So in lieu of the manifesto I had planned for this long overdue blog post, I figured I’d just wing it and crank out this less ambitious update instead.

My how quickly things change….

One month ago, I was shaving my legs and shopping for carbon tubular race wheels. As of Tuesday morning, I found myself shipping my pimped out Seven race bike to its new owner in Tulsa, OK. I’d like to say that the proceeds will go toward something equally glamorous, but I’m afraid the cash will probably just get lost in the wedding spending spree we’ve been on.

So how did all this come to pass?

Well, in a nutshell I’m simply burnt out on battling chronic injury. I’ll be the first to admit that I absolutely did not do everything (i.e. physical therapy type sh*t, stretching, etc.) I should have over this past winter off-season to prevent the types of overuse injuries I’m prone too, yet I did more than I’ve ever done in the past, and it still wasn’t enough. Everyone that knows me as a cyclist or runner knows that I’ve been bitching about my knees off and on for years now. The strange thing about my knees is that they feel great under 99% of the conditions I subject them to. If you read some of the posts where I’m complaining about knee problems, you’d think I was an arthritic 55 yr old. Yet, that’s exactly the issue that confounds me….I’m only experiencing issues after a certain threshold of use. Unfortunately in cycling terms, that threshold is actually pretty low. Even though I went out and fought pretty hard in a few races this spring, I did so with a mere handful of base mile rides lasting more than 2 hours during the preceding months. Did I end up with an IT band (not even convinced that’s 100% the issue) because I didn’t log more long rides? Or did riding those longer 2, or 2.5 hour rides over the winter aggravate an underlying condition in the first place? The bottom line is that I’m just sick of troubleshooting the situation, and sick of dwelling on it. Its very frustrating as a cyclist to be worried about injuring yourself when riding for more than 2 hours a pop…

The final straw came almost a month ago at the Baker’s Dozen race in Leesburg. I would have written up a race review several weeks ago, but the fact of the matter is that it was a pretty demoralizing race for me. The weather was absolutely beautiful, and a bunch of friends were congregating among bikes, piles of junk food, and countless beers for the entire day. So what could tarnish that? Well, when big chubby guys with beer bellies resting on their top tubes are cranking out night laps while yours truly, (on account of the knee situation described above) is really only capable of drinking beers and trying to feel good about riding 4 laps…that’s what. Thankfully, having a bunch of good friends sitting around drinking beers pretty much makes 95% of life’s problems disappear, so the race was ultimately worth every penny of the $80 fee just to spend a Saturday immersed in that scene.

Following the race, my wimpy little knee felt like a$$ for a solid week. Had the pain dissipated after some NSAIDs, icing, and a few days’ rest, then my mindset might have taken a different trajectory. Yet, here I am today, having joined a climbing gym last week, having sold the Seven, and currently staring down a boat load of wedding planning tasks. Suffice it to say that my road “season” is over. I still have the Lemond with a fresh set of Conti 25s that I plan to log some miles on. I also really want to max out the Walt and give her the attention she deserves. That being said, I managed to get out on my first post Baker’s Dozen ride at Rosaryville on Sunday and it felt great. I logged a nice mellow 2 laps (~18 miles) with CJ to keep me company and it reminded me of how much I miss the casual mountain bike ride. So it’s back to the basics across the board and hopefully quite a few chill mountain bike rides to break-in the Walt Works.

I’ve got a few additional mountain rides to post up in the coming days…still trying to get back into the swing of things here…stay tuned.

Since I didn’t get enough punishment on Saturday, I was bound determined to get in another ride on the Walt Sunday afternoon come hell or high water.  The weather threw a kink into my plans for a locally sourced ride #77, providing lots of precipitation overnight and even some mild snow here in Arlington (a rarity) which obviously thrashed the sensitive over trafficked nearby parks.  So the backup plan for inclement weather was some kind of loop out in GWNF where relatively few folks venture out to ride, and where you can almost always bet that the trail will do more damage to you than you will ever do to it (at least on the ridges anyway).

Sunday turned out to be a perfect example of why you should often ignore the voice of reason that chimes in with sentiments like: “its gonna be cold and wet out there,” “you’re gonna be all by yourself,” “it’d be a lot easier to just watch some episodes of the Wire on demand this afternoon,” etc.  I pretty much heard all those things, and the voice got even louder when I found out that nobody was on board with my plan and I’d be going solo or not at all.

Man was it worth it though.  I got a really late start and had to abort my plan B to ride out at Wolf Gap and instead settle for plan C at the more familiar Elizabeth Furnace area.  Being bored with the normal EF loop, I decided to go with the “figure eight of hate” that Ian and I had taken a liking to last year.   The ride was top-notch and even more entertaining than normal.  I had a great time and thanked myself for not listening to the siren call of the couch.

I snapped a few trail pictures below, so you can see how much more adventurous the conditions were than the normal summer route presents.  The ridge was absolutely demanding as hell.  Some parts were nice and fluffy, where I found myself riding the powdery snow and leaves, but other parts were an icy rocky pain in the ass.  At times I felt like a rockstar clearing stuff I had no business clearing, but other times I felt incredibly humbled by the most modest of snow cover - forced to dismount on cake technical sections.  The extra vertical involved in climbing up to Woodstock tower didn’t help my energy levels while making my way back on the icy ridge either.

As you can see below, some of the trail was prime.  Winter or not, the trails felt great.  A few soft spots on the fireroads, but all in all, a great loop considering the precipitation the days prior.

I substituted the $300 Sidi insoles (on display the day before) for a pair of $2 chemical packs that I remembered were in my glove-box, placed there years ago as a standard component to my upstate NY winter riding kit.  They were a sweet hedge against the pain of a booty-less ride.

So after 3 hours of slogging around GWNF, I was thoroughly beat up, and incredibly satisfied with my new favorite bike.  Ok, thats the last gratuitous Walt Works praise I’ll work in for awhile.

Coming up this week: more snow rides!

Ok, a slightly longer post to bring things up to date.

Instead of recapping a largely non-bike-related vacation on here, I’ll simply offer up a couple bike relevant things I noticed over in Spain.  First of all, Madrid appeared to be an extremely non-bike-friendly European city (at least on the surface anyway).  I’ve often assumed that all European cities were by default more bike-friendly than comparable U.S. cities, but Madrid was surprisingly pedestrian/auto-centric.  It seemed like there were fast moving roads for cars, and then lots and lots of crowded pedestrian zones, but nothing in-between that lead me to believe that Madrid would be a good city to get around via bike.  This is also evident in the extremely small number of cyclists observed.  I’m not really exaggerating when I say that I probably could have counted the number of cyclists I saw on just a couple hands.  Keep in mind, this is coming from somebody who scrutinizes every rider he glances at - so I’m not exaggerating when I saw that there were hardly any cyclists to be seen.  Granted, it was February, but it was nonetheless 50-60 degrees almost every day we were there…

Barcelona on the other hand, seemed to be a bit more bike-oriented.  They had the same bike-rental setup that DC instituted last year (only they actually use theirs).

Here’s a shot of one of their racks.  They look almost exactly like those here in DC.

As most folks know, the downside to any vacation is the return to normalcy (i.e. not being able to guzzle wine on a daily basis).  That being said, this past week was a good transition from vacation time back to the real world - made possible with the help of multiple booze fueled group rides.  Hooray!

Take for example the first ride back (Ride #74), which was my second outing on the Walt and my 3rd mtb ride in as many months.  Ironically it was a night ride on the very same trails that my last Surly ride took place on - out in Great Falls near the Maguire house (also the site of multiple post-ride Dogfish Head pints).   I bet we barely rode an hour before downing three times as many alcohol calories than we burned on the ride - nice.

Then there was ride 76 (ride 75 was a boring road ride where I struggled with the wind on Friday night) which involved a huge group of us meeting out at Gambril on Saturday morning.  The ride would be my first real test of the new Walt Works build.  The first couple rides were on really easy terrain with few technical challenges, but Saturday was a wake up call.  The bike was simply awesome.  I didn’t feel anywhere close to as beat up as I did with the Surly.  The ride quality was far tighter, and simply more compliant than the Karate Monkey could ever dream of being.  I wish I could say that I was tearing it up out there on the new rig hammering up the hills, but in reality my lungs were burning pretty bad 90% of the way.  Despite the off-setting pleasure of riding a new bike, my body took about 50 minutes to warm up and feel reasonably fit.  Being that we only rode for a little more than an hour, it was far too late to really enjoy it 100%.  It was however, a great jolt back into the game.  I finished the ride knowing that I’d be back out there on a daily basis riding hard again….its just too fun not to.  It was exactly what I needed to stoke the fire.

All that fire stoking necessitated some refreshment….and lacking a home bar serving up fresh DFH, our comrade Johnny B was kind enough to have some bottles of 90 minute on hand for some parking lot refueling.  Here’s a shot of CJ and Jimmy (Jimmy is the one with the most pimped-out 29er singlespeed you’ll ever see (custom Ti Blacksheep w/ I9 wheels, vintage Cook cranks, etc.)….mounted on the back of his TT no less).  You obviously can’t tell in the pic, but Jimmy was also pimped out with the Sidi Toaster insoles for our ride.  Hot Damn!

After a 6er of Miller High Life and a long Friday evening of tweaking and tuning….I got the Walt Works ready for action.  Given that Oksana and I had postponed the start of our vacation (deciding to skip the day we had planned up in NYC today), I had a ton of motivation to get the new bike built up so I could sneak out for the inaugural ride this afternoon instead.

I’ll save everyone the worn-out bike review hyperbole and simply summarize today’s first ride as awesome.  I know I’ll own this bike a long time (can’t say that for too many of my bikes).

Walt really nailed the design based on my less than perfect description of my “needs and wants” in terms of handling and geometry….and the result is a bike that is way more agile….and quite simply faster than the Surly.

All this was pretty overwhelming given I had not been on a mountain bike in (gasp) 3 months! prior to today.  I realized today that my last ride on the Surly was waaaay back in mid November (before Thanksgiving) out at Dan Maguire’s place.

It was well worth the wait though.

Here’s a pic of the finished build taken out on the trail (its a mix of both practical and higher-end stuff)

The green cables are re-cycled from the Surly, so yeah…..they’re fugly and yeah, I’ll be changing them soon.  Otherwise, I’m set on most everything else.

I’d go into a description of all the parts, but it’s time to go get some packing done.

Be back in a little more than a week…

Ok, time for a catch-up post

Rewind to last Saturday for a bit of irony

So I was mildly bummed after busting balls to get my new xc skis all mounted up and ready to go (see previous post)….only to have the weather spike up to the 50s and 60s (even in the higher elevations in WV) and ruin my chances. I was on the highway heading west early Saturday morning when CJ called me to elaborate on the shitty ski conditions in Davis, WV (he had gone out the day before). Long story short, I had to bail on my nordic weekend, and face the fact that skiing while living south of the Mason-Dixon is a crap-shoot at best. Ho Hum.

On a positive note, sometimes laziness pays off…

Imagine my potential disappointment with all my ski gear packed up in the car, coffee in hand, heading west to get in some quality time in the woods….only to hear word that the snow is vanishing by the hour. Well right away I was thinking of contingencies…..and wouldn’t ya know….I still had all my (semi-dirty) hiking gear in the car from the previous Saturday’s hike with Oksana. So, it took me all of about 30 seconds to link the options together and realize that I was gonna make some lemonade and spend the day getting in a solid hike, scouting some singletrack for summer mtb adventures. The destination was one of my favorite areas of the GWNF…a place referred to as the “Great North Mountain” aka “Wolf Gap recreation area”. Whatever its called, it is indeed “Great”. It’s the prime little slice of wilderness that doesn’t see hardly anyone from the city, despite being only 2 hours away from central DC. It’s got wonderful topography, a great mix of trail surfaces, a very rugged vibe (very little in the way of bailouts if you get in deep) and a very cool lack of “established” rides. There are so many options to link together different pieces, its hard to actually name any specific loop.  So that means you gotta have some map reading skill, or familiarity with the area - something that probably keeps the casual riders away.  In all, I’ve ridden there probably 6-8 times before, but usually in a situation where I’m re-tracing lots of the same sections of trail, either lacking the time to explore or being with a group of people less inclined to spend the day doing potential hike-a-bike and bushwhacking along hiking trails that are sometimes un-rideable (for them anyway….haha ;-0). So my plan was to pick out a loop on which I’d never set foot before – and then do some trail recon.

Here’s a sample of what I found:

My oh my was I pleasantly surprised. It was the second hike within a week that has yielded miles and miles of additional ride-able terrain. I ultimately logged close to 10 miles of hiking on Saturday (including a few on a dirt road I had to hike out on). I’m now compiling some pretty detailed notes about this Great North Mountain area (don’t recall the exact map#) and my hope is to catalog the entire map with thorough annotations as to where the most premium sections of singletrack lie…..and believe me, there is some great stuff: some technical stuff, some flowy stuff, some aerobic climbing stuff - basically a little of everything (well, maybe not any teeter totters). I was licking my chops the entire hike, fantasizing about my first Walt ride out there. I intend to return and actually do an extended version of what I did on Saturday, as the inaugural Walt ride…sometime the last week of February after we return from Spain.

Now for the twisted irony portion of the story. So all this talk about diversification and how I need to cross-train, and “mix it up”. Well it turns out that 10 miles of rocky trails even with a lightweight pack….is not the friendliest form of exercise I could have chosen (for my knees anyway) to “mix it up”. By the end of the hike, my right knee (not the IT band knee either….which is also weird) starting aching like a sunnofabitch. Yeah, so much for diversifying my training. I know, I know…10 miles was too much. In fairness to myself, I hit a point where I had to either double back down a huge slope I had just climbed up (boring) or log the extra miles going the long way around. So looking back, the pain was the price of admission for that roundabout route.

By the time I got home that evening, my body wasn’t in terrible shape, but I was hobbling a bit and favoring that right knee.  I went out for drinks that night, which involved a short walk to the metro, and could definitely tell something wasn’t quite right, but on the way home….man oh man, I just got this wave of intense throbbing pain in that same knee….every time my knee extended it was just pure pain. I was totally pissed….I mean, this wasn’t achy chronically inflamed IT band pain…it was searing acute pain. I went to bed just so demoralized, cursing myself as a pre-maturly aging piece of shit and kicking myself for having bitten off more than just the casual stroll in the woods I probably should have opted for….I honest to god went to bed fantasizing about trading all my bike shit for a motorcycle and saying “fuck this pedaling thing”. Its hard to understate how discouraging it is to want so badly to train and get fast, only to be sidelined by all these aggravating flare-ups.

Anyway, I woke up on Sunday to a milder ache in that same knee. Being as stubborn as I am, I decided that the 65 degree weather could absolutely not be wasted without at least a brief “recovery” type spin on the bike. It was just too damn nice out. I hopped on the Seven and off I went. The irony? No pain at all. None in the IT band leg, none in the hiking knee (me knocking on wood right now)….it was like it felt better to be spinning on the bike than to be walking around. I guess there are more ironic things in the world…but still, I felt like a million bucks, after what has been weeks with minimal riding. I rode for about 90 minutes and actually started to feel the fire coming back. The motivational fire that is. I got home and iced both my knees and then again at night. I figure on diligently stretching and icing down as a preventative measure the rest of the season. If I get “injured” again, then so be it. If I’m doing all that I can to hedge the odds…then what more can I do….

I’ve since ridden every night this week, VERY cautiously with high rpms and an easy pace, but I’m feeling the groove….and I’m liking the day to day training thing again.

“I’m back baby, I’m back!”

-George Costanza

Walt Works Update:

I’ve been pretty low-key with the Walt updates so far, but I expect to be extremely excited tomorrow evening when I get home to the most highly anticipated Fedex delivery in LONG time.

Pics to follow….

Yeah….just 2 rides in between today and last Wednesday…ouch huh?  The combination of this being my “transition” month (i.e. excuse to drink and eat what I want and skip rides with less guilt than usual) before my serious base training commences 12/1, the recent IT band issues, and my sudden disinterest in riding anything other than my new Seven…..has left me pretty uninspired.  Notice I didn’t even bring up the weather.

Despite my lack of motivation (I skipped a Saturday!), a few of us met up at Dan Maguire’s place on Sunday afternoon for a pretty mellow 14 mile jaunt up and down the Potomac on some nice, albeit leaf camouflaged, singletrack.

I also finally got to take a peak at Mike Z’s new-old Seven ss, in which he’s employed a killer German eccentric bb device.  The thing is so sweet because it alleviates the need for any special frame modifications (speciall ebb shell, or sliding dropouts) to accommodate the necessary chain tensioning when running a ss setup.  I’ll probably find myself using one at some point down the road…

It was a good social ride that for a couple of us, culminating in several DFH 60 minute pints in Dan’s basement.  Dan’s new basement bar setup really shouldn’t be described with mere words, so at some point down the road, I’ll snap a few pics for the blog.  I will say that when my forthcoming hip hop album reaches number 1 on the Billboard charts (still waiting for 50 cent to call me back on that collaboration proposal)….I’ll probably hook myself up with something similar.

Behind on the blogging as usual….

Last Wednesday was the first Gambril night ride of the season.  Ian and I drove up to the park after work and got psyched up for a cold ride.  It was a nice change of pace from the EF thing we had been doing.  Now that I work up in Maryland, its nearly impossible to make it out to the mountains of western Virginia for any mid-week rides….so until February, Gambril and Schaeffer’s Farm will do.

Part 2 of the 2008 bootie saga was also kicked off last week.  I figured I’d bring back last year’s shredded road booties for some off-road action, and not having any duct tape, decided to use electrical…  Yeah, so that didn’t turn out so well.  One or two sections off the bike walking and the electrical tape was shredded.  Note to self: always seek out duct tape, there is no substitute.  I’m sure I don’t need to elaborate on its legendary do-it-all status….

Anyway, the primary take away from that Gambril ride was the knowledge that I can no longer rely on my god-given eyesight to ride at night without some Rx assistance.  Its the most bizarre transition from last winter when it was never really a problem.  Nevertheless, the last couple rides have been downright scary.  On the gnarly rocky Gambril terrain I normally flow over like its nothing….I was holding on for dear life.  I found myself so relieved to be approaching a long climb - anything was better than the blurry “can’t see any line at all through the rocks going more than 10mph” experience I had on the downhills.  I basically did my best not to annoy people who could actually see the trail.  I’d yo-yo between the front of the pack on the hills and the back on the dh’s….basically feeling like a roadie out on the trails with huge lungs and no skill.  On the positive side I felt like I had tons of juice in my legs.  Swapping out the 12-23 Ultegra cassette for an 11-34 Sram was the best move I’ve made in awhile.  My road cassettes will remain on my road bikes from now on…

Anyway….there is probably a pair of Oakley Rx in the near future….as soon as I’m out of Seven-DA-Easton build arrears that is.

I’ll be honest.  I didn’t want to fall more than a day behind with the ride reports, but the inevitable happened and I got lazy.

Ian and I did the normal Thursday night EF ride this past Thursday and it rocked as usual.  I experimented with my Olympus PS attempting to capture some of our fun, but with its inherent limitations, its becoming blatantly clear that I won’t be having much success at night trying to capture either trail detail or action.

Another thing that I’m noticing is how much worse my night vision is getting.  Now, I’m 29 and I don’t have good vision to start with (I barely pass the driving test), but its getting downright scary to ride the extended rocky/leafy descents at night.  My elderly riding buddies tell me this is the age factor setting in….and if so, aging sucks.  This last ride really brought this to my attention.  I was ranting earlier in the month how happy I was to be rocking the Tifosi Q3s in lieu of my beatup old Smiths.  I’m worried now that I’ll have to drop the cash on some Oakley Rx glasses.

On a positive note, it appears as though we’ll be adding at least a couple of new weekly or semi-weekly riders to the mix, so hopefully the fresh meat will shake things up a bit and expand the group size.  Ironically, it might be myself (the ride leader complaining of the lack of interest, see earlier post) that has to begin skipping rides.  A new client looks to be materializing in the next week or so and that means the 4:00 departures won’t be possible.  On the one hand, I won’t be tempted to swerve into oncoming traffic on the way into the WCI office each morning, but on the other hand I’ll have a nice new project to challenge my idle brain.

I’m gonna have to suck it up and start dragging out my beat up SLR so I can get some fresh EF pics….hopefully soon.  Maybe Oksana will let me buy this before our January trip to Spain.

Yesterday was a great day.  Amazing weather called for an all-day outing of some sort.

We kicked the day off early by gathering some friends together for several hours of morning hiking.  The location of the hike just so happened to be the very same place I often find myself riding singletrack (Gambril state park).  It also just so happened that I was able to drag my bike along and Oksana was able to get a ride home with someone else after the hike…..yes, sometimes you can have your cake and eat too.  Here’s a pic of several lovely hikers near one of the lookouts.

So after the group was worn out hiking the 7 mile yellow loop, I suited up and hit the trails.  A couple things occurred to me on the ride:

First of all, hiking a trail that you then turn around and ride, really provides some interesting perspective that I’m betting most of us mtn bikers rarely get.  Think about it, how often do you hike, then ride the same section of trail in the same day?

It was pretty cool.  I guess the best part about it from the mountain bike perspective, is how you appreciate having a bike to cruise through the woods in much more of a dynamic way (a stark contrast compared to walking of course).  The flip side to this for me, was taking note of how much more social a group hike can be than a group ride usually is (i.e. the slow pace of the hike is perfect for good conversation).  I’m not gonna go into this stuff in detail cause I think the contrast is pretty clear, but you see my point….its cool to appreciate each one for what it is.

The second thing that occurred to me was that I was going to start tallying products that via their use and abuse, end up on my gold star list or on my shitlist (a brown star?).  Despite my long history as a cycling product megaconsumer and my more recent attempt to shed that image and stick to the same products until they wear out…..I still plan to wear a lot of stuff out, some things faster than others as the thousands of miles start to pile up.  So in a sense, these ride entries will be peppered with some long term reviews.  Take exhibit A for example:

As you can see, these pedals are beat to absolute shit, and for the last few months, they have started to function like absolute shit.  The springs have been battered by countless pedal strikes.  The frequency of strikes skyrocketed when I started riding the Surly, and now that I’ve been taking a closer look at frame geometries….I have no choice but to blame the non-east coast friendly bb height (since I ran these same pedals on the Commencal and didn’t see nearly the wear and tear).  The spindle bearings probably have a few thousand miles on them and still spin quite smoothly, although its clear that the grease is breaking down in the right pedal based on how it spins a bit more freely.  There is however, no play in either spindle.  Now that the retention springs are beat to hell such that they jingle jangle around when not engaged…..I find myself inadvertantly unclipping when using the slightest bit of body english hopping around.  Not cool.  Also note in picture 2 how worn down the spring surface is.  Its hard to see in the picture, but I’d say 30-50% of the material is eroded.  I know I know, just buy new ones.  Well, I did already, but I refuse to install them until the Walt is built up with a higher (I’m thinking 13″) bb height.  All this being said, the ATAC design still gets a gold star.  I had my first pair for 7 years after buying them used!  So I’m giving the pedals another shot with some extra protection from the pedal strikes.  I hope to be writing about how buttery and tight they feel for ride #300.

So last night was a pretty sweet night ride out at EF.

I submitted the Elizabeth Furnace ride to MORE as a “weekly night ride” so it could be placed on the club calendar starting with yesterday’s ride. Check out the posting on the calendar here. In the past I’ve been pretty disappointed in the sheer lack of interest from fellow club members after posting up invitations to ride something on the challenging side of the spectrum (i.e. anything out in GW forest). This led to Ian and I questioning how many (if any) riders would show up, given it was now on the MORE calendar alongside all the other club events.

Imagine how shocked Ian and I were, as we rolled up near the trailhead last night, only to find more than 10 other MORE members warming up and getting ready to do the ride. No sooner did I get out of the car did I hear somebody say something to the effect of: “is that Paulson ride leader dude gonna show up or what”? I couldn’t believe it.

Ok, so that whole last part is a total lie. The parking lot was empty, as was my Gmail inbox. Now granted, I did give short notice in submitting the ride, and I did submit it as a “weekly” ride. So perhaps people saw it and figured they’d hit us up for a ride anytime between now and February – who knows. My guess is, (and my ongoing observations support this) MORE is primarily comprised of people who like to blow lots of money on nice gear and talk about riding more than actually riding said gear. I hope I’m totally wrong and I’m waiting to be proven so. It’s been an ongoing frustration for me since I joined the club. I understand the job and family obligation thing (I’m on borrowed time myself ;-0) – but where the hell are all the younger non-married riders without kids that don’t have as many things stopping them from getting out? I don’t get it.

I think the next step in luring some faster riders out on these night rides is to post a personal ad on Craigslist as “Danielle Paulson” with this picture in my profile. I’ll say something about “looking for a good time riding rough terrain late into the night” Maybe that will get them away from happy hour and out on the trails.

On a positive note, Ian and I did put in a solid ride. Not really the MORE group session that we hoped for but Ian and I just took turns at the front and back, tag teaming Elizabeth anyway. We were making great time holding down a steady, but fast pace all the way up to the top of Bear Wallow (the high point for those that don’t know), but then ironically the several miles of technical and flowy DH that is normally a thing to be cherished – was not so cooperative under a carpet of huge poofy leaves. I think in past rides, the leaves have been wetter and more trampled down….cause last night’s ride back down was more scary than fun. I just don’t recall being so technically challenged on stuff I would normally clean without batting an eye…..it was kinda nuts.

Also worth noting: the perfect riding weather continues on. It was a cool upper 40s lower 50s the entire ride last night, and my wool jersey (I’ve been ranting about how great it performed since about 10 minutes into the ride) was spectacular. In case you’re wondering why this was such a special event…..I got into the wool thing about 2 years ago, and really started pushing the limits of what wool was good for. I found myself going on 95 degree summer rides with a jersey that felt nasty after about 10 minutes (but I was wearing wool dammit, Merckx wore wool!). Last night was vindication for wool.

No ride today, just lots of booze (its not quite off-season training time for 09 yet is it???)….but something interesting this weekend. Stay tuned.