Lytro Light Field Camera (magic picture stick)

This is ridiculous. I think it's going to change the world of photography forever. I can't wait to get one, but I wonder if i'll miss the actual process and thrill of taking a nice photo on the spot, rather then having a magic wand to just point and click. Just so amazing.

https://www.lytro.com/camera <---check out the demo. 

It's designed with online sharing in mind, but you can export traditional 2D photos in 1080p, and their software lets you print standard photo sizes like 4x6 and 5x7 as well. However, large scale printing is not yet supported as it's only taking in 11 million light rays as of now lol.

Don't trash your DSLR just yet...I noticed while browsing through their demo photos that this is not a landscape capable camera (wide area shot like a mountain range in the distance), and that's too bad. I think though that because of the way it's images are designed to be hosted and shared online with full interactivity/focal manipulation that it's going to be pretty cool, and play right into the world of social networking.

Imagine being at a football game and just pointing it at the field, snapping an instant picture (no delay at all with the shutter), and then going back to your computer and being able to instantly bring any player you'd like into perfect focus. Like I said, it's ridiculous. I can't wait to see what kind of capabilities Light Field Cameras will have a few years from now, and if they're even on the market. I think they're going to catch on, especially in the amature market. 

Waaaaa

So...I managed to accidentally loose every photo from my posts. Luckily Google rocks and is recovering them for me...but man, what a bummer.

<------that's pretty much how I feel.

Merry Christmas

Nice Christmas hike with the wifenheimer

Best Alarm Clock Ever

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Bacon Alarm Clock...gotta be the best alarm clock of all time. I really, really, really need one of these:

Pine Hill Park Rutland, Vt

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Can't wait to check this place out later on:

Vermont it is!

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All set for the big move. More to come after the dust settles!


Yup...those are racing stripes on the U-Haul lol



NYC gets new Haiku street signs

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I love the third one!

NPR article link


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Happy Veteran's Day!

Three great ways cyclists can celebrate:

Custom patriotic Streamers

Schwinn $149 patriotic tires

Um.....No caption needed

Oh Baby!

I can't believe it's been so long since i've done anything with this. Been so crazy busy lately with "life" that I almost forgot about it, but sometimes busy is good. I can't believe that it's been a whole year and 15,000+ hits since I started this blog. Thanks to everyone for the clicks...i'll put a real post up sometime soon; I promise! Can't wait to get out in the snow and churn and burn this winter. Gonna have to order up my annual shipment of Toasti Toes soon :)

Man is the forecast looking great or what!?!

OH BABY!!!

Fallish Weather

Today's weather was incredible. A perfect 65 degrees for an after dinner session and the recent rainfall has left the trails nice and tacky...a gift from the bike gods for sure. Sweet sunset on the ride home too.

Suicide Six Race Recap

As has become the norm Park Ave Bike put on another awesome race this past weekend. The Suicide Six is one of those races that really shines a light on the upstate NY cycling community and the grass roots type vibe that got it all started. Such a top notch event-from the course itself to the people running it, yet so laid back you'd think you're just out for a spin with some buds. It's held yearly at Harriet Hollister Spencer Park, Springwater, NY, and this year PAB added a Duathlon to the weekend as well.

These are not your typical fru-fru racer trails. The moderate to super techi, wicked fast, rugged, awesome, all-mountain style trail network is worth hitting whether you're going to race or just to ride. The facilities right at the trail heads are pretty decent too (toilets only), not to mention the sweet overlook of Honeyoye Lake about a mile or two into the loop. 

I raced with Casey from Geneva Bike so I was stoked to have one of the most technically skilled riders there on my side as everyone knew the weather was about to take a sharp turn for the worse. I went out for the first lap and it was one of the most fun laps i've ever done at any race. It was a super mellow start and then we just hammered away a gap once into the woods. I was in a PAB sandwich for much of the lap, then right before the end we sprinted it out up a super loose atv road into the last hole shot and I was able to edge the guys off to grab 1st for the first lap. My other Crankskins teammates, Bixby Bros. inc., edged us out by seconds in the end and snagged 1st place, with Casey and I pulling a hard earned 2nd. Gotta say...racing with the Bixby Bros. is much more pleasant then racing against them!

Next on the list is a race i've been looking forward to all year. The Single Track Stampede at Sprague Brook Park is one of the most demanding and brutal races around. From what i've heard i'm in for a soul crunching, churn and burn style slow speed sufferfest. I missed it last year but I can't wait to give it a go this weekend. Having ridden the network in the past I know just how choppy and crazy technical it can get-especially hours into a race. Should be a blast-hope to see you there!

Sweet trophies. Casey's business, Conte Woodworking designed and produced them:

Specialized Captain-possibly the best all around front tire of all time. The thing hooks up so
well and rolls so fast, not to mention how solid it feels over those sharp rocks and
thorns. Even while hammering the brakes into peanut buttery and root/rock
littered switchbacks it keeps begging  for more. It's great for catching
cats too-much like with a crab basket they find their way in but
are seemingly unable to escape.

Yes, it's true...

Yes, it's true...

Suicide Six Course Recon

Headed down south to check out this weekend's Suicide Six Course. Not only are trail conditions excellent, the course is amazing. It's going to be quite a race this year! 

The course is downright wicked!

Nice sunset to drive home to

The big day!

Can't believe that my lil sis is getting married today!!!
(rehearsal photo)

The Hard Core 24

Another awesome Hard Core 24! What a sweet course, and overall superb race. Just gets better year after year. More pics and write up later.

6 Hours of Power

Love the 6HOP! Heat was brutal, trails were fast and gnarly. Write up and more pics to come later on time permitting.

The Blue Angels!

So i'm heading home today through the city and I notice all these people just standing on the side of the road starring up at the sky. It was like the entire street just stopped in time, some drivers had even pulled over to gawk much like when the alien ship arrives in a sci-fi movie. I decided I should probably stop too and see what all the commotion was about when out of nowhere four Blue Angels do a fly by! Turns out they're out practicing for the air show tomorrow. It was pretty cool to see because the city was in between the airport and my location so it looked like they were preforming right over the city! By the time I dug my camera out they weren't doing anything too cool though.

Two of them about to buzz the city

Cool looking sidewalk weed

Name That Plant

Name that plant:

Looks so friendly...

Macro view of the same harmless looking plant

"When you think you're hot you're not"

Did I need to launch the hip before the rooty dip?...Yes, of course.

Was the tail whip necessary?...Duh-always.

Was it asking too much to land onto a tree-skinny into the downhill?...Indeed, it was a little excessive.

Ouch. Yesterday I was out for a spin and couldn't resist shredding my favorite downhill around. Almost to the bottom there are a few dips into hips type rolls in the trail that you can launch pretty smoothly around the turns. Nothing special but lots of fun. Sometimes I  land onto a downed tree that's parallel to the trail and serves as a pretty sweet skinny. Well, yesterday was the end of that. My front wheel went straight through the tree at about 18mph and my bike just stopped. I, however, continued down the trail much like that guy down there chasing the cheese. To my dismay there was no cheese. Just rocks and roots and trees. Knocked the wind right out of myself and put a couple of nice, new, custom tattoos on my back. The V-Gear jerseys are so durable though-my back is all rock rashed and sliced up but the jersey didn't even tare.

"When you think you're hot you're not" was all I heard as I was careening through the woods. That's what we tell the Single Track kids to try to keep them from coming down with the stupids. I must have said it at least ten times the other night. Well, after my recent experiment I can confirm...When you think you're hot you're not! I can also confirm that listening to old school 90's rap while riding more often then not leads to a case of the stupids.

Been way too busy to get to an actual race recap of the Summer Solstice and since the weekend is almost here I doubt it's gonna happen. To make a long story short:

The End.

Chico Racing 24 Hours of Summer Solstice - quickie report

What a weekend :) As usual the Summer Solstice was an incredible experience. There were 38 teams in our field (5 man 149-200) and we pulled 2nd in what was the closest, most intense team race i've ever done. We held the lead until the last three laps...long story short we pulled 2nd with 1st just a minute away. I'll put up a full report after i'm recovered enough to type more then a paragraph.

That ain't no cat!



24 Hours of Summer Solstice Time!

2010 Start

Chico Racing's 24 Hours of Summer Solstice  is upon us! I'm headed across the border to tackle this race for my third time. You know what they say right? "Third time's the charm..." right??  

If you haven't raced a Chico Racing event then you don't know what you're missing-you gotta check them out. Time to hit the road!

Course preview:

*Chico Racing Summer Solstice Update
*Chico Racing Dot Com

Crankskins Wrap your crank(s)!

Head over to Crankskins.com to protect your entire rig, not just your cranks.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day Dad!
My dad's cooler then your dad...for real!

Thanks for everything throughout the years dad, 
and Mom-thanks for putting up with us both!
Love you guys!

#1 Dad!

Where I got my obsession with sports and shredding pretty much anything  from....



Looking forward to my parents moving back from Germany soon...but man will I miss the grub!





Squirrels.org

Squirrels.org

Dirty Duathlon Race Report

Sometimes a haiku is absolutely necessary:

 Oh Ellicottville,

Roots, rocks, climbs, flows, mud in toes.

The dirt tastes so good!

  

Saweet! The Dirty Duathlon in Ellicottville was yesterday. We didn't get lost, we didn't have to drive through anything epic. We had a fun, quick and easy drive, easy registration. I almost feel like I cheated the system Sunday morning. Action shot to the right of Doug @ reg-look at that technique! 

The course was the same as the 6 Hours of Power Course but much shorter. It's my favorite course around though because it starts with a 1.6 mile climb up dirt roads and double track and then dumps riders onto glorious single track that's so much fun to ride you don't even know you're in a race. The longer the climb the better I do, so I love the extra boost of confidence I have when I race this course. It's even got a few super techie rock spots in it as well as your fair share of roots and obstacles. As far as a race course goes-primo!

Conditions Sunday were not epic, but close enough. I'm really happy I switched to my tready Specialized rubbers Saturday evening because I needed the traction in the mountain top muck. It was that kind of muck that hardens like Quickcrete, but the FastTrak sheds so well I didn't even notice. It's so fun to shred those trails when they're covered in slimy muck-the roots and rocks are quite tricky when saturated. My Specialized Stumpjumper was silly. The whole time I was constantly impressed/surprised with how much better the hardtail 29er was on that course then my Blue FS was, especially bombing through the rock garden and while racing up the initial climb. I just keep loving that rig more! It still has no name...nothings come to me yet.

The format was Run 1 lap, bike 2. Doug started for us with the punishment, oops I mean "run," and pulled an impressive lap and tagged off to me with our ranking somewhere in the back of the top 10. Then I got to just have fun riding awesome trails. Much of my ride I was thinking to myself "man, this spot must have been horrible to run." Gotta give props to the runners...I would not have ran that course for anything less then a large fee! It must have been so treacherous on foot. After passing everyone but Trevor (fellow Crankskins rider) I settled in about 30 seconds behind him for the rest of the first lap. Second lap I hammered the climb again, stuck a stick into T's spokes to pass him, and then held 1st spot through the finish. He and his runner (I think his middle name was Fast) pulled 2nd overall so it was a great day for the Crankskins crew. Scotto and his Marathon runner pulled a nice finish as did Dave. Fun times.

That evening Chels got tied up with work so I walked down to the Jazz fest with my bud Cam and his parents (our friends). Afterwards we had some dinner and hung out for a bit. He's 13 months old and was having so much fun I just couldn't find it in me to stop him! hahah, he wrecked our place and it was hard not to join in. I had my camera on my desk from the race so I was able to snap that shot of him after he ate some of Luna's cat food and went bonkers. Clean up was not so fun :(

Pre-Race Rubber Ritual

Tires, tires, tires. If you ask me the tire is certainly the most important component after the frame and brakes. I'm an over-thinking, note taking, Excel crunching, relentlessly habitual offender when it comes to my tires. I always take close note of  how they do on particular genres of trail, different weather conditions, pressures, courses, ect. I track my mileage on my tires, my results with tires, my feelings towards them...their behaviors, likes, dislikes, strengths, weaknesses. I know everything there is to know about everything regarding my tires. I stress each race about which tires to run-fast or slow, safe or fast, gonzo or grandma. So what's with my decidophobia come race day?

It's come to my attention that 100% of the time come race day I have erred on the side of "better safe then sorry" and run my go to combo for pretty much anything any course can throw my way. For the umpteenth time I spent yesterday and today weighing the pros and cons, asking around about conditions in Ellicottville, reading over their weather history for the past week, mulling my options, ect. Once again last minute I finally made the decision to leave the Renegade home and run my  Captain/FastTrak combo. Then it hit me a few minutes ago while making my weekly tire shuffle-"You dumb ass you do this every week!"

Ellicottville tomorrow morning for my first Duathlon, the Dirty Duathlon. I'm pretty excited. My teammate Doug's gonna have some extra fast for breakfast and rip out the run portion, then I get to shred a couple laps with my mtb on a glorious course to finish it out for us. Hopefully we'll do pretty well. It's kind of funny...two mtber's showing up at a Duathlon on the same team...but hey, we should do twice as well on the mtb part right?!?!

Garmin Edge Meets Rock

Yesterday I was riding to my trails when out of nowhere a rock was thrown up by a truck, ricocheted off of my helmet's chin guard, and then struck my Garmin Edge with so much force that it actually cracked the screen. The Edges, especially this particular model-the old skule 305-are freakishly durable as i've experienced first hand while taking this one to hell and back, so I could not be more surprised by the damage that was done. Just glad I was wearing my helmet or else that crack would probably be on my face!

After everything we've been through together it certainly doesn't owe me anything-it spent about 20 hours per week in sub freezing temps for the winter (some days it would be 100% iced over), has been dropped, smashed into trees and rocks, submerged in salt water, head butted at full speed while wrecking, heck-I even ran it over in a rock garden once...another story for another day lol.

Luckily Garmin's an excellent company to deal with, and when it comes to their repair/refurb program they seem to actually understand how vital these computers can be to the athletes that use them. They actually care about getting their customers squared away as efficiently and as cost effectively as possible (for real) so i'll just drop it in the mail this fall after my season dies down a little.