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Hey, It’s been a while.

For the latest most up to date stuff on what we’re doing, you can find us on Instagram.

Send me a note if you’re having trouble finding us.

– b

Redrock

A friend and climbing buddy from PA was up visiting his parents in the Gloucester area for the holiday. He grew up there and obviously knows the area very well. When he offered to meet us with his son at a local crag to climb, then head back to his parent’s house to swim, we were all in.

It’s called Redrock and has a nice mixture of trad (‘traditional’ – place your protection as you lead) and TR (top-rope) climbing.

This is Abigail getting ready to climb Zipper. It’s a really nice 5.6 layback crack climb.

Here she is at the crux.

The proximity to home and ease of access to the rocks and the anchors up top make this a really great place for the kids learn and experience more outdoor climbing.

Here’s Abigail belaying Lauren on Zipper.

It was a super hot day (90+), so our time was limited to the amount of water we had to drink. When that was gone, we packed up and headed to Scott’s parent’s house for hoagies and a swim.

Nothing like a few hundred rounds of Marco Polo in a pool on a hot day.

All in all a great day. Can’t wait to head back to Redrock and explore some more.

 – b

Grocery Getter

I ordered a “grocery pannier” in hopes that I could actually do a grocery run with my bike.

If they look huge in the photo, they are not.

They can only fit about 3 cereal boxes each and that’s not enough.

I’m sending them back.

I’ve ordered something different, which might turn out similar, but at least it will be cheaper.

Staty tuned.

– b

4th

Went to a nice 4th celebration.

It was mostly free and the fireworks were spectacular.

We’re definitely going again next year.

 – b

Abigail’s Road Bike

It’s a mt bike turned road.

I got some nice street tires for it, a seat post that fits, and a seat she likes.

She’s ready to rip.

Ignore the work bench mess. I have.

 – b

17.5 Miles

The girls and I rode to the city and back this weekend.

Though Lauren is in the back in this picture, she spent most of the ride out front. I attribute it to the fact that she’s riding 24″ rims vs Abigail’s 20″. Abigail had it in 7th gear, but Lauren’s bigger wheels kept rolling away.

That’s ok. Craig’s List will fix that pretty easily – wink, wink.

We came back along the river on the Cambridge side. That was pretty nice. The road between the river/trail and the MIT campus is shut down on Sundays, so the kids could essentially ride wherever they wanted.

The only problem we had was the weather. A storm (with lightening) rolled through as we were trying to get to lunch. We made it and only got a little wet, but decided to take precautions in case the rain continued.

When I first suggested that we stop and get trash bags to wear, they weren’t convinced. After doing so and riding a bit through the cold rain, they were hooked. Of course almost as soon as we had them on and rode a block or two, the rain quit and the sun came out. Oh well. At least they learned the versatility of a trash bag.

Stay tuned this weekend for Abigail’s new bike debut. We already have it. It’s very similar to Lauren’s, but needs a little TLC. She’ll be ripping in no time.

– b

As If

Having a bumb hip wasn’t enough, Jen came down with pneumonia.

Recovery is progressing, but it’s slow.

Speaking of hips, after getting a second opinion, Jen’s getting hers replaced August 1st. We’re pretty excited. Something like normal life may soon be around the corner.

 – b

Finally!

Got a chance to get out with the girls on our dirt bikes!

New Hampshire is the place to ride. There are public trails all over the state of varying degrees of difficulty. All you need is a permit (got one) and an adult (that’s me).

The particular trail we chose is about an hour from home. It’s a 12 mile family friendly ATV trail. We parked about 2/3rds of the way through it and decided to do the shorter portion first. Turns out the shorter portion is the hardest part. It was later described and we quickly found out as having “deep sand”. The girls had never ridden in sand, so it was a challenge at first. Once they figured out that you just needed to go faster, it wasn’t too bad.

After having not ridden for nearly a year, I was pleasantly surprised to have everything work flawlessly.

One addition I decided that we needed was a better source of shade.

To eat lunch, we found an edge over by the bushes for some shade. Not ideal and kind of sketch.

I’ve been contemplating shade options for the car/trailer combo for quite a while. We have a pop-up canopy already, but it’s huge, hard to secure and not something I’m willing to leave around while we go off riding in random places. Another option is getting a rollout shade to mount on the car like this.

Problem is they’re expensive and still require something to mount them to. I’d need a rooftop basket with brackets or make something for my factory rails. Other issue (as you can see in the photo above) is that it could cast the shade in a spot you can’t use. At least with my trailer option, we’re likely to have shade underneath (at noon) or on one of the four open sides.

Hopefully with the 4 day weekend coming up, we’ll get a chance to try it out.

– b

Ride On

For whatever reason we hadn’t ridden in a while. Yesterday we changed that. We packed up the bikes and headed to our “local” trails for a nice jaunt.

The double shinguards proved to be awesome. No more scraped up calves and the girls could pedal in comfort.

They both rode impressively well for having not ridden for a month. They successfully climbed more and tackled more technical stuff (roots & rocks) than I would have expected.

Lauren’s sport glasses worked well too. It was pretty hot yesterday, so it was a good test for their potential to fog. Overall she liked the fact that she could actually see while riding.

We did a 6.5 mile ride, which was reaching the limits for Lauren’s strength. At a point near the end she was complaining that her thighs hurt. She didn’t buy it when I told here that was just weakness leaving her body.

Overall a great ride and really cool to see their progression.

– b

Outdoor Kid Climbing

My local friend Steve and I took our kids climbing on Saturday. There’s a spot about an hour and a half away that’s got great rock and not too crowded.

They don’t really look like it, but the kids had an awesome time.

Steve lead the routes and setup top rope for them. We did 4 different routes ranging in difficulty from 5.9 – 5.6.

I was really impressed with how the kids did considering all that’s different from climbing inside (texture, height, reach). In many cases what looked fairly straight forward from the ground, I’d later find out when I climbed it was quite tricky and more so for the girls because of their height.

Our true gauge for success was the fact that everyone wanted to come back, which is great. A few more times on the same routes should really boost their confidence and creativity in such experiences.

I managed to lead one myself. It was the easiest of the bunch, but it was nice to be on point. If I could just get to the gym on a more routine basis and get stronger, I’d be set for more leading.

– b