Pre-Race Ride

Two weeks ago I did Openers with Marc, they were tough but I think they helped. Today we chose to ride our mountain bikes at White Clay. Lots of folks came out to ride this morning: Marc, Wes the conqueror, Slick Rick, James, Alan the Cleaner, and Fitzy rocking out on his new PUSS. The trails were super fast and we found ourselves riding fast quite a few times. At one point Wes told Marc to save his OH! face for tomorrow, then the dude attacks. Rick got on his wheel quick and Marc and I chased up. It felt good, we did this a few times so it was like doing openers except a lot more fun.

Fitzy seemed to be digging his new PUSS, and you can only imagine the jokes about it. "hey Fitz, make sure you ride that Puss hard and put it away wet", and so on. We were having a little too much fun, after all we are all racing tomorrow so we cut it off at 1:30. All in all it was a great ride, I just hope I feel that good tomorrow.

Thanks for reading,
Buddy

Rides, State College, and My Defense...

Marc foregoing another urge to obey the law.
There were a lot of things that made this a great weekend. The humidity finally broke and you could breathe again. Saturdays ride was from Matt (run forrest) house, Marc Matt and I rolled out for a moderate paced 3 hour ride. Matt kept the pace nice and consistent the whole time. We picked up John C on our way back from the Judge and he rode with us back to Matt's and then home from there (your a sick man John). The ride was great accept for my crash, we were rolling down a trail I have ridden hundreds of times when my pedal caught something and I came to screeching halt. I hit the ground and Marc hit me. Now for my defense about the farthing incident, when somebody lands on you, something is bound to come out. Ok that is a lame excuse but it will have to do.

Saturday night Rachael and I stayed home and I cooked us a nice dinner. We even had wine with our dinner and I liked it. It went well with grilled swordfish steaks and roasted potatoes. It wasn't a late night because I knew 4:15 was going to come very early. That was the time I had to get up to go to State College.

I was looking forward to riding there again since my mechanical nightmares last year. Plus it was a fun ride with friends that just happened to be the SSWCo5 race course. Wes the conqueror was our guide for the day, he was also joined by Harry from mt.nittany wheel works. We had an awesome group of guys on this ride. Matt, Marc(check out www.fatmarc.com for another report) Ted logic, Big Ben, and Bob. We started the ride on a proposed section(not really part of the course yet but might be) It was a 15 minute fireroad climb followed by a 10 single track climb, this should really spread out the feild. I couldn't stop talking about how much I loved the trails up there. It has to be one of the best places to ride. Plenty of rocks and more than enough climbing, we're talking 2, 3, and 4 mile climbs. Not something I am used to but I can't wait until August 20/21 when I go back to ride them again. We didn't get to ride the whole course, but the stuff we rode gave me an idea of what I am in for. I will be gearing down a bit.

After the ride we had some post ride beverages and headed to Wes' parent's house for some homemade spinach lasanga, garlic bread and salad. We were all very grateful for the hospitality and the delicious food.

It was a really good trip, lots of jokes and a few good beers then a long ride home. I will be counting the days until the SSWC05 so we can do it all over again.

Thanks for reading,

Buddy