It's good to see James riding again
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Good Karma Goes a Long Way

In years past Marc V, Alan and I would do a ride the day before a race. We always rode rittenhouse, and it was always early in the morning. It was a great way to spin the legs and clear the head before a race. In other words, get our karma aligned. This tradition has slowly faded and I find it a bit sad. So this morning I tried to start a new tradition. The ride was at White Clay, and was to be short and easy. This morning was the first edition of the season. With Blue Marsh tomorrow I wanted to get in a nice easy 1-1.5 hour ride. To be honest I expected a bigger turn out, but sometimes you take quality over quantity. The group was, James, Keith, and myself. James had to get back at a certain time so he left us a bit early, but it was good to ride with again, and it won't be long before his form comes back. Keith and I did the usual loop and finished up with 1:15. We took it easy and had a really good ride. It was funny, because we were able to have a conversation the whole time. I am looking forward to racing with Keith for the first time. It should be fun.

Now I want to back track to last night. I had my local union shrimp feast. It is catered by Feeby's, and boy do they put out a spread. The biggest shrimp I have ever seen, Alaskan crab legs, Dungeonous crab legs, oysters, clams, and many other seafood delights. I kind of went WAY OFF my diet but what the hell. It was a good time.

As I was pulling into my driveway last night. I saw Billdo coming from picking up a bike he was borrowing from Matty T. I stopped and talked a bit, then my cell phone rang and it was Rachael telling me one of the horses was having it's baby. So I stopped by the barn on my way in and got to see the foal being born. It was pretty cool. After it was out it immediately started trying to stand up. I watched this for about a half an hour then decided it was time to head home. It is a girl by the way. Pretty big too.

Well Rachael and I are going out to eat and I have a race tomorrow so I am out of here.

Bikesandbeer,and Burgers

Yesterday was a better day. I decided to ride White Clay after work figuring for an easy ride. I felt a lot better, so much so I decided to do some hill repeats up the boundary trail. I figured on doing 4 since I had done some hills the day before at Granogue. The boundary trail is a pretty tough climb, it took me on average 5 minutes each time up. After the hill repeats I rode for another hour and was heading back when I ran into Chris Vann. I hadn't seen let alone ridden with Chris in a long time so he and I did a lap around the Brian's field loop.

Later that night Rachael and I went out to the Half Moon for dinner. I love that place, they have a great beer selection and awesome food. They had Maudite on tap so I had one of those before dinner, then I had a nice Hand Pulled Hop Devil with dinner. Dinner was the best part last night. The half Moon os known for there wild game burgers, I've had buffalo, ostritch, and elk before. When I saw the game burger was $18.95, I was a little curious. It turns out, they had Kobe beef burgers. For those of you that don't know, Kobe beef is very rare and very expensive. The cows that produce it live a charmed life. Thay get massaged everyday, and they are fed the finest food and get this, LOTS OF BEER. I have to tell you, that was the best damn burger I have ever had. I actually took my time and savored every single bite.
Well I don't have anything else to say so.
Later

What Was I Thinking?

The plan today was to get to Granogue at 4:00, do one lap then meet Matt and do another lap and a half. Well, I got there real early so I did my first lap, it was a decent lap but I didn't feel all that great. After my first lap i stopped to talk to Fuzzy about the course, then headed out to do a half lap before Matt got there. Oh, I almost forgot. While I was climbing up the gravel road I saw Ted logic, running towards me, he said he was getting ready for Blue Marsh.

I did my half lap and While I was on my way back to the parking lot I ran into Fitzy, I hadn't seen him in awhile. I get back to the lot and there are a few folks there ready to go. Matt, Andrew, John Cleary, and Billdo. So we headed out to do another lap. Now, I was feeling like crap but I wanted to get 2 1/2 laps. We did another loop around the Weymoths half of the course, this was my 3 rd trip up weymoths. I felt like total crap coming up the road so I bailed out. I ran into some more folks getting readt to ride. There was Lyn, Craig, Hattie(the new girl), SSdan (on his geared bike) It was good to see a lot of Wooden Wheels riders out to ride Granogue. I just wish I had a little more today. I should have taken off two days after a really hard weekend. Well I will take a couple of days off now.

Well it is time for American Idol so later.

You Can't Always Get What You Want

Even though there was no scheduled ride today, I heard rumors of a ride. Matt had called and told about a ride with Marc, DJ Slick Rick, and Brent Biddle. I got the call at about 9:00 am telling me to be at the shop at 10:00. I rushed around loaded up and headed to the shop. I knew today was going to be tough because of the 30 mph winds. But I needed the hours. We decided on doing the Barksdale loop, hoping for a little shelter from the wind. We didn't find such shelter. The group worked together and we all suffered at the front for a while, it was more like the first 1:45. It was either dead in our face or blowing us off the road. We did the pace line thing and just pushed through it. About an hour and a half in Marc headed for home. We continued to battle the head wind a little while longer. Then we made one right turn and everybody breathed a sigh of relief. We finally had a tail wind. I thought we would use this oppertunity to recover but DJ Slick Rick wanted to take advantage of the tail wind so he drove to the front and set a blistering pace. Man, how does that little guy do it. He is a freaking animal. We hit a couple of hills through down some attacks and then settled in for the trek home. It was a good ride, and it's nice to know the people you are riding with are willing to do there share of the work.

Even with the nasty head wind for the majority of the ride we still averaged 18 mph for 2:45. Not a bad ride at all.
Well I am going to settle in on the couch and watch the Tour of Flanders on OLN.