New York April Nyc Meet-up

Any of you bike bums ridden in or around Bear Mountain.

I bought a trail map at "The Bruised Apple" bookstore, but I presume they are hiking trails.

I know my racing team use to train at Bear Mountain (East End Cycling Team) on road bikes. Many of these guys were mucho strong riders, and I know I would have been "dropped." For those non bikers dropped= left for dead. LOL.

I would hang with these guys, I would take a good beating like a man, but always get dropped.

Know that with driving on Route 6 that there are sections that I have to brake before turns, and on the long twisty descents one can easily add 30 MPH with your foot off the gas coasting in a zone of 40-45 MPH switchbacks.

This is just across the river from Peekskill going west. Jack Kir-O-wack's classic book "On The Road" depicts the Bear Mountain Bridge is where he got stuck in the rain for a day trying to head west. In the story he had to head back to NYC to restart his journey west.

The city of Peekskill is never mentioned, but pretty much that's when the story kinda begins.

Cal
 
"I only go to work to rest," I say.

I'm sore from breaking concrete with a sledge, and from a three hour bike ride.

Using clipless pedels in Blue Mountain Preserve is mucho dumb, but that's what I did.

Phil was spot on with 17 PSI on a 2.35 wide tire going tubeless.

I got some smut from the owner of "The Bruised Apple" bookstore that good single track is available in Yorktown Heights just east of Peekskill.

Also Bear Mountain is very limited as far as mountain biking goes, but the training ride that is popular is parking at the Bear Mountain Inn and road riding to the top of Bear Mountain.

Cal
 
In today's episode of This Old Lab, Hill-Billy Calvin-August (AKA-Augie) finds a small portable glove box being thrown out that is perfect for mixing powdered chemicals so chemical dust clouds when mixing developers can be safely contained.

Norm, "So Calvin, where did you find your new treasure?"

Augie, "Don't tell Maggie, but they were throwing it out at work. Now I have to be clever and smuggle it into my house."

Norm, "So you have to deal with woman factor, who considers all the useful stuff you acquire just plain junk."

Augie, "Mighty true, but then there are times when she needs something and I just go dig what she needs from the basement or garage. Somehow when I do this it annoys her. LOL."

"So your darkroom is getting to look like a real research lab with a lot of expensive lab equipment."

"Only the most expensive and best for me, and the funny thing is that I got all this stuff for free. Also don't forget all those fancy doctor's stools, computer crash carts, and medical equipment from a hospital. It is as if I walked through a hos-PIT-L and helped myself to all this good stuff I might be able to use. That reminds me that I'll have to drive in and round up my stash in my office where all this loot is stashed. Don't tell Maggie."

Augie
 
I have a situation which is analogous, though I might call "this old camera," "this old typewriter," or "let's fix this." I'm continually living life by the Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared. So I prepare. Not doomsday prepper, but just handyman preparedness. Lately, I've been siphoning in little bits and bobs, here and there, to allow me to continue to keep my sanity by working on my little camera and typewriter projects.

So, this is probably a gear alert as well.

Aside from getting a 1959 Facit TP1 typewriter, I have recently "found" the Mamiya press "system" as part of an ongoing conversation with Sam (CrazyFedya.) I was looking for a wide angle medium format lens and he mentioned the Mamiya 50mm, so I started looking for one with the intention of attaching it to something old and odd, giving me a homemade Veriwide 100. Well, in my search, I also found two Mamiya Press Super 23 bodies, a 150mm lens (shutter needs work,) two Press grips, and three Mamiya rollfilm backs for the Press series. One of the bodies will get a flat top and a 21mm CV viewfinder, the other will get restored and be usable with the whole range.
Of course, now that I've found this system, I'll be passively grabbing up lenses for it here and there.

All that said, I want 2021 to also be the year that I complete the torpedo 6x18. I have a BUNCH of large format lens cells, all matched and looking for Copal 0 shutters. My preferred donor lens for the torpedo camera is a Schneider 135mm f/5.6 Symmar-S. I could also use a Nikkor-W 150mm f/5.6.
If anyone out there is looking for the front cell of a 240mm red dot Apo Artar, let me know. I doubt I'll ever be able to find the rear cell.

Way on the far back burner is a 1996 Stumpjumper that is very slowly becoming a heavy duty touring bike, though touring seems to be a thing of the past lately.

Those are a few of the projects that are happening to help me maintain my sanity, while I work professionally to help others maintain theirs.

Phil Forrest
 
Phil_F_NM said:
I have a situation which is analogous, though I might call "this old camera," "this old typewriter," or "let's fix this." I'm continually living life by the Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared. So I prepare. Not doomsday prepper, but just handyman preparedness. Lately, I've been siphoning in little bits and bobs, here and there, to allow me to continue to keep my sanity by working on my little camera and typewriter projects.

So, this is probably a gear alert as well.

Aside from getting a 1959 Facit TP1 typewriter, I have recently "found" the Mamiya press "system" as part of an ongoing conversation with Sam (CrazyFedya.) I was looking for a wide angle medium format lens and he mentioned the Mamiya 50mm, so I started looking for one with the intention of attaching it to something old and odd, giving me a homemade Veriwide 100. Well, in my search, I also found two Mamiya Press Super 23 bodies, a 150mm lens (shutter needs work,) two Press grips, and three Mamiya rollfilm backs for the Press series. One of the bodies will get a flat top and a 21mm CV viewfinder, the other will get restored and be usable with the whole range.
Of course, now that I've found this system, I'll be passively grabbing up lenses for it here and there.

All that said, I want 2021 to also be the year that I complete the torpedo 6x18. I have a BUNCH of large format lens cells, all matched and looking for Copal 0 shutters. My preferred donor lens for the torpedo camera is a Schneider 135mm f/5.6 Symmar-S. I could also use a Nikkor-W 150mm f/5.6.
If anyone out there is looking for the front cell of a 240mm red dot Apo Artar, let me know. I doubt I'll ever be able to find the rear cell.

Way on the far back burner is a 1996 Stumpjumper that is very slowly becoming a heavy duty touring bike, though touring seems to be a thing of the past lately.

Those are a few of the projects that are happening to help me maintain my sanity, while I work professionally to help others maintain theirs.

Phil Forrest
Click to expand...

Phil,

"Maggie" tells me there is some antique flea market way upstate that has a typewriter vendor. I'll be scouting this out for you.

Sometime later this week some new 6 dinning room chairs will be delivered from down south that are antiques.

It will be interesting building out a bluestone patio, terracing the 40x25 section beyond the back-backyard fence adjoining the frog ghetto, and having a new stoop and front door installed.

Eventually I will re-grade the back-backyard and 4-5 inches of skimmed topsoil and sod should offer lots of clean fill.

Cal
 
About a million years ago a glacier left deposits that created Peekskill's bay on the Hudson River and Blue Mountain Preserve.

This 1500 acre preserve is literally 4 blocks from my house, and Dickey Brook runs behind my back-backyard (second complete building lot).

So instead of young and dumb, I am old and dumb, and trying to ride old retro bikes set up for narrow single track of Long Island pine barrens in Westchester's clumps of rocks is mighty dumb I say. Also because of Covid my fitness has faded...

I first learned of Blue Mountain Preserve though a black mountain biker who had a very tricked out full suspension bike wearing a full/complete set of body armor on a Metro North train. I had to ask where he was heading with such a serious rig and all the body armor.

He said Blue Mountain Preserve in Peekskill, and then he said, "It has the best technical single track in the northeast."

So in my quest to find easy trails, somehow I always found myself in crazy places even though I had a map. LOL.

So in doing my research I found this link below. Realize the video rider is on a true fat tire bike and not one of my skinny rigid bikes.

https://www.mtbproject.com/trail/888036/blue-mountain-reserve

Augie
 
Austintatious said:
Wow... this is sooo true for many of us ! Can't wait for the next episode of This Old Lab :D
Click to expand...

Austin,

I have a whole series where I'm a Bob Villa wanna be, but I have to throw in some "Calzone Factor" which means some people might be afraid of me because I might not be so mentally stable or appear a little or mucho crazy.

When I start my web-page or blog, or whatever it becomes I will surely use Devil Christian's idea of using www.Lazy-Slacker-Calvin.com as the domain.

I have a video taken on a Go-Pro of this little trail that leads to Piedmont that saved my butt.

So my idea was mucho dumb, and being a guy you know that we do mucho dumb things pretty much all the time. So I got this idea to ride to Bear Mountain from Madhattan crossing the George Washington Bridge.

Normally this would not be such a bad idea, but my twist to make it a bit crazy is to do it on a single speed.

Snarky Joe mentioned that it gets hilly once you get from New Jersey back into New York in Rockland county.

Now realize that Peekskill is 40 miles north of NYC, and Bear Mountain is just across the river from Peekskill, but climbing on a single speed taxes and saps away ones strength, and I forgot about that.

I got pretty far into Rockland county when I took notice that my legs were spent, then I figured out I was pretty far from home, there were lots of hills to climb on the way back, and I was in pretty serious trouble because I might have to call an UBER to come rescue me. BTW I did not have cell phone to call.

"Mighty dumb," I say.

So I start the ride home, and the hills are painful. Some I have to walk up and that even hurts. Ouch-Pain-Suffering... Repeat.

Then I see this pickup truck stop and a guy gets out with his dog. I see a trail head so I ask where the trail goes.

I find out that it once was an old abandoned railroad grade that had been reclaimed and it leads to a town down river called Piedmont.

Rail roads like straight and level grades so I figured this could bail me out from having to crest painful hills in Rockland County.

So this was divine intervention.

Pretty much from where I was once I got on the Railroad trail and then back to 9W south it was all downhill more or less.

So because I'm a drama queen I will play this up as a cool adventure. LOL.

Augie
 
Austintatious said:
That looks like a very cool trail Cal.
Here on the front range of the Rocky Mountains where I live, just about all they ride are fat tire bikes. The trails can get pretty harry indeed. I have never had the cojones. Take a look.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFlEaP0DSG8
Click to expand...

Austin,

That is some chute. Any mistake though, or catching a little too much air and things can get very carried away. Also taking on too much speed is easy and tempting, but will lead to crashes.

I learned after the fact that I had broken both my collar bones. Also I have a savage key-loyd scar that is thick like leather on my left shoulder. It happened in West Viginia near Snow Shoe a ski resort at a trail called "Tea Creek."

We parked at the trail head exit, and used granny gear to climb on the road. That in itself was a long and brutal climb. The pitch was steep enough that if you stopped you would not be able to start again, so you just tested your threshold of pain on the threshold of choking yourself.

Tea Creek was a lot like the chute in your video, with the cliff like roll off, but the trail was carved into a cliff so on your right was a wall, and on your left a roll-off that went way down.

The climbing was behind us and all done on the road, and now a descent on Tea Creek was a different kind of chute. So on a return trip a year later, we went back to Tea Creek, and I kinda went "Gonzo." So everything was great until I crashed.

I was going fast and I caught a bit too much air, and then landed on a rock that trapped my front wheel event though I had a suspension fork, and the next thing you know the bike is doing cartwheels and I'm tucked in a roll getting sliced up on rocks.

Luckily I stayed on the trail and did not go off the side. It was a long roll down.

So I don't need any tatoo's, I have scars.

On the single track in the pine barrens of Long Island it was not so rocky, and climbs were short and could be steep, but there would be scabs on our shoulders that I called "bark-burn" from brushing trees as we wove through scrub pine forests.

When mountain biking was first invented that's when I got my first mountain bike, an IBIS Mountain Trials, that I still own today. Back in the day a serious concern was not to be mistaken as a deer by some hunter, as the trails we rode were very very narrow and pretty much were deer trails.

My abused bike I was wearing the paint off the steel frame from crashes, so I took it apart and sent it out to get powder coated, and in a "Calzone" manner I had it powder coated florescent orange so I would not get shot or mistaken for a deer.

Today in some spots the powder coat has blistered, but the dots of rust resemble the "spatter" coat paint jobs that Scot Nicole at IBIS performed as a custom paint job back in the day.

BTW this Mountain Trials bike has a short 39 inch wheel base, a tall bottom bracket, and features a 26 inch front wheel with a 24 inch rear wheel. The handling is kinda violent and twitchy, and this kinda makes it a bit dangerous.

Somehow I managed to secure a titanium version of the IBIS Mountain Trials. I contacted Scot Nicole and inquired about how many of these he might have made because I knew it was a very rare bike.

Scot's response was, "Hard to say, but realize I don't remember every bike I ever made. Probably only a few, but in fact you might have the only one."

So I might have a prototype. My steel version dates back into the 80's, but the Ti IBIS is pre-Vee brakes and features a "Hand-Job" which is an investment cast fist that is used as a trademarked cable hanger that was on some 1994 and before bikes.

I'll try to post the link on Gary Helfrick who was involved with the development of titanium bikes. He is an interesting genius who had to choose between going to MIT on a full scholarship, or going on the road with Aerosmith as a roadie.

Guess which he picked. LOL.

Anyways he is an interesting guy.

So imagine you still owned your first car. That's what that steel IBIS is for me. Then decades later you somehow secure a Mustang GT 350 with the flat plane crank and evil exhaust tone. That's what the Ti IBIS represents.

BTW I'm not so young and dumb anymore. Never thought I would live so long is the truth though.

Augie
 
IBIS was founded in 1981, and when I got into mountain biking Ronald Ray-Gun was President.

https://www.ibiscycles.com/our-story/history

The stories of interest are: 9, Gary Helfrich; 7, Trials; and 1; about the beginning of IBIS.

Scot for me has been kind of a role model. I share his attitude and sense of humor, but I don't think I will ever be a NORBA Trials Champion like him, nor be part of mountain bike history like him. Back in the day he was the punk kid who people like Joe Breeze and others tolerated because he could ride.

One of his reasons to become a bike builder was "Not being burdened by being wealthy." He says this as a joke, but there is a truth to it. Wealth has its price.

So does fame. I know because my gal is a GoDaddy girl, a celeb and is famous. It is not easy even knowing someone famous, and being in the public eye is awful.

Anyways as you get to know and understand Scot Nicole you will also get to know me better. He has been a role model for a long time.

In the Trials section there is an 80's advertisement for the Mountain Trials, and some articles about Scot involving Trials biking and the culture.

Cal
 
Oh, calling Snarky Joe,

Please click the "Tandem" story on the above link and click on the PDF link on this EPIC tandem ride of 200 miles of rolling hills in Californias wine country.

Riding does not get better than this.

The PDF link is titled "Smaller is not faster."

Cal
 
[FONT=&quot]Tandems, are not my thing. When I was young there was a tandem at the summer camp I attended and I could never get going on it, just crash after crash. I wince at the word Tandem.[/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]But I do know a good tandem joke:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]A man sees a single rider on a tandem, and as the rider stops he asks why he is riding a tandem without a partner. The rider responds that while for years and years he would ride with his wife, she had passed away. The man asks, well you must have friends or someone who would ride with you. The rider responds, no, not a single one, they are all at the funeral…[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]More a comment on overly serious riders than tandems. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Joe[/FONT]
 
jszokoli said:
[FONT=&quot]Tandems, are not my thing. When I was young there was a tandem at the summer camp I attended and I could never get going on it, just crash after crash. I wince at the word Tandem.[/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]But I do know a good tandem joke:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]A man sees a single rider on a tandem, and as the rider stops he asks why he is riding a tandem without a partner. The rider responds that while for years and years he would ride with his wife, she had passed away. The man asks, well you must have friends or someone who would ride with you. The rider responds, no, not a single one, they are all at the funeral…[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]More a comment on overly serious riders than tandems. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Joe[/FONT]
Click to expand...

Joe,

I can understand about the crashes. I remember the last page of a "Bicycle" issue when they had sequence shot on film with a 35mm camera that had a motor drive. Around a hairpin turn at tandem speed a tandem rolls a tire, and they hear that aweful sound of metal against pavement a a wipeout is surely emminint.

The funny thing is they wrote captions as if for a first grader like a Dick and Jane book/story.

Back in the day a group of us would drive up to New Paltz and ride the carriage roads when the fall foliage was at peak color. No need for narrow trails to get killed when there are shear cliffs not far from the Gunks in Lake Min-A-wask-Ka State Park.

Always a fun trip as one person would drive into town, and then the rest of us would coast down the mountain at terminal velocity and then sweep through the hairpin turns at the Gunks past all the rock climbers.

Of course we would stop in the Rock Climbing shop and look around, and then have a late lunch at the local beef-strow.

One year we were joined by a mountain bike tandem. The couple (husband and wife) had an IBIS tandem with a front syspension, and as a team they did really great. Interesting to see a tandem catch air over the many stair like steps.

So this reminds me of another episode in West Virgina. On the first trip we met this hard core mountain biker from Maryland. He ditched the wife, sister-inlaw, and brother inlaw, because he wanted to ride with us. It was because of Kevin that we went to the local pro shop and found out where all the great riding was, and that's how we found out about Tea Creek.

So on our last day of vacation, by then were were kinda tired, so we decided to use the vehicle to ferry us up a mountain to do this fire road. I had depleted my adrenalin, but after my first run I got a second wind.

So on the following year we went back, but this time it was not Iron Mike and just me, but it was four of us.

So on the previous day I had crashed and my left arm was scabby. They bought me a t-shirt that said "Chicks dig scars" which oddly seemed true because girls would ask me about my scars as a way of engaging in conversation and a way to pick me up. Kinda funny that in real life I'm kinda shy. "I was just mind-N my own business," I say.

So on our last day we went back to the fire road, but over the year that past they laid down a bed of railroad gravel which cut down the terminal velocity one could get.

After a few runs, I'm starting another downhill run with Vinney, then I hear the sound of air escaping a rotating tire giving off the sound of a Leslie rotating speaker as a phase shift sound effect.

I pull right alongside Vinney and point at Vinney's rear wheel, and he shakes his head that it isn't him, I look around, and finally figure out that it is me who is flatting out, and by now I doing an excess of 30-35 MPH.

So I knew this was going to get ugly, and I start hitting the brakes, and by now I have a dead tire, and I hear that awful sound of metal getting crunched and destroyed as I start fishtailing in wide oscillations.

Somehow I stayed upright, but it took a while of gradual braking to come to a stop. Needless to say that the wheel and tire were destroyed.

Iron Mike lent me a spare wheel and I was back on the bike. I did have to buy him a new tire though because I shaved off some of the knobs on the gravel.

Cal
 
jszokoli said:
[FONT=&quot]Tandems, are not my thing. When I was young there was a tandem at the summer camp I attended and I could never get going on it, just crash after crash. I wince at the word Tandem.[/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]But I do know a good tandem joke:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]A man sees a single rider on a tandem, and as the rider stops he asks why he is riding a tandem without a partner. The rider responds that while for years and years he would ride with his wife, she had passed away. The man asks, well you must have friends or someone who would ride with you. The rider responds, no, not a single one, they are all at the funeral…[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]More a comment on overly serious riders than tandems. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Joe[/FONT]
Click to expand...

Joe,

You should read the Tandem story anyways because it is an EPIC ride, legend, and history.

Imagine Joe Breeze as your stroker in the back and the long intervals of climbing and then terminal velocity on a tandem.

And then there is the drama of suffering mechanicals and comming from behind on the second 100 miles. Hope I didn't ruin the story, but this is a must read.

Cal
 
Sometimes you just take a shot and later see and find out what develops.

Many of "Maggie's" followers are gardeners, and they recommended just seeing what comes up for a season. A recent surprise is a long bed of Peony's that is well established.

So we are experiencing the plants we already have that have been already established. We have a row of white pines along our dead end, alongside the house some huge Rode-A-Den-Drums, a Japanese Maple in the front, High-dur-ange-ERS along the garage, and I think a half dead apple tree in the back.

So the garage and basement seem to be evolving and going into places I have never considered. A kind of evolution is on going, as is my retirement.

Because I'm a photographer I search out the "sweet-spot" that seems optimum and will let things evolve on their own. I get caught up in all these daydreams, and I feel like a child again where the world is big and there are so many possibilities.

That Black-Faced Fender Pro Reverb amp I found on the street being thrown out outside a luxury high-rise seems to be a great opportunity to make a somewhat lowered power amp that is optimized for plug and play.

Roy Buchanan played a Fender black faced "Vibrolux Reverb" that was from the same era as my blackfaced Pro Reverb, and much of these amps are the same with the biggest difference being the Vibrolux has 2 ten inch speakers, and the Pro Reverb 2 twelve inch speakers.

Roy's amp ran lower voltages and had less "headroom,' but he could crank the amp and use his hands to pull the tone out of a guitar by exploiting the sweet spot of the amp which pretty much was power tube distortion.

My Pro Reverb has a bit more power and more headroom, but know that smaller amps today are favored, and microphones are used to mike an amp to fill a venue.

So in looking at the Fender schematics it seems really easy to mod my Pro Reverb and mod the resistor string on the power supply for lower voltages on the pre-amps for less gain, and modify the driver from a lower gain 12AT7 tube to a 12AX7 with higher gain so the amp has less headroom (clean sound before breakup).

Pretty much I will be making my Blackfaced Pro Reverb into an earlier Brown Faced Vibroverb amp with changing a few resistors. EZ-PZ.

I still have to retrieve some of my gear stored at my friend Cris's house, and in a bin are a matched pair of Jenson C12Q's. The Vibroverb uses C10Q's.

Anyways as photographers we always hunt for a sweet spot.

So in my guitar playing I am like Roy Buchanan: I plug in and play.

In photography I don't really do much post processing, and most of what I do is right out of the camera. In art school I learned that if you make consistently good negatives that printing is easy. Pretty much I just straight printed with no dodging or burning.

Learn to play and develop the sweet spot.

Cal
 
So the spring Herring run up the Hudson River could begin any day now, and the Striped Bass will be feeding on the Herring as they venture along the 350 miles of rive all the way up to Albany to spawn.

Two new flowers bloomed yesterday in my yard. One has blue flowers and the other purple, but I have no idea what they might be.

I figured out from my walks into Peekskill and to the train station that pretty much the Baby-Victorian is situated in a valley, as I climb hills and gain altitude.

I learned in New Mexico that cold air is denser and settles into valleys, and this is why I have noticed an earlier blooming as I walked north towards downtown and the train station. Where I live I have a different microclimate than the rest of Peekskill with a later spring.

My property is 30 feet above sea level, and the frog ghetto is about 25 feet below. Lately they have been rather quiet. I figure earlier the horny frogs were having an orgy of sorts.

Tonight likely a Home Depo run, or Lowes. Here at work I'll be shopping price points. I want a hose, a push lawn mower, and some Miracle Grow for the RODE-A den-Drums that are displaying yellow in their leaves.

More breaking of concrete, a bike ride, and I think I'll start rebuilding that Fender Pro Reverb I found/recovered from the trash.

Cal
 
Cal, Harbor Freight Tools " Greenwood Contractor Garden Hose" is high quality for the $$.
It has much higher grade connectors than most hoses out there. It's the tan colored hose.
 
Landscaping is relaxing but can be exhausting. I'm your age but I threw my back out so watch it. I found a decent cheap handyman for the things I decided not to do. Find an odd job and supervise. And why not try to save the apple tree, although it draws bees
 
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