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Category Archives: Biking
LX7 First Ten Days
Cameras and lenses are just tools. It’s not the equipment, it’s the photographer that makes pictures. I’ve had students with extensive and expensive gear who make very pedestrian photos. And I’ve had students with wonderful eyes for light and composition consistently make marvelous images using entry-level models and kit lens, even before they learned to use something other than AUTO.
However, each time Panasonic has come out with a new model in their compact LX series, I have upgraded. I had to think about it longer this time but when there was a brief Black Friday sale at a great price I couldn’t resist. I’m glad I made the move. In addition to a faster (f/1.4) lens, the LX7 has a number of very nice features. I have always liked the fact that it is very easy to change settings without resorting to menus, and even that characteristic has been improved. The built in 3-stop neutral density filter was a nice surprise, since I very much enjoy photographing moving water like the photo below made two days ago with the LX7.

Most photographers benefit from owning a capable pocket camera in addition to a DSLR. It can be carried many times and places where a DSLR would not. When I’m riding my road or mountain bike my LX is around my neck or in a small pouch on the crossbar. The photo below was taken early in a Northeast Kingdom Lakes Century ride a few years ago.

Although I stopped briefly after a long uphill climb from Crystal Lake to catch my breath and make this photo, I’ve gotten fairly adept at shooting while riding. The photo below was taken while in motion as I completed my first Prouty Century ride. Just ahead of me are two riders from Creare, an outstanding Hanover, NH company. Since they were pulling a child, they only did the 35 mile loop. Both of these biking photos were taken with the LX5 which was around my neck full time for these and other rides.

A small camera or cell phone camera can put subjects at ease compared with pointing a huge lens at them. Sometimes there is a real advantage to not looking too professional.

The LX7 has a number of “professional” features: easily changed Exposure Compensation settings, a focus spot you can move anywhere in the frame and even quickly and easily change its size, 5 frames/second in raw and up to 60 in JPEG. It will auto-bracket three shots up to +/-3 stops (vs Nikon’s one stop), and it does it lightening fast so handheld HDR merges are certainly possible.
What would it cost to outfit your DSLR with a 24mm, f/1.4 lens that focuses to less than a half inch? Panasonic sells a Leica-branded lens with these specs. It comes attached to the LX7 camera. And it is a zoom lens.
When I don’t need or want to carry a macro lens, the LX is my capable substitute. While the excellent camera in my iPhone is “always” with me, so too is the LX7 which shoots raw, has an almost 4X zoom ratio, and allows control of the aperture. The photo above to the left is a “macro” shot with the LX7 of a remaining bittersweet seed.
Below are some of the photos I made with the LX7 during my first 10 day shakedown period. The bird near the middle of the slide show is a common redpoll, part of this year’s huge invasion of “winter finches” that have come down from Canada to find food. To see more photos I took with this camera during the first month, click HERE>
Mountain Biking before Sandy
As weather systems converge and merge with Hurricane Sandy to threaten the east coast with flooding and power outages, I reflect on a wonderful 10 days of mountain biking culminating yesterday in the northeast corner of Hanover. This series of rides started Wednesday October 17 with a loop through the Beaver Meadow area of Norwich and Sharon: up Chapel Hill, over “Thunder Ridge”, through the woods to Ruella. The pond just before we turned off Chapel Hill Road for the long climb through the woods was beautiful with late fall colors.
Thursday we headed for Millstone Trails, a wonderful area in Websterville (Barre, Vermont) with many spectacular overlooks across Vermont and down into giant quarries. If you click the image below you can see photos from that trip.
On Sunday it was back to Beaver Meadow and for a different loop—different from the last ride and different than we planned. Seems one of us, me, made a slight navigational error then an error in judgement that resulted in a 13 mile ride through Sharon rather than the intended 5 mile ride. But I had good company, Hutch stayed with me the whole way, though he was quite tired near the end. Here he is running alongside my bike as I rode along Downer Road.

Frenchs Ledges was our destination for Tuesday. This is a wonderful spot not far from the center of Meriden with overlooks into the valley around Kimball Union Academy. I had hiked the area before a number of time, once finding and photographing a beautiful long-tailed weasel, but this was my first time doing it on a mountain bike. I rode with folks who knew the trails very well. They and the trails were a pleasure. I certainly plan to return often on bike and XC skis.
A relatively short but somewhat hilly ride followed on Thursday around the Root District of Norwich. We rode mostly along double-track trails with some challenge pieces along abandon woods roads. Part of the ride was quite wet—actually a very fun stretch of water and mud. Riding with this Norwich group has taught me to love mud, or at least not fear it.
On Thursday we headed to the extensive trail network on the north and west sides of Mount Ascutney in Brownsville, Vermont. The ski area is closed, but the network of well-marked trails on the side of the mountain is great. There are trails for all skill levels from easy down in the valley to very challenging up on the mountain.
Finally, on Saturday afternoon, a group biked and hiked Tunis Road and the new mountain bike trail being constructed in the Hanover Town Forest off Goose Pond Road. This was a trip jointly sponsored by the Hanover Conservancy and the Upper Valley Mountain Bike Association.
A side show of photos from these trips except for Millstone and Hanover follows. To see photos from these other two trips click the highlighted words in the previous sentence.
Tagged Ascutney, Hanover, Millstone, mountain bike
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Hanover Town Forest with Hanover Conservancy

A pleasant fall afternoon on a Hanover Conservancy trip led on bike and foot by Nancy Collier and Kevin O’Leary capped off 10 days of great mountain bike rides: Beaver Meadow and Ruella on Wednesday, Millstone Trails in Websterville on Thursday, Beaver Meadow and Downer on Sunday, Frenchs Ledges on Tuesday, Norwich Root District on Thursday, Mount Ascutney on Friday, and finally a great Tunis, Wolfboro, and Goose Pond Roads loop on Saturday. We rode the sometimes very wet Class VI portion of Tunis Road looping back past the north end of Goose Pond. Kevin then led us on a hike through the Hanover Town Forest over the new mountain bike trail being constructed by Kevin, the Upper Valley Mountain Bike Association, and other volunteers.
Tunis Road was mostly uphill, and the parts that were not wet were covered with leaves. Near the end we explored an old stone culvert seen below. It was still intact in spite of a tree above and what must have been years of logging traffic.


The big decision of the day was whether to ride back Tunis as planned or do a longer but drier loop along Wolfboro and Goose Pond Roads. The group favored the latter.
There is a slide show of photos below the photo of Kevin leading us back. You can also see photos from Millstone and the amazing quarries along the trails by clicking HERE.

Also posted in Hike
Tagged Hanover, Hanover Conservancy, Hanover Town Forest, mountain bike, Tunis Road
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