a farewell to the grumbler

The Grumbler is sold and gone. I was fond of that noisy piece of machinery.

I rolled about 40,000 miles that Jeep. From May to September, it was home.


I bought the Grumbler when I was a senior in High School. It looked a little rough.


Early on, it had some issues. I blew through two radiators, all the hoses, and a water pump.


Then the clutch gave out in the middle of snowmagedon last February.

That was a bummer. Probably the only time that four wheel drive and max-traction tires would have been practical, and it wasn't drivable. Once the snow melted in March and I was able to crawl under it, it took about 15 minutes to fix.

In spite of everyone's predictions (including my own), it made the 3,000 mile round trip to Breck this summer.




Not comfortably, but it made it.


As much as I liked the Grumbler, it wasn't a good vehicle for the open road. I could pull 20mpg if I drove really nicely, but I could never go faster than 65 on the flat and 50 up a hill. That's fine in Pennsylvania, but out West where the speed limit is 70 and everybody drives 90, I felt like an old woman pushing a shopping cart in the sand.

I bought a little VW Golf that should be ready sometime next week. I don't think I'll be able to sleep in it as easily, but it is twice as fuel efficient. And it has carpet, a sunroof, and a working radio. So luxurious.

over the ridge - greensburg to laughlintown

Dow Powers and I got out for the first long ride of the year yesterday:

This is close to the same route I took on my first big ride when I was 15. At that point I was riding a Gary Fisher Hoo Koo e Koo. I used to lock up the brakes to skid the tread off that bike's tires so that they would roll better. 

Back then I rode on the wrong side of the road, wore a lime green bandanna instead of a helmet, and cramped up climbing the ridge in a 22x32 low gear.  The loop took me almost 8 hours. I thank the great puffy hamster in the sky that it doesn't take that long anymore. 

After the first few miles in Greensburg, there wasn't much traffic on the back roads. We rode past the St. Vincent wetlands, through the only traffic circle in Western PA, then started up the ridge.

The climb over the ridge gets real steep towards the end. I still cramped, but this time it was with a 40x17. In an unprecedented reversal of roles Don Powers had to wait for me at the top.

The sun was scheduled to come out and warm things up to 30 degrees. Predictably, it never did. We were pretty warm after getting to the top of the ridge, but all that sweat instantly froze on the way back down. I couldn't bend my arms or move my hands for a few minutes when we finished the 40mph descent.

After rolling past the base of Laurel Mountain we cut through the grounds of the prestigious Rolling Rock club. A few target pheasants were clucking around in the snow. I guess the former VP left a few standing.

We stopped at the Pie Shop in Laughlintown and I refueled with a peanut butter chocolate gob. Easily the most calorie dense food on the planet.

After that it was a straight burn from Ligonier to Latrobe on Rt. 30. We held about 22 mph through the gorge, which I'm delighted with on a single speed with risers.

Back into Greensburg with about 4 hours of rolling time and a 15mph average. That's a solid ride for January.

And bonus awesome, the maintenance people are salting the bike parking at school now. I feel so spoiled.


Way better than last year:

shoeing the snow

There's been too much snow on the trails to ride, so Colleen and I have been trying to find something else to do. Bananagrams was cool for a while, but the games always degenerated into fights over the validity of words like "zangs." But at least we haven't resorted to mixing downers and trying to burn down the house.

Today we went down to our place of summer employment in Ohiopyle and rented some snowshoes.


We started on the falls side of the Fern Cliff Peninsula and hiked around the loop. The sun was out for the first time in days. Place is pretty in the winter.





Then we found a little rodent thing on the trail:

Rat dogs aside, snowshoeing was fun. It's not as hard as I thought it would be, although some of us had trouble with the big rocks:


More exciting news about the new official Knobby Meats Racing Conglomerate transport machine next week. It doesn't look like this, but I would be lying if I said I didn't consider it: