Christmas Eve Day Elf Ride - Saturday, December 24

Jason Hoegle on the BABE facebook page:
I want to institute a holiday elf ride.  we can makeit part of the new years ride if necessary.  we should dress up as out favorite elf and tour the county and spread cheer.  I think we should have 8reindeer and a Santa and as many elves as we can muster... I have antlers for 2 so far....
rsvps please....

I don't have much in the way of specifics yet, best bet is to check with the BABE facebook page for updates...
https://www.facebook.com/groups/262233181522/

Ride on.
Frank

22nd Annual Dirt Rag Punk Bike Enduro - Sunday

Let's meet at Hollywood Gardens, 8am, sharp.  We'll load up and head out to ride.  YES!

BABE meeting. It's time.

In a January, we"ll mark our 7th year as a cycling "club".  Of course, we've been way more than a club.  We've been friends.  While we've had many "members" come and go, we've remained friends throughout.  There was a time when we met monthly.  Discussed rides, events, trail maintenance, and most importantly, had a regularly scheduled time to ride, and hang out.  I'm thinking its time to do that again.  Anyone else?  I'm thinking January.  In honor of the first time.  I'll pick a date.  We'll ride.  Like back when we used to gamble... just a little more.

Love somebody, in the middle of the day. - Saturday, October 22

The BABE Filthy Fifty October Ho Down is less than two weeks from today.  I really do hope you come out for a day of riding and fun times with friends. 

Here's some general information that may help you make decisions about the ride:

• Bring a sturdy reliable bike that can be ridden both on-road and off-road
• I estimate 80% of the ride will be on the road.
• The off-road sections will not be "extreme" and will be something a skilled rider could do on a cyclocross bike.
• You may have to pee in the woods at some point.
• You must be at least 21 years of age.
• Weather may play a factor in the distance and duration of the ride.
• I don't always make good decisions.
• Dress for the weather.
• We will start the ride from Hollywood Gardens parking lot in Rochester, PA around 10am-ish.
• We will finish ride at Hollywood Gardens parking lot in Rochester, PA around 6pm-ish.
• Helmets and blinky lights are recomended, but not required.  We're adults and can make our own decisions.
• Bring plenty of water and some food and snacks.  Some tools and bike supplies would be a good idea.
• I'd prefer not to hear any whining.
• We will be making stops at places where food and beverages can be purchased.
• For those who ride the entire event without whining will get a free beverage at Hollywood Gardens after the ride.
• It's Halloween time, feel free to wear a costume or some item of flair.
• Bring a change of clothes ferchristsake!
• And don't take off your sunglasses.

Call or email me with questions.
Frank

412-417-7513




babeclub@comcast.net









Ride on.

Trail Maintenance - This Sunday - 10am - 20111016

Bring sturdy shoes, water, food and any BABE tools you may have. I think a few are floating around out there. Pick axes, shovels and rakes will be good. If anyone wants to bring some lopers, those are always handy out there.
Oh and bring your bike if you want to ride afterwards.

Facebook invite here.

BABE Filthy Fifty October Ho Down - 2011

It's two years down the road, but only the date has changed... this year, Saturday, October 22... we ride... and ride... and ride...

 http://filthyfifty.blogspot.com/

Also... the original interview...

http://coolerbuddy.blogspot.com/2008/09/ho-boy-interview.html


Any Questions?

email:  coolerbuddy@gmail.com

Frank (the happy ho ho)

Wednesday Night Night Ride - this week -PLUS a Hartwood Acres Ride Event

Wednesday Night Night Ride - this Wednesday, meet at 9pm at A-Frame parking area, when the sun goes down, we go out. Bring fully charged lights and a backpack big enough to carry a few cans of brews, because that's how this ride will roll.

 

And Sunday... 

BABE Bikes, Brews, Beef & Blues

Meet at Hollywood Gardens, 9am, we'll depart for Hartwood, get a good spot in which to ride, cook, eat, drink and dance the day away. Bring plenty of food, water, clothing and what-have-you for a full day of fun BABE style activities. You know what those are.

http://www.pghblues.com/

It didn't end...

Did it?  The good times.  Well, it didn't for us, although, inevitably, someday others will step in.  Not just for us; everything.  Days come and go, rides, laughter, people, place, space, time. It will always continue.  With or without us.  The smiles.  Sunshine. Leaves. Dirt.  Long after we're gone.  I find comfort in this. It's all around us.  Quiet.  Listen.

Familiar.  Timeless.  It never ends. 

It never ends...

...does it?  The good times.  Well, it does for us, but there will always be others to step in.  Not just us; everything.  Days come and go, rides, laughter, people, place, space, time. It continues.  With or without us.  The smiles.  Sunshine. Leaves. Dirt.  Long after we're gone.  I find comfort in less. It's all around us.  Quiet.  Listen.

Familiar.  Timeless.  It never ends.

A six pack of years.

While writing the details of the BABE DirtFest weekend, I got to reflecting on how uniquely different this past  event was to the last "BABE Report" at the Single Speed Word Championship in State College in 2005.  Back then the club was just over a year old and we certainly didn't have a reach whatsoever in the biking community.  We didn't set out to do much more than ride our bikes and be good trail stewards.  But still, I think we all knew we had something to offer each other, and the bicycling world in general.  Between countless hours riding our bikes and fully well documented hours working on our trails ;-), we've still managed to have a hell of a lot of fun off the trails as well.  It's all about the balance.

Catch ya further on down the trail.

The BABES are back!

…and ready to ride, drink and fest!


It’s been a fun spring with a good deal of riding and I’m really looking forward to the BABES first ever (I can’t believe it took this long!) official camping trip at the 2010 Dirt Rag Dirt Fest event at Raystown Lake. Leave it our good friends at Dirt Rag to help motivate us to get in gear, get the gear and gear up for a fun weekend outdoors. I plan on keeping some notes, ala SSW05, to document the weekend. Of course, photos will accompany. I look forward to reporting back next week.

Until then, ride on.

Do you like me or are you ignoring me?

And I decided to go out for a walk
And do nothing except
Look everybody I see in the eyes
And not be the first to avert my eyes
No matter what
And I was planning to be gone for ten minutes
But things started happening
And I didn't return for two years
By which time I was the heavyweight champion of the world
And the expectant father of sixteen children
By thirteen different women
                       - Dan Bern "True Revolutionaries"

This song, and specifically these lyrics looped throughout my head on my Thursday evening as I pedaled Mr. Plow through the wonderful streets of downtown Pittsburgh.  I hadn't been on a solo city ride in some time and what I could not believe was how many people were out, walking and cycling.  But even though I was encouraged by how many people were out, I was discouraged by how many people seemed not to be enjoying themselves.  And how many were ignorning the very people all around them partaking in the very same activity they were, uh, "enjoying".  As is usual when I'm cycling, whether alone or with a group, I was smiling.  Cycling represents such freedom and connection to community to me, but I grow concerned that others are doing for other, less fun reasons.  Perhaps they're just showing their concern for the "environment" or trying to save money in fuel costs in the tough economic times, but whatever it was, it didn't seem like many were doing it for the joy of it.  After noticing this, I decided to start smiling at every single walker or cyclist that I passed.  I would look them in the eye, smile, and nod to them that I recognized and appreciated their endeavor to be active and enjoy the day.  Throughout the day and evening I encountered 84 people and only two people smiled back at me.  The rest had looks ranging from fear to completey nonplussed. 

Perhaps it's just our culture of cell phones, internet and facebook, but it certainly seems the people on the streets are uninterested in friendly acknowledgement of their fellow humans all around them.  On the positive side, however, I had a decidedly different experience on our Sunday mountain bike ride at Bavington.  Every rider we ecountered that day on the trails was friendly and made some effort to say hi.  It was also very nice to be smoked by local cyclist Tim, who blew by us on his single speed Moots, but still yelled out thanks for our moving aside.  We had the good fortune to meet up again with Tim shortly thereafter as he finished a loop around the same time we did and he stopped on the road for a chat.  Turns out he actually reads this blog (Thanks Tim!) and is aware of the BABES endeavors.  Just shows once again in the balance and harmony of our wonderful world.  Yesterday, they were as big as small dogs, yessir, yessir.

Rides are on!!!

The Wednesday and Friday night rides are in full swing in this lovely spring! So get out and enjoy the evenings after that long and brutal winter. 6:15pm meet times and 6:30pm ride starts!

Sunday rides are taking shape as well and there’s talk of getting out of Beaver County for a ride real soon. Perhaps even this coming Sunday, April 18th. I’m wondering about Bavington. I think I only rode there once last year. Or perhaps even Moraine. I hadn’t ridden there at all last year. Gotta make up for lost time.

Also a PGH City ride scheduled for Friday, April 30th for the BABE favorites Uncle Scratch’s Gospel Revival and Whiskey Daredevil show at the Thunderbird. The show doesn’t start until 10pm and the ride starts at 6pm, so if your soul is in need of no cleansing bubbles

 and therefore you want to skip the show, you still can come out for the ride about town.

Lebowski Fist in about 2 months as well. Wow, these years just fly by, don’t they?

Check the BABE Facebook page for up to date details on these and other activities/events.

Ride on,
Frank

Cheers!

Another BABE blog for our pleasure.

Complete with pics too.

'preciate it!

40 years and counting...

About 13 years ago, just after moving back to Western PA from Aurora Ohio, I started mountain biking in Brady’s Run again. After a few months of solo riding I came upon a few people I knew from my youth growing up in New Brighton. I was still riding my 8 year old steel Paramount Series 30 and these guys were riding the latest and greatest aluminum rigs with, gasp, suspension forks! They also had clipless pedals!!! This was eye opening to me as I hadn’t changed a single item on my bike, aside from a few tubes and brake shoes, in 8 years. Yes, that’s not an oversight that I neglected to mention tires. I was running 8 year old tires that, I hate to admit, were full of 45 lbs of tire pressure (no wonder my neck hurt so much!).

Anyway, despite these guys being newbies to riding mountain bikes, I couldn’t keep up with them. They were a few years younger than me, but still, I figured it had to be the latest in bicycle design that was the difference. This was 1997 and Gary Fisher had just come out with his Genesis geometry bikes, and I figured it sounded pretty good to me. I picked up a beautiful blue Big Sur that year and I was amazed at the difference in my riding and enjoyment. My knees stopped hurting and I described climbing with the bike akin to strapping a rocket to the rear. It was indeed a genesis for me, and it wasn’t long before I was able to stay with the pack on our nightly rides. However, this enjoyment soon gave way to disillusionment as I came to realize these rides were not rides at all, at least not how I defined a ride. No, these were little races.

On my Paramount, I would always be at the back of the pack and the group would wait for me at certain spots and upon my arrival, they would immediately start riding again. But once I was able to keep up, they quit stopping as often. And on the rare occasion when we would stop, the banter would most often revolve around some lighter weight component someone had purchased, or some ointment or drink mix that was helping them ride more quickly or for longer duration. On a few occasions, after a few of our regularly scheduled rides, I would pull out a beer from my cooler and get looks of disgust from the other riders as they chugged down rainbow colored “energy recovery” drinks out of old plastic bottles. I found this odd.

I was quickly becoming disgusted with the whole scene. Immediately I began skipping the scheduled weekly rides and started sneak out for some solo rides on other days of the week. What I discovered was these guys were actually training on these other days. Mind you that none of them were actually racing their bikes in any official capacity. They were training for our weekly rides! I will never forget coming upon a couple of the guys on the access road as I climbed from the horse arena. They were coming down the main vein trail and so I waited for them and joined in as they went past and up towards Wildwood trail. Except they didn’t go onto Wildwood, they made the hard turn on the road up towards Shelter #1 (or 10 as it was in those days). I thought that strange since they had just descended from there, but thought, “oh well”, and continued to follow them. Once we got up to the top of the hill, they made the hard right onto the main vein and proceeded to blow down the main vein back to the very place where I had just joined them. At this point I had no idea what the hell they were doing, but I figured there was only one way to find out and so I followed down the hill. What I quickly discovered was they were just doing this loop over and over again. I caught up with one of them just as he was turning to go back up the hill. I hollered out asking what the hell they were doing. What he yelled back haunts me still to this day. He said “We’re working on hills tonight. This is number 4 of 10”. They were “working” on hills?!? At this point, in near paralyzing fear, I turned around and rode out Wildwood trail alone and, finally, at peace.

I never attended another of their weekly rides. Over the next year or so I ran into a few of them on occasion. I’d stop and say hi, never, of course, asking to join in on their ride. After a few years I never saw any of them in the park again. Then one day I ran into one of them in a local bar and asked where they’d been riding. The response was “Oh, we all sold our bicycles and bought dirt bikes”. I guess there’s only so much “work” one is willing to dedicate to them thar hills.

Ride on,
Frank

God loves the BABES!

The weather forecast for this week is unbelievable!  High temperatures near 80 degrees and nothing but pure clear sunshine!  Get out there and ride! 

There's a ride scheduled tonight, tomorrow and Friday.  And I wouldn't be surprised if there's one on Thursday too!  Make hay while the sun shines people. 

Friday's night ride followed by a Hollywood Hootenanny for anyone interested in some cowbell and kazoo after a fun evening on the trails. 

We have Beacom Road back, our trails are in fine shape and we got a full season of riding ahead of us.  Time for some optomism for a change. 

See you on trails soon, pardner!
Frank

Another Trail-Ride Season Has Begun!!!

What a georgous week!  The trails at Brady's are beautiful and word is that Hef and friends went out and did some tree clearing yesterday.  Go out and ride.  It's been a long winter and we all could use some woods time. 

Looks like "Slinger" (Brad Sheasley) has got the Wednesday night ride groove back in business, 6:15pm Wednesday night.  Usual spot.  Get it!

Oh and one more update.  It appears the A-Frame house has been abandoned.  I saw two very large U-Haul trucks there on Thursday night, and by time of the ride on Saturday, it looks like everything was cleared.  I have no information as to why, but the property is lacking a "for sale" sign at this time, so perhaps it was a forclosure situation.  Just speculating.  If I get any information, I'll post it.  BABE Clubhouse anyone?

Yeppers, things are looking up.  Makes me smile to beat the band.  Parts of it anyway.

Finally...

After some technical difficulties with Blogspot, I'm finally able to post again.  And while my time is much more restricted than it used to be, I do know I want to ride more in 2010.  And ride I will.

We've already been fortunate to get in a few townie rides this spring and I hope that can keep up.  Especially once the time change occurs this weekend. 

As of now, here are the dates for the rides we have scheduled so far in 2010:

Syrup Ride - Sunday, April 11 @10am - ride starts at Beacom Road trail head to avoid the traffic mess in the park.

Dirt Rag Dirt Fest - '10 - Friday, May21-23 - more information forthcoming on this event

BABE Club's 4th Annual Lebowski Fist - Bowling, Ride and What-have-you - Saturday, June 19 - details forthcoming.

Ride on,
Frank

We're going to Ray's Super Bowl Sunday

Depsite coming down with some sort of sickness thing, I'm filling up with garlic and taking my new used single speed to Ray's and riding it hard, just like I always do.

We leave at 10am Sunday.  Bring some clothes to change into after the ride.  Bring some water, lunch and snacks and refreshments if you'd like.  After the ride we'll grab something to eat on the way back.

If you want to be back in time to catch the Super Bowl, you're best to just stay home, we don't need no stress.

Let me know if you want to come along:  babeclub@comcast.net

Let us not forget the fun we had exactly one year ago...

Frank
412-417-7513

Tuesday Night Pi Rides - Burnt, for now

Due to a variety of factors, most of which are within my control, I'm suspending all Tuesday Night Pi Rides until further notice.

Remember, if you want to keep up with the latest rides, get on the BABE Facebook Group.

Next Sunday we're going to Ray's Indoor MTB Park for a day trip. Leaving at 10am, coming back sometime in the evening.

More details to follow on the Ray's trip.

Okay then.

See ya on down the trail,
Frank