What's cooler than being cool?

Last weekend I got in some good training rides. Saturday was nothing special, well except that it was scary how slow I was and how quickly I ran out of gas in my legs. Sunday was... well Sunday was great.

Everything went fine as I climbed up 58. I was actually distracted by the beautiful ice hanging from the rock, and the Stumpy was climbing faster and easier than I had ever gotten up that hill before in my life. I was thinking that this was going to be one of the greatest rides ever.

Then I turned onto FS90

It was wet as I turned onto the gravel, very wet. All of the easy speed I had going for me was suddenly out the window. After trudging along for a while under conditions that felt like I was riding with two flat tires I hit the first big turn. Suddenly the road wasn't wet any more, it was simple covered in a solid sheet of ice. For the rest of the climb every single turn was literally imposable to ride. On more than one occasion I almost went down walking.

At the top of the hill I was totally wiped out, and then I remembered that almost the entire descent was in the shade all the time. I thought the climb was bad, but the descent was hair-raising at best, and impassable at worst.

About half way down I ran into two other people dumb enough to also be coming down the mountain. We took about a 10 minute break for trying to keep out bikes upright, sometimes with success for upwards of 100 feet, and talked about riding, racing, and all the jazz.

When I finally got to the trail head I had a great ride. I was flying along the ridge, feeling my hands rattle on the bars. This was my first ride on that bike up on feathercamp ridge and it was really fast, but in several places I really missed the smoother ride of the Enduro. There was only one spot though where I felt any slower compared with feeling much faster on every single uphill incline.

All in all a good ride, an interesting ride, and a great weekend.

A Weekend Without Biking

Last weekend was interesting, I went for an entire weekend without going on a real bike ride. Honestly I did not even spend time in the back yard breaking bikes on the trials toys. Homework, football games, and other responsibilities conspired to keep me far away from my bikes.

While most people would assume that a weekend without a ride would somehow not involve any riding. Those people aren't me. I did ride to the football game on Saturday and then home from that game, in the rain and cold, but I suppose it says something about me that I don't count that as a ride.

I really hate not getting a chance to ride on a weekend. It's such a perfect opportunity to go out and spend some time on the mountain or get a long road ride in. Instead I was doing homework Friday afternoon, was at the E&H football game all day Saturday, and of course Sunday is always spent sitting and watching football. While it feels good to get some work done, and I love watching football, but it's just not a good feeling to wake up on Monday morning with no more mileage on your legs than you had on Friday.

It's one of the downsides of the off-season. The weather is bad, school is stacking up, and it's so easy to find something else to do that keeps you off the bike. I have to say that I'm really looking forward to Thanksgiving break when I can make up for weekends like this, and all the days during the week when all I get is to and from school by trying to ride off all the turkey.



"The sun never sets on those who ride into it."