North Bend Rail Trail

Up here in WV visiting my wife's family, and since we celebrated Christmas yesterday I took some of today to check out North Bend Rail Trail.  Lucky for me they live about 10 miles from the Happy Valley Parking on the West end of the trail system.  It has rained right much the last two weeks here with some snow mixed in and it was raining yesterday.  The trail was very soggy as you can see in one of the photos which made for a slow trip and in some areas lucky to be doing 9 mph at times.  I ended up going through five tunnels and that is where I had my highest speeds with it being dry in there between 16-18 mph.  I ended up doing a round trip of 62.5 miles with my turn around in Ellenboro.  For a rail trail it had more elevation than I thought it would after looking at the elevation profile on Strava, but it is in a mountainous state.  I look forward to riding the entire 72 miles one-way and turn around for a 144 mile round trip this summer when the trail should be dry and fast.  It is a beautiful trail and well maintained.  Here is the new bike (Cannondale Super X Rival) I got about a week ago, so this was the biggest ride on it and it is comfortable and worked like a charm.  Here are a few photos from the trip.

Eaton Tunnel (first tunnel)

Country Trail Bikes in Cairo, WV

A little soggy made for some hard pedaling

Another tunnel

Ellenboro - nice to place to refuel on  future trips

 

It was a dirty ride

Had fun getting it dirty

The Feed Zone Review

The Feed Zone

I purchased The Feed Zone Cookbook a little less than a month ago and have been making a few meals and portables from it.  So far, I am highly impressed with everything that I have prepared.  Today, I made the Brown Rice Muffins and my main reason for this is the nutritional value it has for long endurance rides on the mountain bike.  It has 248 calories, 3 grams of fat, 49 grams of carbs and 25 grams of protein that will not leave you short of energy.  They are extremely easy to make as you can see from picture below.  Only things I used was a rice cooker (highly recommended), blender and muffin tin.  They are easy for me to eat at 5am during the week as I head out the door to hit the trails for a good 15-20 miles before work a couple times during the week.  I also will have an extra with me to eat right after the morning ride to help with recovery.  Also on weekend rides lasting more than 2 1/2 to 3 hours they can be put in a sandwich bag and stuffed in the jersey pocket or I can swing back by the car and grab it.

Brown Rice Muffins

   





To date I have made the following recipes:
Egg and Chorizo Sandwich
Sweet Potato Pancakes
Allen's Rice Cakes x 2
Chocolate Peanut Coconut Rice Cakes
Rice and Banana Muffins
Brown Rice Muffins
Angel Hair with Bacon and Sweet Corn
Pizza with Tomato and Basil
Chicken Tikka Masala
Spiced Black Beans
Spicy Cabbage Slaw

One of my favorite recipes to make is the Spicy Cabbage Slaw.  This has some great flavors and so far I have had it on Fish Tacos, Shrimp Tacos and just by itself.  There are other foods that it would be great on also from BBQ, Turkey or Veggie Burgers also.

Shrimp Tacos w/ Spicy Slaw and Homemade Guacamole

I have also been using PROBAR on my endurance rides for energy for sometime now because they are another great source of natural energy, and they are made of natural whole foods.  I have used gels and other products like them and after awhile they make my stomach hurt if I use a lot of them.  I have cut back on the number of gels that I use on a ride or if I use any at all.

I highly recommend picking up The Feed Zone Cookbook and PROBAR.  Both have changed the types of foods that I use for endurance rides.  I believe they make a good combination for getting energy from natural food sources that your body can easily digest.