Happy 2014

A new year greets us and I am back after a few months hiatus in blogging.

I took the Mukluk to PA for the annual Christmas visit with my folks.  I got out for two awesome rides.  In the first, I parked just above Pine Grove Mills and followed the ridgeline on a gravel forest road to Spruce Creek.  After dropping down to the river and climbing back up, I went over the top to the backside of the ridge and did some more forest road exploring.  Swirling winds, gently falling snow, and cold temps made it a fun event.

In the second ride, I parked at Galbraith Gap and did the fire tower climb.  A quick descent on Old Shingletown road preceded the long climb back up to Little Flat Top.  I came around on North Meadows road and finished with Longberger and Three Bridges.  This was the first time I cleaned the rock garden after Three Bridges!

This year I got in two good rides.  On New Year's day I joined a group of about 6 or 7 of us to explore the gravel on the east side of Dresden.  This is an area of reclaimed strip mining so it has the same open-savanah feel you get with the AEP recreation lands.  Weird for Ohio but it was a good outing with loads of climbing.   Today I got out for a bike path hammerfest on 3" of fresh snow that fell overnight.   I've managed to ride about 12 of the last 14 days and still have two promising weeks of hard training before the school year starts.  I hope this will give me a good fitness boost I can maintain during the spring semester.

Eli is still riding to school everyday.  He hasn't missed a day yet.  Rain, snow, bitter cold ... doesn't matter.   He just wants to ride his bike every day.  I'm proud of him.  But it is his decision, not mine to push him on.