Columbus Was A Dick, But My Mom Is Awesome

For the past, I'm gonna say three...ya three years, that sounds good, my family and I have spent Columbus day weekend up in East Burke Vermont riding the Kingdom Trails. This mountain bike-themed getaway is entirely my mom's idea. She's over sixty now and she's been riding since she got her first mountain bike at IBC back in the early nineties. We rent an apartment from the the super-nice folks at the Village Inn of East Burke, Loraine and George. The apartment is actually attached to Loraine and George's son's restaurant, Willy's. It used to be that the only game in town food-wise in East Burke was the River Garden Cafe or The Pub Outback, one of which is mediocre and over-priced and the other of which is downright horrible at any price. You can try both and decide which is which. Or better yet, just eat at Willy's because it's amazing.

My niece Lyla says hello to George's bird dogs at The Village Inn

Of course the Tamarack Grill ain't too shabby either, although it's a very different vibe from Willy's. Willy's is rather high end, while the Tamarack is more very-edible pub food. Just watch out for the ever-present old-as-Hell-drunk-as-Hell dude with the GUN seated at the end of the bar. He's cool, just don't piss him off.

Nephew Noah uses the bike wash at the Inn

When I say "my family and I," I'm talking about ELEVEN people. That's eleven people using one bathroom for three days. There's your reality show idea. Screw Jersey Shore; we got East Burke Bathroom. "Hey everyone...guys! I'm taking a shower, does anyone need to get in here first?" (Three people get up simultaneously).

Brother Brad on an $8400 Remedy 9.9 demo

Something I realize every time the non-serious mountain bikers in my family come out to ride is this: I am the least talented natural athlete in my family. My sister gets on a bike once or twice a year and rides like she used to win World Cups. My brother Brad is a ninja with preternatural balance. My brother James was kind of the sleeper, he doesn't usually get out on the trails with us, but this time he did and wow! He would just see me do things and then he would do them. It really makes no sense why my siblings are all such great natural bike handlers. Man, it took me years to get where they're at right out of the gate. It took a whole lot of lonely, frustrating rides on my too-big orange Rockhopper to get to where I'm at.

James: maybe the power is in the bandanna.

And then there's my wife who's made leaps and bounds with her riding prowess over just this past year. She's more on my arc — lots of hard work to offset lack of natural talent. I can't believe the stuff she rides now.


If you're ever taking beginner type folks out in the NEK the best trail to take them on is Vast. It has lots of off-shoots if you want to get all crazy but otherwise it's a scenic straight shot with very little climbing. I'll maybe do a proper "how to ride the Kingdom post" at some point in an attempt to prevent people, people like Rooter, from doing insane things, things like riding UP Moose Alley.



Speaking of riding up things you shouldn't...

I have to wonder, do directional arrows on trails lose something in translation? Do they mean something different in French-Canadian? Because I ran into a whole lot of Quebecois riding up trails that only work in one direction and are simply dangerous to ride in reverse. UP Webs? Are you sérieux? Go die. But please do it somewhere else, don't make me kill you as I ride down a trail that no one in their right mind would ever ride UP. That's what you have to understand about Columbus day weekend in the NEK: it's also Canadian Thanksgiving so the place is overrun with the people who live in America's hat. They move in packs of fifteen or twenty and form blockades at all trail heads and manage to make highway-wide fire-roads impassable. "Hmm, I wonder where the turn for Sugar Hill is? Oh, there it is, it's right there where those twenty people are standing and talking in weird-French."

Most mornings involved a little warm up at the pump track with Noah. He's made a lot of progress too. He's standing when he climbs now and looking where he wants the bike to go; not where it happens to be going at the moment. Next year we'll have him out on the trails for real.

And Lyla...well she presents more of a challenge in the riding bikes department. It's OK though, she has other talents. She knows way more Ke$ha lyrics than I do for instance. And it's not like I don't know Ke$ha lyrics.



It might be the weekend for made-up Canadian Thanksgiving and American genocidal-slave-trader-appreciation-day but for the past few Columbus day weekends I've been given a good reason to feel thankful and to reflect on just how rad my family is.

Things get a little but blurry in the hot tub after a few Dark & Stormy's

It's That Time

Time to hang a bunch of tall boys on the top tube of a Schwinn Varsity, much to the chagrin of the employees of Blanchard's Liquors. They insisted that the beer had to be covered, and they were none too pleased to begin with that the Varsity had been wheeled into the store as a sort of ghastly shopping cart by a deranged man wearing all black clothing and stylish sneakers.


The deranged man was named Gaulzetti. He complained that the Varsity was geometrically flawed (for Gaulzetti's sake, pray these blasphemous words never reach the eyes of The Todd Downs). His argument: The top tube is a touch too short — it won't quite accommodate three six packs of tall boys.

"When you're riding a Schwinn Varsity down Brighton Ave. with three six packs of tall boys hanging on the top tube, every frat boy and hipster wants to be your buddy."


I bet the sweet ti rack on Matt O'Keefe's Seven Cycles cruiser could hold a bunch of tall boys too. I've just always loved this rack.

The truth is, I shouldn't even be yammering right now. It's not really time to hang a bunch of tall boys on the top tube of a Schwinn Varsity, it's time for kids bike donations again. I have a box truck out in front of my house with fifty-something colorful, little bikes in it, along with fifty-something colorful little helmets. They are headed to Dorchester EARLY tomorrow AM. I should be sleeping now is what I'm saying.

So ya, EFTA Pinnacle report on Monday, complete with Helmet cam video and interviews of all the major players on cyclingdirt. The Elite field is growing, it's up to about 14 dudes, not bad. Speaking of things growing, thanks to some fancy foot work by my awesome wife, I rallied from a precarious third place in the Breck Epic Blogger grant and I am now solidly back in the lead.

See you Monday, that is if the load in the back of the box truck doesn't shift, causing an avalanche of disproportionately heavy kids bikes to pour out and crush me to death when I go open the door tomorrow morning.


Oh right, and as if that all wasn't enough excitement for you, I have here the much-awaited sequel to yesterday's NEK video. And this one has 60MPH winds and golf ball-sized hail in it. I'm still a little goofy with the editing, tried a little transition from Jane's Addiction (whom I forgot to credit...dur) to Danzig, and the incorporation of still photos. Kind of a trainwreck, see for yourself:

North East Kingdom from thom parsons on Vimeo.

"Like An Addict" North East Kingdom #1 from thom parsons on Vimeo.

You Wanna Look Pretty Though, In My Video

(Is the title I would have used for this post if I hadn't already used it for some other semi-pointless past-post.)

Late, emergency edit: I have fallen into THIRD PLACE in the Breck Epic blogger grant poll. And while the thought of getting out of, whatever the hell it is, 40,000 feet of climbing in six days, is somewhat appealing, I still want to win this thing. So go over to the facebooks, you don't need to share any more information with big brother than you already have by signing up for the facebooks to begin with, and vote for Thom "Rocky Donizetti" Parsons. It's as easy as clicking the little button dealy next to my name. The poll ends tomorrow, do it...do it. And thanks.

Oops, I did it again. I done spent all my bloggin' time video editin'. I have to practice though, for possible future endeavors, and besides, I'm kind of addicted. I've got another one on the way right behind this one with all the crazy weather stuff that happened day two up in the kingdom. The song "10 A.M. Automatic" by The Black Keys was stuck in my head all day long on Friday. I was growling it under my breath as I rode. I was even growling it under my breath as I set up my tent that evening. "You're a dork," Whittinghammer sang, right in rhythm with my muted growling. The above video sums up the vibe of the day, all the flow and all the fastness. Having my internal soundtrack go external made me super-stoked, hopefully that comes across for you all.

The weather in the Kingdom definitely put the new Stylus-I'm not exactly sure how-tough 6000 to the test. It's alleged to be shock proof and waterproof, which is a good thing, because it was both dropped and doused with water more than once during the trip. I even washed some grit off the thing in a stream. But all was not 100% awesome. At the end of the day it got stuck in "P Mode" and refused to scroll through any of the menu functions from the camera settings. I could still take photos in one mode and I could still take video, but to take more than one video, I had to turn the camera off and then on again. Not convenient...and fascinating. Sanidas has had the same camera for over a year and he's had zero problems. I'm just a frickin' destroyer I guess.

Good news is, when I went into The Shop on Monday, I hit the camera with some compressed air and BAM! It was working again. Amazing. I might just be a little bit more careful with it in the future. The photos are not up to the level of my old Canon Elphs, but the video is decent. I did the Big Ring Rumpus post-race interviews on it:

Cycling Videos on CyclingDirt

It was a good thing it was waterproof for those.

And speaking of cyclingdirt, I'm heading up to the EFTA Pinnacle race on Sunday and I'll be "covering it" for cyclingdirt. Sadly for Rooter and K-Sweet, my helmet cam will be facing forward, not backward, so the only hope they'll have of making the web-pages of cyclingdirt will be if I lap them. Although I bet I can get them to give me a couple killer pre/post race interviews during the car ride home (if they don't boot me out of the car somewhere along 89 first). I suppose I'll have to figure out how to bleep out f-bombs before I air those things.

Falling asleep at the wheel here, be back tomorrow sometime.

Anarchy in The NEK Part One

After riding the massive ascents and rooty descents of Waitsfield with Whittingham last Thursday good food was eaten and good beers were drunk. In the morning we loaded up on coffee and breakfast sandwiches and hit the winding roads to meet up with Sanidas and company in East Burke. The rendezvous at East Burke Sports was made and Cars and bikes were shuttled back and forth, leaving us enough vehicles down in the valley to get us back up the insanely steep hill to the campground on Burke Mountain at the end of the day.

The first time I rode the Kingdom trails, about ten years ago, we made the mistake of riding out of the campground (which was really odd because I rarely make mistakes). Five hours and however many miles later we ended up at the Pub Out Back for beers. When it came time to ride back up to the campground, we realized the error of our plan. Not this time around, these guys are pros, they had the system dialed.



We started our epic day of playing on bikes in the woods on the mountain, shuttling right up to the top so we could hit all the sweet stuff on the way down, like D.H. run and Dead Moose Alley (pardon me if my trail names aren't accurate, I didn't look at a map all weekend, I was too busy looking at the wheel in front of me). Jeff, Andy, and I were on our hard-tail 29ers, while everyone else was on big, squishing bikes. It was a major challenge to try to hang with these guys, I got in over my head more than once. I always feel like the technical beatdown does me good though. After a couple days chasing these nutters around, I feel wicked Jedi, the force is very strong within me.


The past few times I've been up to the NEK, the trails on the mountain have been closed due to wetness, so I was stoked that we got to hit them. Although I might not recommend the D.H. trail for XC dorks. I was lucky to escape that one alive. Dead Moose Alley though, that run is killer.


Adjusting to having the Helmet Hero on was tough. I might have to look into the chest mount dealy. This wasn't the only time I caught a low bridge. I'm convinced the added weight makes my neck ache. I got big problems, I know.


Bill was ripping the descents. He had cleaned a billion hairy moves with conviction, when out of nowhere, something grabbed his foot and sent him flying into the pricker pushes. He came to rest in a patch of softness, somehow missing the large log that was lying right across his debris path. It was impressive, and terrifying.


The big-squishy bikers came up with name "Menage a Niners" to describe Andy, Whittingham, and me. We did our best to enforce negative stereotypes about XC-Dork-29er riders by doing things like rolling a couple extra miles back into town to fuel up while the rest of the crew pulled picnic baskets and deck chairs from their enormous camel-bags on the trail. But, in our defense, while they sucked down perpetuem and gagged on energy bars, we feasted on Italian sandwiches and Fritos, washed down with ice cold PBR.

Done with the DH-ing portion of the day, we headed down to the valley.

Charlie would fight a bitter battle with a greasy convenience store egg-sandwich the whole day through. The egg sandwich would prove victorious.


Chris and Peter, the men in white. You can get away with wearing white when you have the super-mutant-ability to leap the largest of mud puddles.


Andy ices his hematoma, brought to him courtesy of a tree on the Sidewinder trail, smiling as always. He would live to ride another day.


We were really roughing it. Dueling Macbooks Pros with Helmet Hero footage from the day. People made fun at first, but within minutes the whole posse was gathered around, drinking Long Trails and watching their very recent exploits. Chris' Helmet Hero HD definitely kicks my non-HD cam's wide-angled buttocks.


And ya, we stayed up way too late, drinking way too many PBRs... and something about a bottle of tequila that wouldn't die.

The really exciting stuff happened on day two, but that's a story for another day, perhaps a Thursday.