About Mountain Mileage

Thanks for visiting the Mountain Mileage blog.  The blog was, and is intended to give people information to help improve their cycling experience.  Currently the blog has just one writer, myself (Dan) with Esther as my personal consultant.  I hope you've enjoyed your visit and found some useful information.  If you haven't, please feel free to ask questions by posting comments on the blog posts.

About Dan:
I spend my "working" hours at Belmont Wheelworks helping people get on bicycles appropriate for what they are looking for while also managing our rubber products making sure we have a great selections of tires and tubes available for all types of riders.  Feel free to pop in and say hello and take a peak at our enormous selection of bikes.  Our selection has no equal in the area as no shop can boast the number of options and stock we carry in road and mountain bikes as well as tandems and recumbents.  We carry Specialized, Trek, Santa Cruz, Transition, Surly, Salsa, Moots, Cervelo, Cielo, Bianchi, Masi, Co-Motion and much more.  Wheelworks is a great shop with an incredible amount of experience behind the service counter and a vast selection of bikes to satisfy the weekend warrior to the daily commuter to the marathon riders doing 100's of miles weekly (and daily for some crazy people).  It's been really fun helping people get set up for their next experience with a new bike.

Cake House in Gaylordsville, CT.  Thank you
CT Museum Quest for the photo

I got on a bicycle sometime before the age of 7.  I only know this because one of my earliest memories as a child is of me immediately ditching those annoying training wheels on the road we lived on in Keller Texas and off I went.  We moved from Texas when I was 7 years old, so I know my first pedaling happened sometime before moving from there.  Some of my most fond memories as a child were that of riding my bike to school with my big brother when we were both in elementary school and the family bicycle rides we went on with my parents.  I remember those rides also included dirt and I think we put out some decent miles!  I particularly remember a fun route we did through Kent, CT by "Cody's Cove" up past the private boys school and then on to some roads that turned into dirt off and on and down we went into Gaylordsville (a town name that always cracked me up), then by this weird house where each floor got continually smaller as it went up five stories.  I can't say that every time I get on a bicycle I remember those early rides as a kid and remember why this is fun, but those memories sure are sparked often.

I discovered mountain bikes in 2001 and found that it was the answer to all of my problems since living in Hoboken, NJ had me weary of road riding in such densely populated areas.  I had tubes in my tires, ran high pressures around 50-60 for "lower rolling resistance" and had a whopping 60mm of travel.  Much has changed since then and as the theoretical ways to achieve the most traction and safety on mountain bikes comes together, more and more people seem to be finding that this is a sport that isn't just for X-games competitions and people hopped up on gallons of Red Bull.  Since moving to Massachusetts a couple of years ago I've been trying to put together the best loops on the area trails and I've found the best way to do it is to enter the local races and follow the courses that the people who know the trails have designed.  It's been a great deal of fun and I've met a ton of great people.

My ride for the pavement and commuting and dirt is a Surly Cross Check with a Brooks B17 saddle.  I love the bigger semi-slick tire (35c) for commuting and roads riddled with potholes and with the Surly Nice Rack in the rear I can carry up to 60 pounds of gear.  My ride for singletrack/trail is a carbon fiber Santa Cruz Tallboy LT with lots of XT parts on it.  This bike is just pure awesome wrapped up in awesome rolling on two wheels of awesome.  Disassembled right now is 26 inch wheeled hardtail frame that will be a 650B frame once it is reassembled as my ongoing project in the second bedroom, otherwise known as the bike shop.

Thanks for reading the blog and let me know if there's something specific you'd like a review of and I'll see what I can do.