Monday, June 25, 2007

Monday Monday....

Busy day today with picking the wyf up from the airport at 11, lunch, then a physical at 2. We even worked in a short mtb ride from 6-6:45 up at cabin john doing about 5 miles. I did almost eat it 2 or 3 times but managed to unclip or in 1 case grab a tree and pulled myself on up to ground. We almost made it from the Tuckerman area down to Democracy but one section was buried in dead fall. Other than that it was a good ride, though J was hating on a few parts but she made 2 tough climbs. She wants to change to the clipless also. May we'll work on finding her some shoes this week, I already have a set of shimano 505's for her from my bike's original days. I just took the cheap plastic platform off.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Biking Week!

Busy week for biking, I didn't end up hitting my thursday ride due to being tired from taking the wife to the airport early and storms coming in that evening. I did ride friday doing the monthly Little Bennett night ride. We rode almost 15 miles though my gps log only shows 12 due to me forgetting to turn it back on once we went out for a last lap up the first big climb and back down loggers. I did crash and burn on a small stump. Around then I somehow lost my damn glasses! Argh. I didn't need em I shoulda left em in the car. So the next morning I rolled outa the house in the same gear at 5:30 and started riding again near 6. I covered almost all the same ground and looked around the 3 spots I figured I could have lost them in as well as possible. No sign. Oh well ended upp with another hour and fifteen minutes of ride time for 9 miles.

So not bad that made it a nice 36 miles. Today I tacked on a pair more and made it a nice 38 miles. Those 2 miles were trial miles. Trying out a new change to the bike.... I finally switched to blood clipless. Yep. I got a set of TIME Atac XE's on Saturday and tried on a number of shoes. They were all to wide and slipped off. So today I went back out on the shoe hunt. Tried on a lot of stuff and still didn't find the right fit. So I treked out to columbia to hit race pace, the nearest Sidi MTB center. I'd tried the regular dominator 5 and it was a bit to wide. The guy in here right away hits me with a 6 series Eagle. Has the new heel securing system. Tighten it right edown and wam feels good. Plus they have half sizes and the 46.5 fits the best in the front/side that I've tried. 47 felt too huge. 46 a bit tight.

So i got home, installed the new pedals. Installed the cleats. Tried on one shoe and tried cruising around the basement. Hmm not bad. Tried the other. Not bad. Off to the lawn. Tool around a bit in the lawn....not bad foot commes out okay. A few adjustments. Better. A pair of laps around the neighborhood. Good start.

Tommorow I'm gonna try and hit damn cabin john. After picking J up at the airport and a physical...hmmm well see..

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Red Elvises

The wife and i and a friend from work went and saw the Red Elvises down at the Iota club in Arlington last night. Awesome show, even the opening Soul band was good, Eli "Paperboy" Reed & the True Loves. The Elvises rocked and put on a hella good show in 2 sets that must have totaled an 2 hours and more. Excellent show for $15. My wife even got up with a bunch of girls and rocked the stage during I wanna see you belly dance, by belly dancing. It was great!

At least 2 big rides left this week and my legs need to finish recovering from MOnday! Argh!

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

First Ride at Wakefield

Yesterday I went out and rode wakefield for the first time. It was hotter than a frickin blast oven but it wasn't unbearable as a LOT of it was shaded. Boy it was a fun ride. Nice pump track section, managable climbs, and a lot of nice trail. My one bitch point was how bad the armor'd/rock'd section before you re enter the woods after the big descent from the powerline etc is. God I was wishing for magic f/s by my third lap.

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/3056791

Creek trail is pretty nice and shaded and is pretty well managed. From all the confusion on our boards (www.more-mtb.org) another good future project could be a trail/map system like we have on Schaeffer. Though the blazes are quite good especially with the added race markers.

Felt pretty good until my final lap, ran outa gas a bit but more I think as a function of lack of energy. Need to make sure i get a good meal in a bit before I ride. Also a clean/dry/cool post-ride shirt would be smart.

Happy Trails!

Friday, June 15, 2007

Face of the Earth

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the Earth or anything. I've just been stupidly busy between excessively bad commutes, home projects, and occasionally biking I've been busy. I was pretty sick from Stokesville on for about 10 days my cough got bad enough I was only getting 4 hours of sleep and such. Last week I finally got to the docs, got reproscribed Zyrtec and an advair inhaler for morning/night usage. And it has been working pretty well.

Last thursday, i went on the usual Schaeffer Farm ride and was dieing do to being outa shape and not able to get enough o2....vs this week I was much better off and could have pushed harder than I did. Part of it was our pace was slower but in general I just felt better. Technically it was a better ride for me also, no trees and better line choice. I got over thru some stuff that is always troublesome and was worse due to the damp/slick roots.

Next week should be a good riding week, Monday I am going to try and do Wakefield, Thursday Evening is the Thursday Ride, Friday we have a night ride, then Sunday I may try and do an epic ride for 2 or 3 parks.

Ride Hard and stay cool.