climb up the Brody Road till the Upper Gussy Trail Head. In fact I thought it was pretty easy on the Fixation. It's all in the rigid fork! Rolled everything that I have been doing on the other bikes, when it comes to the stunts along the trail. In fact, I found another roller right off of the bucket. It appears there might be an old skidder path heading up the slope. Follow that for a couple of yards and then turn southwest and keep some rock outcroppings on your right and you'll come to this one.

I rolled it for the first time on the fixation and it was a lot different on the Fixation, in fact I think I would have preferred some squish because of the roots near the tranny.

Next to that one (on the left) is an even bigger one but I will save that for the Qball or the 'Horse.

Headed down the old road to the lake because I wanted to find where those kids were swimming and I think I found it. However between the The Beach and the trail there is a cut that I couldn't quite figure out. It's too wide for an old rail road and where would it have gone? Was someone trying to connect the Shepaug Line to the Main Line that went through Hanover North and Sandy Hook Station?
It seems too high up for it to have been a re-routing of the Housatonic for the construction of the Shepaug Dam so I have to think that it was another road. I will have to come back when the power company drops the lake in the fall to see where this goes.


A couple of rides ago I passed by what I thought were three high school kids walking up the Old Road with towels and I figured they were swimming somewhere on the shores of the forest. Well, I think I found that swimming area today. Found this little bench someone made from driftwood which overlooks the The Beach. It's not a true beach with sand, it's just not rocky and it stays pretty shallow for a while.

There are some nice views from this section
Below you are looking up river

Here The Beach is in the foreground and you are looking over at George Waldo State Park

Through the trees you can see the Shepaug Dam

Here is a close up of the Shepaug Dam off in the distance.

Above is where the forest road at Waldo State Park comes to the water's edge. If you look closely, you will see two people on that side
I think they were swimming - below is the shot blown up

I found a little bypass around another section of the trail that went up an embankment that was unrideable, however, when I came out on the trail, I wasn't which way to head to the Kissing Oaks. After going up and down the trail a few times I figured out that I had to continue north even though it felt like I was past the oaks and heading down the other leg of Al's Trail. Got the oaks and took a picture of the Fixation against the tree. There is a box there with a log in it. Also from this point, there is an unofficial letter box somebody hid in the forest.

So it looks like I am creating a composite map of Upper Paugussett State Forest. Looks like all I need to do now is ride the two trails on the west side of the forest, the section down to the bottom of Albert's Hill and the north side of Al's Trail and I will have a complete map of just about all the trails in the forest. I know of some others but I won't ride them in the summer due to the ticks and they really don't go anywhere.

Here are the same trails on the 1953 Topography Map which I think is a little finer detailed then what comes off of GPSVisualizer. It's probably due to two things: (1) The background map from GPSVisualizer is set for 50% opacity and; (2) I think the original wasn't scanned at the top most resolution. The historical maps from the University of NH LIBRARY of Historic USGS Maps of New England & NY I think were scanned at a much higher resolution.

As you can see the 1953 topo doesn't show anything man made appearing where the swimming hole is. I have marked on this map where the hike-a-bikes are located and trust me, there is no way you riding these sections of the trail. I did find, however, a bypass of the first hike-a-bike which, if I had to venture a guess was done originally by horse back riders. The picture below is a quarter of the way up the first hike-a-bike where it starts to get really nasty.

From what I have heard there used to be a trail for horses that followed the edge of the lake and I strongly doubt they went the route Al took. In fact why would someone route a trail up these climbs is beyond me, guess I think too much like a mountain biker. I wonder what other trails may be hidden in the forest.

69ers and 29ers

Another Fetish Fixation 69er! It looks like Fetish has made their labels stand out more by filling them in. I am not sure whether or not I like this. I guess for $150 clams you really can't be choosy.

Found this the other day on the SoCalTrailriders forum, a rigid Fetish Fixation 69er! If you look closely, there is a bell on the the left side of the handlebar.



Found some 29ers on Craigslist, this one in New York. I like the comment about the pedal - stripped crank or is the pedal busted off the post? Of course the reason selling is a classic:

I got it last year, and rode it very little - maybe 20 miles. Its a great ride - with 29 inch wheels you barely notice the potholes...

I am not sure I believe the point about pot holes. I was ridding my Qball the other day on the Gussy Trail and it's still pretty much a raw trail and really uneven in most parts. Even with squish in the front, some of the holes on the trail, which are comparable to a New York City pot hole were still sorely felt.

The price isn't bad, unless of course you have to replace the crank arm. Brand new, this bike costs $399 at Bikes Direct. This has to be the cheapest 29er I have seen being sold to date. I'd check it out and if you got it for $150, that would be pretty sweet. Good, cheap way, to see if you have the stomach (and back) for riding rigid.




Here is another 29er from NYC. Of course, I don't understand why someone would spend $1100 on bike and not ride it. Maybe it's legit but in the first four months I had the Qball I put 102 miles on it and in 2007 another 183 miles. I just don't understand how you can by a 29er and not ride it.

Rolling Rigid!

Rolled out today on the Fixation sporting a slightly used Bonty 29x2.2 front tire and it barely fits within the 1x1 fork. By barely, I mean there are a few knobby edges that are hitting the bottom of the fork and making an intermittent rubbing sound. At the bottom of my driveway, I decided that I would take care of it when I got home.

As you can see, it's a tight fit. I think there is half a millimeter clearance, if that.

Once on the trail, rubbing noise aside, this bike rides so nicely that I keep asking myself, why do we need suspension bikes? The answer came to me about three hours later with a little soreness in the back and shoulders.


Rode the Upper Gussy from south to north, mainly because I really wanted to finish the re-route. After studying the track from the ride a week ago, which is the red track on the map below, I decided that the new section wasn't flowy enough and had too many sharp turns and by looking at the contours I figured if I swung the trail out a little more there wouldn't be much additional climbing.

Now, instead of making the sharp right turn as you can see in the blow up below where the red track goes off on it's own and then hooks back up, the new route continues the upward climb and then makes a more sweeping turn and hooks up to where I left the old bucket. The cool thing about this change is that there are many more features the trail passes by including more rollers and a few baby heads, one right even in the middle of the trail. This section of the trail is marked but it's not cleared.

Speaking of clearing, the trail is almost 100% cleared of leaves! Tom and his back pack blower did a tremendous job and it seemed that he might have done some this work this week even!

Found another pair of gloves, this time work gloves, that probably belong to Paula. They were on the side of Sanford Road where the Jeep Trail intersects.

Below is the up and over and where Tom stopped blowing the leaves. Not sure of that water bottle is his or someone else's but I bought it out with me. I did one stupid thing here. I paused the Edge and then forgot to turn it back on till I was just about out of the forest so I probably lost a half mile on my miles tally.

That is the one thing I don't like about the Garmin Edge, is that it only records where you have been if the stop watch is running, otherwise it does nothing. I have done this before and usually I just turn it back on back track to where I started and re-ride the part I have missed. Only this time I wasn't going to climb all the way back to the up and over just to turn around and come back down again. If I had more time, maybe I would have.

I wanted to take a trail shot of the Fixation and I think I got a really good picture of it above. With the glow of the setting sun in the background it almost looks surreal. A few seconds later, I took another of me and the Fixation below and that mystical lighting had all but faded.

And what better way to end a ride than to have a nice, fresh BBC. I figured I might as well kill that last bottle of Drayman's Porter and maybe the last one that had was from a bad batch or something because this was one was awesome! Granted, the Imperial Stout is still better, but the Drayman's was perfect for a post ride libation!

Rigid 69er's in the Blogsphere

Noticed somebody surfed in through this search portal the other day, so I back tracked and found the Google Blog Search engine. Pretty nifty and if you want to see the actual search just click on the Google image above and it should automagically transport you to the search page, otherwise, click this: Google Blog Search Rigid 69er. If you run this search there are approximately 58 references so it's pretty cool to see this catching on. There are some good pix of different bikes out there. In fact, check this KHS softie out! I think if I ever get a softtail in the 26er variety I would build up one of these, and with gears!

Free Wheel Burning'

Rode the freewheel today and it rocks, too! Last night I played around with the stem and go it to clamp down on the bars so that they wouldn't move anymore and that made a big difference. Tightened the brakes and readjusted the front calipers which made a big difference in my stopping power today, too.

As you can see in the picture above, I wore a different outer layer, my Pearl Izumi jacket with the zip-pits and I think it did much better in this weather than the Adidas jacket. The snow was pretty soft which made for a real smooth ride, but it was still pretty slippery. A few logs were tough to get over but the 69er rocks on this stuff.

I don't know why people have Shimano Pedals because the Crank Brothers rock is this kind stuff. Even with snow in the spindle and under my shoe, never had any trouble engaging the clip! I am really digging this bike!

As you can see, I rode the Upper Gussy today and had to do some more marking of the trail. Also took a bunch of pictures of the areas that will be needing work. Below is one stretch of about 30 to 40 yards that will have to be benched. This will be a big project but riding through here will be cool if you are coming down through here.

A Fixed Fixation!

I found a new use for the Fixation, it is now a fixed gear, rigid 69er! Yes, it is my first fixie and it is for off road riding! I thought I would give it a try after taking a few spin classes at the gym.

I got the TomiCog this week and spent Thursday night hooking up the rear wheel, adding a new break line to the rear brake. Repairing the rear brake and putting on pedals. As you can see the TomiCog mounts where the disc brake rotor would go.

It will be interesting to see how it works and how I handle it in the woods! You might notice another cog back there, that is the normal freewheel cog, so if it gets too tough, I can always flip flop to the free wheel. Gear ratio is 32:20.

Happy Thanksgiving!

In order to give Michele a fighting chance to prepare Thanksgiving Dinner for her family, I took the kids on an 11.5 mile bike ride on the Trumbull Rail Trail. We started at Whitney Avenue and rode the new section that heads north, which passes by Parlor Rock, and goes under Rte 25 along side the Pequonnock River, since the original roadbed is blocked by the high way. Unfortunately, there are two parts of this section of the trail that are not completed and it made riding through there impossible. One was under the high way and the other was near Old Mine Park.


Here is picture of me, taken by Katie, with the infamous Dumpgoose 69er. This bike is something that a buddy of mine found at the town dump and thought I might be able to do something with, and as you can I was able to. It's probably the only single speed mountain bike with center suspension and two different sized wheels. The center suspension is actually pretty nice because it acts like a shock post.

As with every ride with the kids, it's always punctuated with plenty of snack breaks and hamming it up for the camera.



Juice boxes are always a big hit.


The boys love riding in the Burley and funny thing is that they can be so quite that I have to stop from time to time to check and see if they are not sleeping. Elliot usually falls to sleep but the last couple rides with both boys they just like to see scenery go buy.

Of course with the wet trails and mud in a few places I realized that Brodie was on the receiving end of everything from my rear tire so I put up the screen. Brodie didn't like it at first but he quickly got used to it.

Here is one of the sections of the trail that still needs a lot of work.

Katie love to go fast.