Fun Friday

The Spring-like weather we've been having is strange.  Strange because I'm sure we'll get some ice/snow/other shit again soon.  But until now, I guess we'll have to get used to warm days and clear nights.  Things change though.

This just in:

Rain is gonna ruin it.

Although I understand it's a necessary thing, I hate rain.  A lot.  It ruins my plans most of the time and gets mud in the house.  I had bikes rides planned.  Mountain bike rides.  I guess I'll be back on the road bike again.  Or, gasp, on the trainer.

Honestly, I'll probably just sit around and drink beer.  Like I do every day.

Perhaps I can sit in the house and enjoy a good book.  I found one that seems pretty interesting:

Probably offended some people with that.

Not sorry.

Also not sorry that you made it this far down the page.  That's on you.

See y'all next week where hopefully I'll be in a better mood and have a story or two to tell.

A New Adventure To The Same Ol' Place

Three months in the new place.

I moved to the opposite side of town (near the Whitewater Center for all you locals), so I'm still getting familiar with my surroundings.  I've ventured out a few times to meet my neighbors (see yesterday's post) but I'd often wondered if I'd be able to find any good road riding routes.  Living almost ten years in the University area I knew where to go and how to get there and, most importantly, how to do it without getting run over by aggressive and/or distracted drivers.

Luckily, whilst perusing The Internets I stumbled upon a road ride route I did quite a few years ago with a group.  The ride was on a side of town that was very unfamiliar to me.  Little did I know that the far end of the ride circled back at a spot only a mile from my future home.  I scribbled down some notes) including road names and such) and headed out the door.  After stopping to see my horse friends, I wandered into the city on some nice, quiet roads.

I've ridden into the city before, but from the new house it was much more pleasurable.  Country roads for the most part, and even when I got closer to the urban stuff it was quiet.

Let's haz beer, okay?

I started exploring a little bit, not really knowing this side since I usually came in the other way.  Soon though, I spotted a sorta familiar spot and I stopped for a quick break.  And to take a picture of the big buildings of course.

You can't really see the buildings too well because it was shitty outside.  I didn't mind.  I was outside on an adventure.  I didn't stay there long.  I took off towards parts unknown, but sorta towards those buildings.  That's when I spotted a path along a railroad track and decided to investigate.

It went on for a while, and so did I.  I was lost on a cold and rainy day.  A good lost though.  I may have even ended up in The Pisgah at one point on my ride.

I wasn't lost.  I headed back towards my house, taking a different route this time.  You see some weird shit when you take the road less traveled.

I guess we had a lot of rain.

I eventually made it back to the house, after nearly twenty five miles.  That wasn't much, but it was enough.  Upon my return I learned that the little lady had gone out on her own roadie adventure in the rain.  She no haz blog though so it doesn't count.  

So yeah, I'm still here.  And I'm still riding bikes.  

Who gives a shit.

Fun Friday

Yes, yes, yes.  Weekend time.  I haz happy.  However, the rain is moving in again.

It really pisses me off.  I like to be outside, and rain gets in the way.  I'm sick of it.  Not sick enough to need a doctor though.

Fun Friday is my way of wrapping up the week (and taking the easy way out), but also it gives me a little laugh when I need it.  Hopefully it does the same for you.

Here, laugh at stuff:

Make sure you take care of yourself.  Drink lots of water (or beer), get plenty of exercise, and eat healthy.

Okay, enough of that.  I'm gonna do something this weekend.  Probably involving bikes and beer.

Before I do that though, I'll need to remember to be ready tomorrow morning when registration opens up for the 6 Hours of Warrior Creek.  If you live anywhere near North Carolina (or plan to visit here in April), make sure you're ready too.  It sells out fast.  If you aren't ready, you could miss it.

See y'all Monday or something like that.

Shootout

I missed Thursday and Friday.  Sorry about that.  I mean, Who Gives A Shit.  Anyway, I may or may not have mentioned that my cross country season resumed over the weekend in Danville, VA.  Friday morning I woke up feeling no more effects from Death Virus 2015, so I was hoping for a good day on the bike on Sunday.  I tried to relax and take it easy leading up to the race, but I had too much shit to do.  I’ll talk more about that later I guess.

Anyway, the forecast for Sunday in Danville featured a one hundred percent chance of rain.  I was looking forward to shitty weather actually, because mentally I like to think I can handle it better than a lot of folks.  The forecast model kept changing leading up to the weekend, but when I hit the road bright and early I was happy.

I’m not really happy about all the rain we’ve had around here lately (keeping our local trails closed), but I was happy about a potential “advantage” on race day.  But about an hour and forty five minutes into the drive everything changed.

As soon as I hit the Virginia state line it wasn’t raining anymore.

 

No worries.  I still wanted to race.  I got there with plenty of time to sign my waver and warm up, and soon after we lined up.  Once we started I had to spin like crazy on a long, flat section to try to get into the woods first.  It hurt like hell to spin that fast, but I got in second…

Right on the leader’s wheel.

The rolling hills in the beginning of the course were fun, and I felt pretty good.  My heart was still racing from spinning so much in the beginning, but I knew I would recover soon.  Once we started climbing up switchbacks though, I was getting frustrated.  Three of us were pulling away from the group, but the leader was spinning in a low gear and taking the climbs way too slow.  This caused extra effort on my part, and once we finished that section I was gassed.  I let one guy go by and kept pushing.

Suddenly, my legs felt like cement blocks.  I had no energy, most likely because my body hadn't fully recovered from my sickness (that's the official diagnosis from Little Miss Sunshine anyway.)  I let one guy go and then another, and sat solidly in 5^th place. I figured that I would still recover, but each climb hurt worse than the one before it.  They weren’t that bad (and my gearing was good for them), but I was just pooped.

I decided to hang on the best I could and maybe make my move on the second lap. 

The rest of that lap hurt until I came out on a long, flat-ish section (about two miles worth.)  At this point I realized that my gear choice sucked since I was spinning like crazy and couldn’t go as fast as I wanted.  I started thinking that the geared riders were dropping me here, and that I would never catch back up.  So much for recovering.

Suddenly, I came up on a rider.  He was from one of the groups that took off before me, and when I passed him I felt a little burst of energy.  Soon after we came out on a road, which meant more flat and more spinning.

Shit.

Crossing the start/finish line, I soon entered the woods again for lap two.  I was hoping that my energy would come back somehow.  I had some time to make up.

Tomorrow:  the conclusion.  You know, because I always drag this shit out.

Wet And Sloppy

After a late night at The Spoke Easy 3^rd Anniversary Party I found it difficult to get out of bed Saturday morning.  It was a beautiful day and I wanted to ride, but I just couldn’t get motivated.  I didn’t feel hungover (surprisingly), so maybe it was the stress of a rough (short) week at work.  Eventually I got up and at ‘em, but I wasn’t worth a shit.

So I did pretty much nothing for a while.

Eventually I got out of the house, but not to ride (I went to the guitar store.)  Some of my friends were out in The Pisgah doing a little riding, but I didn’t want to be gone all day.  I mildly regretted the fact that I didn’t join them.  Next time.  Once the day whittled away to nothing, the little lady and I ended up outside with a fire.

It was cold, but the fire was warm.  SCIENCE!  It was a nice way to spend an evening, but I felt like I accomplished nothing without riding.  We ended up outside pretty late hanging out with the neighbors, and I wondered if I would actually get my ass up the next morning to ride.  With the weather people calling for shitty conditions later in the morning I had to get up extra early if I wanted to do anything.

That didn’t happen.

I mean, the getting up extra early or the “later morning” shitty conditions.  It was raining when I got up, so I decided to take my newest shit bike out for a ride.

This is my “new” “cyclocross” bike.  The quotes are because it’s neither new nor cyclocross, but it is somewhat of a bike.  I took an old mountain bike I had that was already equipped with CX tires, added some drop bars, brake levers, and bar tape, and made it kind of a bike that could be used for cyclocrossing (or gravel grinding.) 

It looks like shit, but it rides just fine.  Since it’s nothing special, I really didn’t mind taking it out in the rain.  I did some road riding, hit some gravel, and eventually ended up on my local greenway.  Well, until I hit a dead end due to construction.

Since I can haz cyclocross now, I “jumped” over the barrier and kept going.

It was very uneventful and I got pretty muddy.  Luckily it was raining and there were plenty of puddles to wash me off.  I made my way back across the construction zone and took the real detour this time.

It was much less dirty.

I got in a pretty good ride in shitty conditions and it was actually fun.  This was the maiden voyage of the yet to be named shit bike and it performed pretty well.  Maybe now I can see what all this cyclocross stuff is about now without buying another bike.

Or maybe I will buy another bike.

Damn it.

Cold, Wet Fun

The 2014 Backyard Experience was pretty interesting.  A wave of shit weather showed up here in Charlotte Friday night and continued into Saturday.  That didn’t stop those brave souls from being out there, and the wet conditions were perfect for The Shark, a.k.a. Lunchbox.

It was pretty cold, but a bunch of us met up at the trail head to heckle and uh, volunteer, even though we weren’t “official.”

We eventually found the crowd of merry racers, and gathered up at the beginning of one of the stages to give our support.

People looked like they were having a great time.

Even though we had things handled, Dicky rolled up in a official capacity to make sure everyone was having fun.  He looked nervous.

I understand since I get that way too when I’m in charge of everyone’s fun.  He also may have been nervous because there was a side game of “Hide Dicky’s Bike” going on all day.  He kept catching the people involved before they got away with it though.

So anyway, even though the weather was shit  the trail was in great shape.  We eventually left our post and headed deep into the woods…

To watch folks come down the “jump line.”

No waffles of beer handups this year though.  We kept the beer for ourselves.

There wasn’t much in the way of carnage though.  Because of the conditions, we expected a lot more crashing.  Instead, there were a few mechanicals.

Even though we were freezing (and wet) out there, the day went by pretty fast.  Before we knew if, we were back at the awards ceremony/afterparty.

That Shark was everywhere.

I mean, everywhere.

It was a pretty awesome day.  Due to the wet weather, the PumpkinJam in Statesville was rescheduled, so I stuck around a lot longer at the BYE afterparty.  Just like my trip to Pisgah a few weeks ago, my day ended by a fire with a bunch of those Faster Mustache types.

 Big thanks to those guys for making great party in the woods.

Before I left, I saw that there was one final attempt to hide Dicky’s bike.

I wonder if he found it…

More party fun the next day too.  More on that tomorrow.

Hillbilly Playground

Saturday morning came early.  Mostly because I stayed up well into it, but whatever.  Since we had a few day trippers coming out to ride with our camping group, we gathered up ourselves and rolled across the street to the Ranger Station and prepared to break off into groups to ride The Pisgah/DuPont.

It was decided that their would be two rides:  a Pisgah Death March, and a tamer, social-type paced DuPont ride.  I thought a tour around DuPont would be fun for those folks that wanted to have a good ride, see some scenery, and not be too tired to do anything else later in the day.  So yeah, I led that one, which meant that a bunch of us drove ~8 miles away to meet in another parking lot.

The ride was meant to be easier, but we had to start out climbing.  Most folks didn't seem to mind.

In fact, some of them downright loved it.

Then there was that time me and George Hincapie took our kids for a ride together.

Yeah, that Lunchbox at the top.  He dropped them on that climb and stood there to rub it in.

The route I planned (on the toilet that morning) had us climbing up fire roads and hitting singletrack for (mostly) downhill goodness.

Then there was that time when it took three people to fix a broken chain.

After Craig “My Bike is Fatter Than Your Mom” Watts saved the day with his chain tool, we all sat around and talked about how rad we were.

A little more climbing took us to the top of High Falls, where we hung out to enjoy the view and the awesome weather.

Since we had some “new to DuPont” people in the group, we took off up the road towards the Airstrip Trail, which I promised them was pretty rad.  The climb sorta sucks, but even the Airstrip is kinda cool.  Lunchbox and I celebrated our ascent with a high five.

Photo credit:  Danielle S.

It’s worth the climb just for the view.

We got everyone back together (kinda like herding cats) and bombed down Airstrip.  It was fun and fast, and there were no opportunities to take photographs.  I had to settle for nature stuff when we finished.

We rode some more and eventually ended up at the skills area we always seem to hit.  Everyone showed that they had skillz.

  

It had been a pretty long day so far, and people were starting to get tired.  Everyone was looking forward to the final descent, Ridgeline, and getting back to camp to relax.  We had just a little more of that fire road stuff to go, so our big group got rolling.  We got close, and Fat Bike Craig said he just got sprinkled by rain.  I looked up in the sky and said, “We should be okay.”

I was wrong.

The sky opened up, and we hurried up one more climb to huddle under a shelter.  It was decided that we should just head down Ridgeline before everything got worse.  We knew it would be slick, but much worse if we stayed there and waited for all the rain to fall on it.  One by one, we took off down the river that was once Ridgeline.

I have to admit that it was pretty fun.  My bike handled well in the less than ideal conditions, but about halfway down I started to become concerned for the group I was leading.  I pulled over and waited as people went by, yelling to them that I would sweep the rest of the ride.  I waited in the rain as every person in our group came screaming by, each one with a big smile on their face.  I jumped back in and continued the downhill, until a few minutes later I found my kid on the side of the trail.

With a flat tire.

He flats a lot, and even more on that particular trail.  He was disappoint.  Rather than stand there in the rain and change his tube, I told him to just keep riding.  He actually did quite well, and informed me that he had more traction he did before.  Shredding the gnar on his rim and he didn't shred his rim.  All is well.

It was still raining in the parking lot, so a lot of people just jumped in their vehicles and drove off.  Lunchbox and I waited for the rain to stop, thoroughly cleaned ourselves off, and got ready to relax the rest of the day.

At least my bike got a bath.

It was an awesome day for sure.  A great ride, and the rain at the end made it really fun.  No one seemed to mind the free shower either, and it was all smiles as we told the stories around the campfire.

You can’t beat a good day in the hills, but we still had some time left up there.

Tomorrow…