Star Trails

The weather since Christmas has been a little too cold to get out and ride. I don't mind the break but will probably do some mountain biking if it doesn't warm up soon. This break has given me a little time to experiment with my camera and do some long exposures of the night sky. I don't have a good DLR camera just a decent point and shoot. My camera does allow me to take long exposures of 15 seconds but this is really not long enough to get a good picture of the night sky. There is however some free software that you can use to stack a few hundred photos to get exposure of a couple of hours. This allows you to get some pretty cool long exposure shots that wouldn't normally be possible with a cheap camera. You can see my results of the first few tries from my backyard here. These aren't real spectacular shots but it proved the technique.

To create these photos I used two pieces of software. The first one was the Canon Hack kit that you can find here. The Canon Hack kit allows me to run a script that automatically takes a photo every so many seconds. This allows me to set up the camera to take a photo every 30 seconds for hours at a time. This way I just put the camera on the tripod pointed it at the night sky, push a button and walk away for a few hours. When I come back I now have a couple hundred long exposure pictures of the sky.

To create the star trail photo I had to stack all the photos together into a single image. This can be a tedious process in a program like Photoshop but luckily some one spent their free time creating a program to do this and best of all it is free. It is called Startrails application and you can find it here. It is simple to use and produces great results.  All you have to do is point the program to a folder that contains all the pictures and it will automatically stack all the pictures. It will also alternatively make a video out of the photos which I did here.

With the software the process is pretty simple. It only take a few minutes to create the star trail photo. So now that I have everything set up I will probably take some more of these when the sky is clear. With a little better composition I should be able to get some pretty cool shots.

The Epic Year in Review

The time between Christmas and New Year is usually when all the major news shows summarize the events of the year and of course there is jibjabs comic take which you can see here As I look back at this year myself I realized I had pretty good year with some fun bike adventures.

There was of course the now famous Epic of El Capitain then on the trip to Lake Nockamixon I was very politely told I was a lying bastard for forgetting to mention some of the hills along the way. I did a lot of hilly rides this year and even attempted Fiddlers Elbows and survived. Besides my normal weekend rides I took two bike trips. One to Lake Champlain and another to Gettysburg both of which I really enjoyed and plan to do more of in the future.

Of course it wasn't the steep hills, long miles or new roads that made biking fun this year. It was, as always, the people that joined me on these sometimes crazy rides. So for all of you that road alone with me thanks for making 2012 a fun year. I wish you all a Happy New Year. I will see you on the road in 2013 once the weather gets a little warmer and I promise some more fun rides in the new year.

Unexpected Snowbiking

Its hard to tell what kind of winter it is going to be but we have already had two small snow storms and of course the hurricane. This past Saturday I went up to visit my father who just had  knee replacement surgery. I took the opportunity to do some riding in north jersey where they live. It was too cold ride on the road so I decided to check out Allamuchy State park which has some popular mountain biking trails. I had not been there before but I found a couple maps online and it looked like it would be an interesting place to explore.

When I left my house for the drive up I knew it would be cold but did not expected there to be snow on the ground. There was a brief snow storm on Tuesday but it didn't really stick around here. As I headed north and got closer to to Allamuchy I started to see patches of snow and when I go to the parking lot there was snow over most of the ground although it was not much more than a half inch deep.

Allamuchy has 20 miles of mostly single track runs that go by a couple of lakes. I chose a easy 5 mile route that went past Deer Pond. The riding wasn't too hard although at times between the snow and the leaves it a bit slippery in places. After I made it past the Deer Pond I hit some of the harder single track trails. The terrain here is very rocky which makes it a bumpy ride.

There were a lot of trees down and across the trails so I ended up having to walk around a downed tree every half mile or so. This slowed me down a little and I ended up spending just over an hour on the trails and got a pretty good work out. I only saw a small part of Allamuchy they have a lot of nice trails so if I'm every up this way again I may explore it a little more.

My Trusty Baja

You need more than a good bike to be a serious rider. There is a lot of supporting equipment needed like spare tubes, tires, and an assortment of tools. You also need special clothing and shoes for each season and many other incidental. If you have to drive to where you are going to ride it also helps to have a good way to transport your bike.

When it comes time to buy a new car I always take into account how well it will work for carrying bikes since transporting bikes and people is part of almost every weekend for me. In October 2002 I bought a Subaru Baja as it seemed like a good car for everyday use as well as a great car for hauling me and the bike around.

Ten years later and I'm still very happy with the car. It's a fun comfortable car to drive and gets good mileage (25 MPG). Having an pickup bed in the back has been very useful for hauling, plants, dirt, wood and other dirty things that won't fit or are too dirty for the back of a normal car. The bed also easily fits 3 bikes with a custom rack I made.

This car has been able to do everything I have needed it to do. It is a little smaller than my last car a Ford Ranger pickup but it has been able to do everything my small pickup did and has a better ride and gas mileage. Its also has been very reliable car and at 80,000 miles it seems to have a lot of life left in it.

When the Baja first came out Car and Driver didn't think it was a car that Subaru needed to build. They didn't understand why some one would by a Baja when they could get almost the same utility from an Outback wagon. They were right of course and three years after the Baja came out Subaru discontinued it for lack of sales. For me however I'm glad they did build the car because it has been the perfect car to get me, my bikes, and my friends to our many bike adventures.

After the storm

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Its been almost two weeks since Hurricane Sandy came through and things are mostly back to normal. Most people have their power back on and there is no problems getting gas. There are still some down trees and debris laying around but most of the damage has been cleaned up.

Down the shore it is a different story. We have a small condo in Avon, just north of Belmar a block off the beach. We are on the 4th floor of a strong stucco build that weathered the storm well. We didn't have any damage but down on ground level its a different story. At the height of the storm there was probably close to 3 feet of water in the streets in front of our condo. This flooded the first floor of the condo which is a couple feet below street level.

When we arrived in Avon we saw the sand once we got a couple blocks from the beach. After the storm there was probably a foot or two of sand lying in the streets. This has been plowed to the side like snow and people were still digging out the sidewalks in front of their houses.

The front doors of the main lobby, of the condo, were destroyed by the storm and they were already working on ripping out the carpet and sheet rock on the first floor. This is not the first time this has happened.  About once every 10 years the first floor of the condo floods but this time the water was a lot higher. Although it will probably take a couple of months before the first floor is back in shape the rest of the building is fine.

If you take a walk on the beach you can appreciate the real power of the storm. There are some small parts of the boardwalk still intact but most of it is broken and bent or just plain missing. There are several buildings like the lifeguard station that got knocked off its foundation and are a total. loss. The worst damage is the public bathroom which came off it foundation and flipped upside down. It will take many months before they will be able to clean this up and start the rebuilding process.

We tried to get to Belmar to see the damage there but the area by the beach is only open to residents and it looked like they were still working on getting power back to parts of the town.

I can't imagine what Seaside looks like since that got hit a lot harder than Avon or Belmar. There is no doubt that this storm will leave scars across NJ for years to come.

TIMBER!!!

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It's been about 24 hours since the worst part of Hurricane Sandy passed by my house. I was one of the lucky ones who didn't loose power although it was close as you can see from the picture. Around the corner from where I live the wire that feeds power to my house now goes through a utility pole that is now hanging by the wire bringing in the power. It has not been fixed yet and with all the other damage around the area it may be this way for a while so I hope it holds.

This pole was cracked about 6:30 pm last night when a tree across the street from it fell and pulled at the wires. I was in my office reading at the time and saw a flash when the tree fell. We lost power for about a minute but then it came back on. About a half hour later we got an email from our friend that lives in the house where the tree fell showing a picture of the tree on top of the power line. Even through we had strong winds with gusts above 60 mph most of the night the power stayed on.

When I got up in the morning I saw 3 or 4 more trees down on my street. All of them were the ones between the sidewalk and the curb. One of them took some more wires down but nothing that affected our house. Besides a few down branches we had very little damage from the storm.

From the pictures on the news I know a lot of other people had it a lot worst than I did especially down the shore. We do have a small condo in Avon NJ but from an email we got from someone in the building it looks like it came through OK. We'll head down that way this weekend to check it out.  I plan to check out some of the other areas of the shore when I'm down there and will post some pictures here.

Although I suspect a lot of you lost power I hope you all made it through the storm OK.

Next Stop, the Twilight Zone

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Imagine if you would a place where everybody you meet is a avid bike rider. In your hands is a envelop with cue sheets for 30 great rides of any type or distance you could want. As you walk into the hotel, where you will be staying, there are bikes and people in bike cloths everywhere you look. The conference rooms of the hotel are filled with any food or drink you could want before, during or after a ride. There are people from the local bike club to help you decide which rides to go on, a  massage therapist to ease your tired muscles and beer and wine to help you relax at the end of the day. You have entered another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. Next stop, the Twilight Zone! (cue dramatic music)

This is the strange world I entered when I attended the BCP Fall Foliage trip this weekend. The Bicycle Club of Philadelphia (BCP) runs two trips a year, one in the spring and another one in the fall. I have heard a lot of good things about these trip and decided it was time to go on one of the trips.

The Fall Foliage trip goes to Hanover PA just outside of Gettysburg. This is an area of farms and rolling hills that is rural and has a lot of nice places to ride. BCP has been running this trip for 10 years and always has a good turnout. There were 170 people on this trip and we took over all of the Hampton Inn as well as a good part of the Holiday Inn across the way.

I took Friday off so I could drive out early and do a ride that afternoon. I caravaned out to Hanover with Cheryl and Al. We passed through a couple of rain storms on the way out but by the time we got to Hanover it was just overcast and the roads were mostly dry. After checking in to the hotel and looking at the ride sheets we decided to do a 29 mile ride called the Northern Exposure.  We pick up another rider on the way out and proceeded to head out to the country side.

It was still a little overcast but as we rode the sun slowly came out. I have never ridden in this area before so it was fun exploring new roads. For the most part cue sheet was a clear but there were a few turns where it was a little ambiguous so we had to stop and look at the map and my GPS to make sure we didn't get lost. The land we rode through was mostly farmland and small towns but there were a few interesting sites along the way. The first was the town of Hanover where there was a bakery with free coffee and a nice circle in the middle of the town. The trees in this area were close to the peak color and one on the square was one of the brightest that I have ever seen. The other oddity on the ride was a strange collection of sculptures at a farm house. The first one I saw was an eight foot elephant next to a small pond. Then next to the pond was a house with many more sculptures. Everything from a gorilla to snow white to saints and everything else in between.

After the ride we hung out with all the other bikers and tried not to over indulge in all the food that was out. I do know a few people in BCP but the only one I recognized was Linda. Al and Cheryl introduced me to a few other people who they knew but it didn't matter that I didn't know any one since we area all bikers and have a lot of stories to share. The main topic of conversation was what ride to do on Saturday. Since we were close to Gettysburg I wanted to ride through the battlefield. There was a 60 mile ride on Saturday to the hotel to and around the battlefield and back which sounded good but there were also a few other rides out toward Maryland that sound good too. In the end we chose the hills and foliage for Saturday and saved the battlefield ride for Sunday.

Saturday morning was a little cool around 50 but it would be sunny and warming up so it looked like a good day. From the hotel we headed to McSherrystown where we meet Ivan from the Hanover cycle club who took us to Littlestown then on a beautiful 32 loop through to farms and hills of Pennsylvania and Maryland. There's not a lot to say about the ride except that it was great choice. We road along some quiet road with good views of the some farms and near peak fall foliage. It was hilly enough to be interesting but nothing harder than a normal sourlands ride.  Ivan was a good ride leader and keep the group together and moving along. The only thing the ride didn't have was a rest stop since there is a lot of nothing out here. We had been told about that before hand so I brought enough food and water with me. At the end between to trip from the hotel to Littlestown and back and the loop through Pennsylvania and Maryland we ended up with 58 miles. A good day.

Saturday night the group (i.e. all 170 of us) headed to Abbotstown for a nice sit down dinner at a local restaurant before heading back to the hotel for some more socializing.

Sunday Cheryl, Al and I headed out on our own. We decided to drive to Gettysburg and do an 18 mile loop around the battlefield since we wanted to do a short ride today so we could get home at a reasonable time. I had been to Gettysburg a number of times in the past but seeing it by bike was different since get to see it at a slower pace. The battlefield is literally almost filled with monuments and you can't go more than a few feet with out seeing another plaque or statue to some one who fought and die here. We did stop at some of the bigger monuments and sights to take in some of the history.

At the top of Little Round Top we listened to a great talk about the battle there. The person speaking was leading a small group of bikers and stopped to describe the battle for this high ground. He was very animated and not only described the battle in vivid detail but even acted out a few parts. Once he started talking we couldn't walk away.

We stopped at a couple other places along to way for pictures and to read about the history. We got back to the car just before noon and headed back to the hotel to a shower before heading home.

It was a great bike trip that was over all to quick. Linda and the rest of the gang from BCP did an excellent job organizing this trip. They created a beautiful alternate reality where the world is all about biking. It was hard to drive home and back to the real word but I will definite visit this world again next spring when BCP has there trip to Danville.