Sometimes Your The Hammer, ans Sometimes Your the Nail

During the last couple of weeks I haven't felt as strong as I did earlier in the year. I've been riding well but I haven't felt great. Until last night. Our team invited a lot of the local riders out to ride at Granogue. This was a one time invite to help get the trails ridden in before the race. It was very successful, we had a good turn out and folks seemed to like the course.

Andrew had asked for a couple of peolpe to lead groups around the course. I had done one lap earlier and was feeling pretty good, so I led a faster paced group. It was Todd (I picked the wrong gear), Alan, This guy Jeff from Shirks, and myself. I put the hammer down right away and felt really good. I would stop occasionally to re-group, but then it was game on. We banged out two laps at a pretty good pace. At one point Todd took the lead, He is one of the fastest descenders there is, like water down the trail. We lost Al when he broke a chain, then we lost Jeff when he flatted on the tracks, But we picked SS Dan for a half a lap. It was a good ride. I finally got my 3 laps and the time were all about the same, even though the third one hurt like hell.

Well I get a couple of days to rest then race on Saturday. Time to feed the dogs so Later.

Slick Rick waiting for Matt and I, Seemed to be a recurring theme.
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Caution Horse Crossing
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Matt After!
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Tough Trails + Fast Guys = FUN!

It was supposed to be a big group ride at Granogue today. Well, the group was Matty T, Slick Rick the Ruler and me. Our original goal was 3 laps, We rolled out for the first and the pace was pretty fast. The course is really coming together. The new re-route along the cart path is pretty sweet, and the mud is almost completely gone. We hammered out the first lap in about 44 minutes. We stopped just long enough to ditch arm warmesr and auch and headed out for lap 2. Matt wasn't feeling that great the first time around, but a smart ass comment from me and he put the pressure on for the 2nd lap. For the first half it was all I could do to just hang on. I finally started feeling a little better as we headed towards Weymoth's. Rick was kind enough to school us on the fine art of climbing, he is just sick fast. Matty T was starting to pay for the fast pace he set on the first half, and I got by him going up the last climb on Weymoth's. Wefinished up our 2 nd lap and I looked at our time, we did 2 laps in 1:26, what are the race lap times going to be like?

After 2 laps we decided to head over to Brandywine instead. With Michaux next week I figured it wouldn't hurt to ride some rocks. While I was riding with Marc yesterday we discussed how riding White Clay so much has made us a little soft. Our technical skills are a little rusty. Well that was evident today. We all had some issues at Brandywine, I had a nice endo, rick stacked in the rocks and Matt struggled a bit as well. I'm thinking "if I ride like this at Michaux it is going to be a very long day. We all finished strong, except for the climbs. In particular, Matt took us up Hell Hill. normally this is a very hard climb, but after 2 laps around Granogue it was downright brutal.

It was a great day, the weather was Fantastic, the trails were great, and good company to ride with was icing on the cake. Maybe I'll get my 3 laps on Tuesday?

Is This Cruelty To Animals Or What?
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