Today was an amazing ride. The plan was to leave early and take advantage of the frozen ground. A group headed out at 7:30 am did a short loop than met the rest of the gang at 8:00. I was happy to see such a large group out to ride there mountain bikes today. We even had some folks that hadn't been seen in a while. The group, in no particular order, Brent Biddle, SS Dan, Marc V, slick Rick, Matt T, Kieth 29er G, Ted, Andrew, Fuzzy, Alan T, Todd, Kurtee, and myself. A who's who of our local cycling community. We headed down the Brians Field loop this is the loop with the Skills Trail. I was in front and feeling really good, Todd was behind me and we had a little gap. I hit the skills trail and crashed in one of the easy turns. I banged my knee pretty hard but thought nothing of it. Todd thought it was my way of regrouping. We cruise on, headed for "Shock and Awe". The group was a little spread out so I decided to stop and wait fro everybody. Todd didn't want to stop so he took off. We regrouped and caught Todd who flatted, I think he was being anti- social because he said "don't wait for me, I wasn't going to wait for you.
So we took off, except Keith hung back with Todd, I was feeling in a groove and took off down Shock and Awe. Man that is an awesome trail. We continued on and crossed the road cruised the outside loop shot down the middle and headed for the boundry trail. I was out to test my fitness today, so if I was a bad ride leader I appologize. I took off up the left rocky, steaper side, know one was on my wheel until the top when Rick was close by we re-grouped again and headed down the fun twisty downhill. We crossed back over the road and started to head back to the parking lot. We went up the trail with the new tree stunt, I knew it was coming and just went up and rode it, I was a little surprised to find the bail out removed so I had to launch off the end. Marc didn't know what was coming he just followed Matt and decided not to launch off the end. Marc has been having back problems and just had a procedure done and was smart enough not to push it. We continued up to the Parking lot some folks called it a day but a handful of us decided to head for Middle run. Matt took over at the front and set a really good pace. We came to a point where we thought about just heading back, but Fuzzy suggested we head for the judge. Since the Judge is mostly in the woods we figured it would be frozen. For the most part it was. It was starting to thaw out quick. Kurtee bonked and decided to head back. We lost Ted and Rick who looped back to look for Kurt. But we picked up Todd and Keith and finished the ride with them.
I must say getting to ride with these people is pretty special. I am proud to be apart the coolest group of cyclists ther is. I look forward to the next big ride, hopefully it's with hte same people.
There is something magical about riding mountain bikes in the woods with good people. It seems to make all problems go away, even if it is only temporary. We ended with 2:38 ride time, I don't know how many miles but I would guess about 25-30. I managed to get all my hours for the week with 4 1/2 coming on My mountain bike. A good week. I have one more week of base miles the n a rest week. After that the pain starts, but I gotta tell you I am looking forward to it.
So Long
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