Five Days in The Kingdom (Part 4 The Rock Zone)

In my previous post I summarized some of the excellent riding in The Kingdom, but there were plenty of extracurricular activities, some of which warrant being memorialized here...

Extracurricular activities included Bag-O (you definitely want Miller on your team) and Frisbee and Bag-O and more Bag-O, and of course eating, with occasionally more innovative distractions like The Rock Zone and Karate Firewood.

Epic sunset over The Kingdom
(view from front deck)

The Rock Zone is an uninhibited (and mostly uninhabited) zone of free expression and very bad singing. It floated around the (thankfully) remote property, powered by underground indie grunge rock, a BlueTooth speaker, two exuberant mountain bikers, and about 11 double-IPAs. The issue with the rock zone was it's wireless nature which allowed it to freely seek out victims, but ironically it was more of a Rock Bubble because it's victims tended to be repulsed in the opposite direction ("repulsed" may be too strong a word, or maybe not).

Karate Firewood was another notable innovation developed to dispose of piles of kiln dried wood paneling that was piled up in the barn. The owner told us we could burn it (which of course we did) but first it had to be reduced to firepit size pieces. This activity was spearheaded not ironically by two members of The Rock Zone, using an ancient Asian technique known "Karate Firewood." Listen to the audio below and imagine the last few seconds repeated every minute for over an hour, the crashes and screams echoing through the hills and forests of Northern Vermont (thankfully the nearest house was 0.25 miles away). You get the picture.

There were plenty of other distractions such as trolling youtube for weather reports and falling asleep sitting up, but the rock zone and karate firewood will live in our hearts in infamy for a lifetime.

Chris

"My recreational and athletic goals have merged. (1) to hold my own riding with the serious drinkers and (2) to hold my own drinking with the serious riders. I’m working on the 2nd one as I type this."
     -- Michael Sweeney

Five Days in The Kingdom (Part 3 The Trails)

In my previous post I explored of the culinary aspects of the trip. But this was a bike trip, and we did spend 3-4 hours each day railing the awesome trails of Northern Vermont...

All three days were strong rides. Day one was a mad dash to Troll Stroll, Tap and Die, then then everything we could find on our way to old classic Sidewinder. It was a bit like a bunch of twelve year olds at a candy store. "I'll have one of those and one of those, oh and I want that and that and that. And some more of these, and those over there too." We'd had a year to anticipate this return trip and it showed. We rode hard all day.

Day two was epic, hitting both sides of the park which was unprecedented for us. It's a lot of miles and a load of climbing, but also miles of epic downhills and miles of smiles. I can't say enough good things about that the Kingdom Trails Association has done here, it is simply amazing and I'm already counting the days until next year.

Day three everyone was beginning to show some wear and tear, but enthusiasm trumps all and so we rode. And we rode.

It's always a challenge to rack and stack the trails, agree on a top 3 or a top 5, they are so varied and honestly all so awesome. Sidewinder has to be in that list with the adrenaline pumping drops and 2G compressions. Tap and Die is a perennial favorite along with Farm Junk and River Wood. But I have to say the new Bear Back trail is a piece of work, I just wish I had more legs for the last half. There, that's my rack and stack.

Chris

"There is nothing, absolutely nothing, quite so worthwhile as simply messing about on bicycles "
     -- Tom Kunich

Five Days in The Kingdom (Part 2 From Spam to Fois Gras)

In my previous post I shared an infographic summary and some pithy expert analysis. Food is a big part of any cyclist's life so in this post I will dive into some of the culinary aspects of the trip.

On Friday afternoon we were relaxing après-ride on front deck with a million dollar view of The Kingdom, when Sean brought out the Fois Gras. I'm not even going to attempt describing the flavor, I'll just use the f-word. It was fabulous, off the chart as you saw in the infographic. Fat and fabulous.

Tangent: It has got to be tough showing up for a guys weekend as a restaurateur. I mean we know the guy can do amazing things with food, but this is supposed to be a relaxing trip and we all had reservations about him having to cook (work?) on his vacation. But he clearly loves to do this (it shows) and he brought his A-game to The Kingdom. which added a whole new dimension to an already packed weekend.. 

Sean's next masterpiece production was a classic steak dinner for eleven! 13 beautifully marbled ribeye steaks grilled over a massive pile of coals in the firepit. Two of them were grilled "dirty" which means thrown directly on the red hot coals for about 40 seconds per side. All this served with baked potatoes piled high with amazing sour cream and bacon, grilled broccoli, and 3 bottles of red wine. We enjoyed this dinner as a group, all seated at the huge dining table in the great room. Eleven guys riding hard each day, partying hard each night, and breaking bread together with this wonderful meal is a memory I will cherish forever.

So yeah, beef and duck fat.

But that's not all. The weekend also featured MikeR's smoked London broil, bacon for breakfast, and bacon on the trail. I think we had something resembling a salad on Sunday night but I can't be sure due to the beef-induced haze. Oh and bacon stuffed baked potatoes and crisp fried Spam for breakfast (that "mechanically separated" wonder food from my childhood). Three pounds of home-made beef jerky was used to sustain the beef intake between meals. 

Tangent: Bacon as a trail snack is a new discovery. The salt (an electrolyte) is good protection against cramps, and the fat actually soothes a stomach that may be pickled from energy drinks and power bars. New addition to the big ride check list.

This five day beef-and-bacon-fest took a toll on me, and once home I had to reboot my lower gastro-intestinal system. This took days of turning various dials such as Metamucil, Imodium, gallons of water, about a bushel of bran flakes, and precisely timed coffee breaks. It's now day five and I think I'm fully operational again.

So clearly not a sustainable diet and probably deadly if it were, but food is such a social thing and for a few days this decadence was a glorious aspect of this already incredible trip.

Chris

"At this moment, nothing else exists"
     -- Willow Koerber's Uncle Doug (after drinking a bottle of jalapeño sauce)

From Spam to Fois Gras in 5 Days (or Why I Needed to Reboot My Lower-GI System This Week)

The infographic below summarizes the our five day adventure in Northern Vermont (a.k.a., "The Kingdom"). The methodology is derived from Gartner Group's "Magic Quadrant" research methodology. The first dimension represents ability to execute.  This is the ability to "get'r done" and is independent of the merits of the idea.  For the second dimension I considered the merits using a scale ranging from "debauchery" to "suave sophistication". Each activity is represented as a bubble on this 2-dimensional continuum, with bubble size representing the duration or number of participants, and bubble color indicating risk of injury which is rarely a consideration apparently.

PLEASE CLICK INFOGRAPHIC TO EXPAND

Executive Summary:

1. We pretty much steered clear of the Roadie Quadrant but had a close call with Tom's kit. Thankfully his Leadville 100 credentials nudged that bubble out of that dark corner of the analysis. Barely.
2. There is some potential in the Emerging Talent quadrant but it needs to be carefully nurtured and developed to keep it on track. Along those lines, someone mentioned jamming a screwdriver into the Bluetooth speaker. Perhaps one of those parental access codes would be useful here.
3. Overall execution was very strong with this being our third consecutive year, as indicated by the activities tendency toward the top two quadrants. While clusters are certainly entertaining, I think this is a reflection of the depth of talent and the diversity in this group. Give yourselves a pat on the pack for that one.
4. There is some risky behavior taking place but it is not excessive and most of them are episodic so little to worry us here.
5. Good balance between Debauchery and Sophistication. This is a very difficult balance to achieve, precious few can sustain it over a five day period. This may be part of the "secret sauce" that makes this such a fantastic weekend each year.

Next up will be posts diving into detail on extracurricular activities, culinary high points, and other aspects of the trip. Stay tuned.

Chris

"You say proboscis, I say proboscis"
     -- Mike Miller, admiring a fly on Rob's trail bacon.

Making Omelets

$4 for a craft beer and a shower at Mike's Tiki Bar sounds like a pretty good deal. Add in seven guys with a long-weekend hall pass, a rented post-and-beam farmhouse with a million dollar view of Vermont's Green Mountains, and countless miles of world class singletrack and you've got more than a pretty good deal. You've got the  recipe for one amazing omelet.

Omelet? Let me explain. We'll start with the ingredients:

• Mike's thatched roof Tiki Bar sits at 45° north latitude. There are not many Tiki Bars that close to the North Pole. Instead of Stripers and rum drinks, Mike had 25 varieties of craft beer on tap.

Our perch overlooking The Kingdom.

• We started with eleven guys prior to the trip, lost two to nasty mountain biking accidents, one to a sales conference, and one to the legal system, which left seven of us to carry the flag to The Kingdom. A couple nicknames were revived and/or earned, including Rug and Ginger Lips. I'm not going to elaborate, join us on a ride if you want to learn more.

• Our base of operations was a rented post-and-beam farmhouse on about 15 acres of land on a hilltop overlooking The Kingdom. It was equipped with four bathrooms and a fridge large enough to (barely) hold a substantial supply of bacon, pulled pork, smoked london broil, and Cincinnati chili. I think there may have been some vegetables in there somewhere but can't be sure.

Early Morning
Wrenching

• Over 100 miles of amazing singletrack, with many capital improvements since last year's trip. I don't know where to start, so I'll just mention that Farm Junk had a lot of work done on the top side. Riverwood was a tight twisty masterpiece which we rode in both directions - multiple times - and spurred many fruitless debates about which way was better (this type of argument is clearly a "first world problem" that we're happy to have). Leatherwood, Pines, Kitchel (Oh My God), Tap and Die, Troll Stroll, Webs, New Webs. The list goes on and on. 

• Random ingredients added "to taste": Homey the Clown, a very angry guitar player, and a bottle of root. 

Broken Egg #1
(look close)

We started mixing the ingredients Thursday morning at 5:30am and by mid-morning on Friday the Dirty Penny Fan Club was back in business (after 12 hours of unnecessary self-inflicted panic) and we were on the trails. By Sunday night we were sore from laughing and dog-tired from dozens of miles of single track, repairing a set of hydraulic brakes, and one marathon poker game. We had eaten a pig and probably half a cow and of course we had broken a few "eggs" for the omelet (actually a tooth, a chain, a shin, and a lower back). 

So sure, this recipe can be a little messy and takes some time to prepare, but it's a real crowd pleaser. A keeper.

Broken Egg #2

Chris

"If you want to make an omelet, you're gonna have to break a few eggs"

     -- Chris (one of the eggs)

"Fixing chains makes me gassy."

     -- Flatch

"Root makes me gassy."

     -- Flatch

Magic Kingdom

Longtrail. Those are hops bushes
behind us and IPAs in front of us.

Vermonters know this remote corner of their state as simply “The Kingdom.” We came to know it by names like Tap and Die, Troll Stroll, Sidewinder, Widowmaker, Kitchel, Skydive, Freefall, Coronary, and Coronary Bypass.

It started with ten guys, twelve bikes, three vehicles, and a nine hour ride. That’s a story right there, but for me personally there was an unexpected side story. We drove past childhood memories in Vermont like Queechee gorge where my sister and I used to drop pine cones off the bridge and count the seconds before they hit the river below. And the White Cottage where we’d stop for lunch with my grandmother during our annual summer pilgrimage to Maine. These memories were striking because so much has changed since I last saw these places as a teenager, but ironically one of the few things that hasn’t changed in all those decades is the simple beauty of a bicycle and a fall weekend with friends. A universal truth reaching out across the decades, connecting me to myself as a little kid…

The caravan at Longtrail.

Our pilgrimage included a stop at the legendary Long Trail brewpub in the heart of the Green Mountains. The table for ten was next to the beautiful Ottaquechee River in the shade of a very large hops bush. The Budweiser truck in the parking lot was a bit of an eyesore but even those guys get thirsty for a real beer once in a while. The pork shanks (a.k.a hocks) were the best pub fare I’ve ever had the pleasure of washing down with an IPA. Basically it’s a BBQ pork lollipop - slow-cooked and flavorful like ribs but with more meat and less mess.

Friday morning we awoke in The Kingdom to a steady drenching rain. Two coffee makers were brewing, biking videos were playing, and there was a lot of studying of Doppler RADAR. The green light came at the visitor’s center around noon when Penny told us the trails were open “rain or shine” and so we allowed ourselves to indulge in one of mountain biking’s greatest sublime pleasures – sloshing through muddy single track and over wet roots in the warm rain. There is something liberating when you surrender yourself to the wet and the slop, this rain ride was one of the highlights of the trip.

Front wheel is braking hard,
rear wheel about 18" off the ground.
If you don't think this could end
well, then you are correct...

The rain stopped the Saturday morning and by Sunday (and four huge loads of muddy laundry) the sun was out for our third day in The Kingdom. Troll Stroll was super-tight singletrack with lots of bermed turns and rollers descending through dense forest. Tap and Die, was a little more open, and a little faster. Both were masterful pieces of flowy single track artwork, we could have ridden them all day.

Sidewinder was a jaw dropping double black diamond uuberpipe. It started innocently enough, then we hit a bit of a traffic jam. I was near the end of our train, the word was passed back that someone was “sort of stuck.”  They eventually got unstuck or something and the train lurched and started moving again. We could not see what lay ahead but we could hear a lot of yelling and whooping, and a couple of blind turns later we knew why. We were dropping into a massive ravine (the uuberpipe) and then rocketing up the other side, then swooping back down. Over and over, each swoop getting larger, the ravine getting deeper and deeper and adding energy to each cycle. With each swooping dive, the bike could compress at the bottom due to the centrifugal force and you would rocket to the top of the next. Again and again. The walls of the ravine were so steep you could not dab at the top of a turn or you and your bike would tumble into the debris field at the bottom. There were a couple people who had crashed or somehow bailed, they were wallowing in the bottom of the ravine trying to avoid getting hit by the riders careening from side to side.

Trail feature on the downhill course
behind the house

Those were the signature trails, but there dozens of other trails all memorable. Webs which wound through a dense pine forest over a carpet of pine needles. A long tough root infested climb dubbed Coronary Bypass. Kitchel which was a steep free ride descent with rollers, tabletops, and HUGE bermed turns. It was the first machine built trail in the network and smooth as butter. So many others.

That little kid I remembered on the drive up would have totally approved of the weekend. He would have loved the bikes and the mud and the stories around the campfire. All of the jokes about Cranston and Dirty Penny and trombones would have been right at his level. He would have been right there with his three dollar bills on the kitchen counter. And the scrapes and bruises would have been tangible evidence of his epic adventure, stories to tell his buddies back home. The simple beauty of a bicycle and a fall weekend with friends…

Our home in The Kingdom

Chris

“Like dogs, bicycles are social catalysts that attract a superior category of people” 
     -- Chip Brown

“Kick his ball(s)”
     -- Leigh's Dad

YouTube link below but note it will not play on mobile devices (tablets, phones), must be played on a PC. I made the effort to assemble the video so the least you can do is make the effort to find a PC to play the dang thing...