Catching Up

I've got a lot of catching up to do.

That's the line I've been thinking about for a few weeks as I've been writing this entry in my head. And...what an understatement it is. Catching up on this blog. Catching up on the little details that slip through the cracks. Catching up with friends and family. Catching up on life. Living. I've got a lot of catching up to do. And I've been doing it over the last few months. And I need to keep doing it. A lot more.

I was just watching the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction ceremony and I was touched by something Flea (from the Red Hot Chil Peppers) said. He said that when he's performing and they're on, and the groove is in the pocket, that he feels oneness and those are the moments in his life when he truly feels free. I get that. I feel it too....when I'm riding. Not always, but sometimes. I strive to find it. I am always seeking it out. It's always there, but I can't always latch on to it. Sometimes it's so close, but I can't touch it.

For musical accompaniment, click the button below...



Anyway....I digress. This was the year of the Winter that never really arrived....and that put a major crimp in my snowboarding jones. I got 4 days. They were all good ones, but I wanted more. Snow riding. 4 days after waiting for months to shred. I guess mountain bike season came early since there was no snow to melt. In early March I went to Jamaica with mountain bikes and rode 7 days straight. That was fun...really fun. Thank you Bigga and all of the people in Negril that made us feel welcome and offered to keep our bikes for us when we left to go home. Me And My Friends. We are mountain bikers....wherever we go.

Lots of rides since JA. All good ones. Pics below to prove it. It's Spring. A new season. A time to start over. Get in shape. Time to ride as much as possible and find that feeling of freedom. We're all looking for it in one way or another. I'm all caught up now, on this blog at least. If you've got some catching up to do, get to it. It feels good.

1 of 4 days. This one at Bromley in VT.

JW with our fleet of bikes in JA

 Helmet Series In Likkle Bay, JA with Sharon

 At Alfred's for breakfast on the beach

 At the top of Redground in JA with JW and Bigga

Sharon on her first real mtb ride

Sharon and JW in Southern MD

Sharon and Sarah ready to ride on Long Island

Gil at Ringwood in NJ

Keith's birthday ride at Jungle Habitat with

Emily, Gil, and Sam

Bat mitzvah ride at Schaeffer in MD

The Song Remains The Same / A Sort Of Homecoming

I've had an amazing weekend culminating with a fantastic ride at Jungle Habitat today to celebrate the debut of Jeremy's (Germany, String (Bean), Beaner, Bean, Clipless) new, race-ready Cannondale Flash 29. 3 rockin' records I listened to today that made me feel great: Led Zeppelin's Houses of The Holy, Kings of Leon's Aha Shake Heartbreak, U2's The Unforgettable Fire. Rock is good.

Check this out:

My ride was powered by 40 Clash songs...timeless, driving, motivating to rip the trails every time. Finally, Jeremy got his new mountain bike together! It's been a long process and I'm not going into the details... The bike is wicked light and the kid was flying over everything. Did I mention that it turned to Winter suddenly in NYC? 60s the other day and I was just wearing a t-shirt.... 30s today and frigid. I was rockin' out to The Clash during the ride and thinking about meditation and Rhino's. Quite a combination. Two ends of the spectrum, or is it? Jason broke his rear derailleur off less than halfway through the ride. It looked like he was done until Pauly the magician laid down the magic on it and hammered it back into place with 2 rocks from the trail....I kid you not. Then, Jeremy had the brilliant idea to zip tie it on too so it would be doubly strong. It's not often that I get to use the word doubly. There, I just used it twice. Ha! As luck would have it, for Jason, the bike shifted better after the hammer/zip tie method. Who knew? Nothing would derail this ride so we moved ahead destroying rocks likes superheroes. It was satisfying. It was hard. Everyone ripped. This ride was just what I needed since I'm still finishing up shooting the extortion scenes in my second movie. It's been a little stressful lately. Almost done and on to the third and final movie of the threequel. Mountain biking. It cures whatever ails you, I mean me.

Jason, Paul, and Jeremy

For a cold Winter day, it was warm in the sun

Pauly, the magic man

Jason, zip tie master

Diversified Connectivity

It sounds scientific, almost smart...

And that's what I was thinking about on my way to ride East Setauket on LI, the hardest trail out there, although that's not saying too much. It is very twisty with hundreds of tight trees you have to squeeze between and the faster you go, the greater the potential danger. Sounds like fun huh....it is. I always think about the time the Sos got hurt there when his brake lever plunged into his leg and we had to take him to the hospital. That was not fun. See: http://toliveandrideinnyc.blogspot.com/2010/06/sospital-leg-meets-brake-lever-blade.html

Press Play Now...

Sugar Minott - Hard Time Pressure


Anyway, I was jamming Sugar Minott tunes all the way to the trail and thinking......and thinking can get me into trouble quite often. Maybe I had an epiphany, or at least I thought I did. I was thinking about Sugar. I was thinking about riding trails that I don't go to enough. I was thinking about riding my Flash Carbon 29er which was on the roof and I don't ride it enough, off road. And I was thinking about connecting with people. The human connection, and how good it makes you feel when you meet someone that you feel a connection with, for whatever reason.

Diversify – to give variety to; vary; to spread out. Connectivity - The ability to make and maintain a connection. The quality or condition of being connected or connective.

Sugar is the main link to this thought process of mine. He passed away at the young age of 54 in 2010 and what a loss to this world. He was special. He was gifted. He was able to cross over and master multiple styles within reggae unlike just about any other artist. Roots. Lovers Rock. Dancehall. He was a pioneer, an originator. He stretched out musically and touched more people with his dynamic range. If you loved dancehall, you loved Sugar. If you loved roots reggae, you loved Sugar...and so on. He connected with people, and made them happy. He enriched their lives with his music. I knew Sugar, from when I was a reggae radio DJ in a galaxy far far away. I did shows with him. I knew his family. I interviewed him live on the radio. He even slept over at my house one night with the whole band...that's another story.

So, I want to diversify my connectivity, and I'm doing it. And it feels good. I need to spread out and ride more trails and more bikes. I was thinking (yeah, I know) that when I'm riding, bikes or boards, I'm moving along the boundaries of the earth assisted by gravity and centrifugal forces that help to connect me....to the earth.

I rode as fast as I could. It felt great. Mid 60s after Thanksgiving? And I connected....with a tree. I was thinking during the ride, and that's when it happened. My handlebar clipped a tree on the right side and threw me into a tree. Right shoulder to tree, right knee to handlebar/shifter. Yes, it hurt and I didn't know if I could continue...but I did.

And I realized something during the ride. I didn't feel like I was burning the evils and negativity out of my system. I was burning positive aggression. It felt like clean burning fuel. Rocket fuel. And my Flash 29er, Domino, is the rocket.

Sugar Live In JA
Extra Classic!

Domino Day

Post Ride Wound Inspection

This is an amazing oral history of reggae!
Sugar Minott Studio One Story

I Met A Lady From Greece

That sounds (and looks) like a strange title.....even to me, and I wrote it. I did, meet a Greek lady, and her daughter. They were really nice! The lady, the Mom, said to me "I never met a bike I didn't like!". It was an awesome statement. I loved it. She referenced the feeling of freedom. Free to go most anywhere anytime - Prince. That's it.

Live Audio.....starts at 1:18

Giving Thanks

What a day! It was a nippy morning in the 30's as I rolled out of the EV and headed to Ringwood for the annual Thanksgiving ride. I was thinking about the Beres Hammond song Giving Thanks as I drove up the FDR....



I was not feeling as optimistic as usual. I was thinking about the things that I feel thankful for....being able to afford food, having a job that I like, good health and fitness, a place to live, my bikes, great friends....I could keep going. I was also thinking about things that I don't have that I'm thankful for....health problems, lack of self confidence, lack of goals or motivation. There are things that I had, that were bad, that I don't have any more. Give thanks. Sometimes you've dodged a bullet and haven't realized it. Give thanks. Anyway, today I'm really giving thanks for an amazing ride that made me feel great! Paul got the Go Pro camera running even though we didn't have any of the right mounts for some reason... We did have tape! Paul, Gil, and I running our Ringwood loop....and we ran into our old pal Alberto on the trail and he joined us for the ride. 15 miles of pleasure and pain. The change in my state of mind from pre-ride to post-ride was astonishing. Dopamine and adrenaline flowing through me. And the feast that we had up in the Boogie Down Bronx at Sky's place was incredible. Two turkeys, one smoked, and pernil ala DR. Give thanks. Be glad for what you got.

More Beres, live. What a voice...

Paul and Gil Mounting the Go Pro camera
to Paul's bike with packing tape. Yep, it worked.

Gil and Paul on the trail

LW.....Happy

The Feast, post-destruction

The landing where I took a nap after dinner....
Maybe it was the brownies?

Cutting Room Floor / Don't Come Around Here No More

The end of last week was turbulent. I thought I might explode. Life can sometimes get the best of you, if you let it. Which reminds me of my favorite Cheap Trick song, Everything Works If You Let It. Anyway, the weather forecast said low 60's for Sunday and I knew that if I could hold out, and survive til' then, a mountain bike ride would fix me up. The bloodletting at the end of my week hurt. So many ideas, feelings, emotions....the human mind is powerful. Thoughts...productive and destructive. It's a fine balance. Trying not to stumble and get in the way of your own progress. Your emotions, make you a monster (DK's). When I saw Oisin recently from MrNorth, we discussed the meanings of many of the songs on the new album Everything. Cutting Room Floor is exactly what it appears to be....it's about all the scenes that don't make it in the movie. Even if it cost a lot to create those scenes, and I don't mean just US dollars. They are left on the cutting room floor of your life. Your movie, my movie. We all make choices, and we have to live with those choices. It goes like this....Goodbye.....Goodbye, Honey.......Buddy... Listen here: http://www.amazon.com/Cutting-Room-Floor/dp/B004ZNIYDS And somehow I managed to merge Cutting Room Floor with Tom Petty's Don't Come Around Here No More? Quite fitting, I know. Thinking can be dangerous. I need to do less thinking and more riding. So Paul and I met out on LI at Glacier Ridge yesterday and the weather was indeed picture perfect. The windmill was turning, the sun was shining, the weather was sweet. Paul had never been there before. His bike was a little overkill for the tight, twisty trail, but he rocked it. My Spot....in flight as usual.

Cheap Trick....

Paul Getting Ready

Dark Side Of The Moon

The English Beat goes on....

That's right....
Dave Wakeling and The English Beat are still rocking. We went to see them last night and they did not disappoint. Dave's voice is amazing and the songs are timeless! Mirror In The Bathroom, Twist & Crawl, Tears Of A Clown, I Confess, even Tenderness. The music is uplifting and the band is killer. They've still got it, and Dave looks like he can go on forever. Go see them play in a town near you. You'll be glad you did.