So where did you ride your bike?

(click to see more detail)

People often ask me that question, when we go to the Singletrack Lodge. This is where we ride. It's a dirt trail and today (once I got off the short road portion) I was entirely alone except for the birds and squirrels. Needless to say, when alone I ride extra slowly and carefully, because cellphone coverage is limited, and its a LONG walk out. The weather today was great, scattered thunderstorms kept the temp down around 70, while down the hill in the desert it was well over 110, and in fact even 93 at the beach. Another day in paradise.

Let Them be Boys - GarageBand Track of the Day

Hey, I entered one of my better tunes in a GarageBand contest to get some feedback, and got Track of the Day. I guess there wasn't much competition today, but I'll take it! The reviews are helpful on this one, its only a demo with a couple hours of work, so this will help with a remix. The drums in particular need to be redone, and I'm looking forward to doing that. Hope you enjoy it.

lyrics to a song - first demo track:

<- Click to listen to this song

they say there was a problem with that boy
he just didnt seem to do the things we like a boy to do

there seemed to be a problem at school
but things were too slow boring and uncool

who wouldn't rather mess and play around
when theres so much of life outside on the playground

but the teacher labled him as A D D and his momma
gave him some pills and put him in front of the TV

and now we wonder why he cant be part of society
and now hes a living in a correctional facility

take them outside and let them howl at the moon
don't treat them like a problem or they will end up in the zoo

not everyone can live a life behind a desk
sometimes a boy just needs some space to be his best

isnt a little discipline is better than a pill
why label him a reject and make them want to kill

a child's frustration with ordinary life
can be misdirected into the street and a knife

be smarter than the labelers and help them find a way
to teach us to innovate and live for better days

take them outside and let them howl at the moon
don't treat them like a problem or they will end up in the zoo

Click Hear to Listen to the Song

My Favorite Training Ride

Hi, recently I got a Garmin Edge 205 bike GPS. Its a thingy that tracks your ride and then you can download where you went and map it out, including the elevation changes. Also you can use it to compete against your prior rides etc. You can google it and figure out the details if you want. But the point of this is that we do a ride for training and its a tough one. Its located at Crystal Cove state park and we do some loops around this course (pics below). According to the fitness GPS we burn about 1400 calories, which does not sound like much until you try to burn off that many on an excercise gear in your favorite fitness center. On this particular ride we did it in about an hour and 50 mins. (excluding about the 10 minutes in between a few hills I rested to wait for my training partner). My record for this is 1:47, but I think anything under 2 hours is a great workout result.

If you ever want to try this, meet us at the parking lot most Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 7:30 AM. Bring lots of water, spare tubes, and a pump. And if you are really slow, you might be on your own, because for the most part we need to get on with our day. Don't worry about getting ahead of us, if you are that good, have at it. As we are old farts (53 and 59) you young-uns can kick our butts - but unless you are used to this kind of riding you will be surprised at the difficulty in keeping up.

The route is looping - clockwise from the left, at the survey point we double back through the crossroads and do that little inner loop, back up to the crossroads, then back down the center, up to I think I can, back to the survey point again, then double back the starting route to total out almost 20 miles. We end up passing the crossroads 4 times, so there are lots of shorter (and longer) variations.

(click to see better detail: - sorry html programming bores me)


Here is the hill profile, (click to see better detail)

Zachary Guitar Pedal

Update - August 16, 2007:

I have been spending a lot of time with this pedal. It seems to be ridiculous to say it, but it is brilliant. It is the best investment in gear I have made since I purchased a '69 Tele for $150 when I was 17. (damn I wished I was smart enough to have kept it) This pedal is so musical. (I will keep this.) Of course it is brutal in revealing your warts as a player, and the tone shortcomings of your guitars and amps, but it is also insanely rewarding when it uncovers the harmonics of your best gear and the skill you have as a player. After redoing the setup on my Tele, it is sweet through this pedal. I think a couple of my other pedals are going on e-bay in a couple of more weeks if I don't use them. This one takes the cake.

Note - my previous post of August 11 - five days previous:

Occasionally, one runs across something that lives up to its maker's hype. This is one of those things. Of course the hype here is over the top, and quite honestly I'm not sure how much better than some other units I have tried this really is, but in my opinion this IS the best guitar pedal available now for the kind of sound I like.

Here is a link to clip of me fooling around with this pedal. Part of it actually is musical and includes a chunk of a song, but mostly its a tone demo.



Expect to hear it in the mix of some of my upcoming tunes.

Am I plugging this guy's pedal? Well I suppose. I like to see good things get the attention they deserve. Also, if you check it out this might in fact be something that enhances my credibility as a person who is has knowledge about getting good guitar tone. And, we will see over time about getting rid of the other pedals. If I end up not using them for quite a while, that's exactly what I might end up doing.

A couple of other overdrive pedals I use include the Fulltone OCD, Barber Burn Unit and the Xotic AC Booster. I think the Zach pedal can replace the Fulltone and Barber, but the AC Booster is kind of in a class by itself for the sound it makes. The Fulltone, in some ways I prefer to the Zachary pedal because it produces a good grind that you can hide in a bit more easily than the Zachary pedal. The Zachary pedal is more transparent and up front, and brings forth both your excellence and flaws. It has a wider freqency footprint, and for some kinds of music, the OCD might be easier to deal EQ wise with in the mix.

To be fair about how good this pedal is, I don't think I would have bothered with the Barber or OCD if I had the Zachary first.