Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Beat up and Tired.

Thats how I've felt for the past week or so. Between prepping for the party 2 weeks ago, work kicking my ass repeatedly. Between that and the weather my riding this month TANKED. UGh. Maybe 60-70 miles, on the real bike. I did do some running in the gym and riding the cycles at the gym.

Last Thursday at the Wakefield Night ride, after doing my own 10 mile pre-ride, 10 miles later I was nearly tanked out and at 11 miles I was boinking. I was annoyed as hell to be wiped out after 22 miles of Wake-o-tink.

Tuesday I finally made it out to Laurel Hill and it's a hoot. You can really let go if you have the bawls. With a lower pressure in my front tire I feel I could have pushed my avg speed at least another .5 mph from 8.5 to 9. Or more.

The trails are fun and twisty. The skills section at Slaughter house is neat though the heavy rock section beat me twice, I just could get the momentum and line right. I made it halfway over the log skinny and had to bail. Need more pedaling. :) The actual trail was fun to. I think the best way to do that trail is go up the switch backs heading out of the middle of the figure 8.

The blue loop was fun, I took the 2nd enterance but I just didn't have the gas in me to really hammer it and fly on the rollers or hit the jumps there.

The Red (Apple Orchard?) was a neat downhill, and a bit of a grind back up doing it CW. I think finished out on Green to Red to back to the CCT then back the field trail to the parking lot. A nice bit of fun. Next week I want to hit there and get 2 laps.

Had an awesome dinner of Grilled Flank Steak, Broiled Polenta, a home made relish and a nice glass of wine. yes there it is. I do drink wine. Murphy Goode's Liar's Dice. A blend of Zins. Deep and smooth with mellow hints of spice.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

No Bedlam for Moi.

Alas work has conspired against me. And so has the Federal Govt. And Fates, etc.

So I won't be making the bedlam in Bedford for this year. As I not only don't have the $$$ but I also have no new beer to sample, as I've been behind on stuff for over a month now. Ooops.

I did start Park Tools Bike Maint School last night and it's been very cool so far with even the intro and explanation on stuff such as hubs, freehubs, wheels and tires. The cool stuff gets going next week with Wheel Theory being a big one for me.

Hopefully this rain wraps up todya and thursday we can Ride at Wakefield.

But I'm not holding my breath.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Wednesday Blues

March 19th Entry From Kung Fu Monkey (kfmonkey.blogspot.com):

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's
life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish
fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its
unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially
crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of
course, involves orcs.

Now that explains why I'm so screwed up. Damn you Ayn Rand!

I still need to finish Return of the King.

Stupid rain, GO AWAY!

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Thursday Wakefield. Semi Epic

It was a damn fine Thursday out for all cyclists I think! One of the best in a while for sure. I got out of work a bit later than I wanted but still made it to Wakefield right around 5. A slow gear up and I headed out 15 minutes later. Took a nice spin out by the rusted truck section as a short warm up. Then headed out for an equivalency lap of race course. Barely pushing I turned in a solid 20-21 minute lap. I think with a little more riding I may be able to turn in some solid sub 20 minute laps by race time in June. A quick visit over to Accotink followed that for some additional exploring. The Accotink workday had cleared up a lot of leaf covered trail and had 1 good reroute! Very nice work.

Back to the lot a bit before 6:30 to organize the group Night Ride. Had a pretty good turn out of 15 other riders. We headed out in 2 big groups of 8. Both groups stayed together till the first trail in Accotink where I had a rally point and offered quick thoughts on the trails. And we rode on, taking several legs I havent' before. Eventually I let Mike and Joel lead a bit including the section out of the park and back to the CCT as I don't know that way at all.

We rolled back into Wakefield at around 8 and after a time check and reorg we decided to ride till 8:30. We blasted off, doing the creek trail to phase 1, the creek trail race section and up and out on the high section of phase 1. We then did the climb up to the berms and rode down. And headed back to the lots. 12 miles in about 2 hours for our group and 22 total for me. I was stoked. A great night of riding, I was bummed out that I couldn't hang out afterwards. The wyf was having an existential crisis and I was late getting out due to session the berms. Oops. But an excellent night ride!

Monday, April 06, 2009

Cherry Blossoms and other blossoms

El Wyf and I took a gentle coast down into downtown Sunday for a visit to the craziness that is the cherry blossom festivus. The first part on the Canal wasn't too bad, but once we got onto the path along the river after G-town it was packed to crazy packed. I did make a sweet drop in off the benched sections there after avoiding a bunch of the crowds! Once we hit the tidal basin we walked about 1/2 way around it. Then after appreciating the nature we hoped back on the bikes and rode back down to the river and back, much quicker over all due to less crowds. It was a wonderful day to be out spinning.

I only felt bad that I was missing the shed trailwork day, but I'll hit the next one for sure!

Came back and hit Nest in downtown bethesda. Very good mussels and nice pizza. Enjoyed with a Rogue Dead Guy. Saturday I had a Milk Stout and wasn't really impressed. The DFH 60 that I followed it with was much better :)

Hoping to hit CJ tomorrow after owrk and see if the new section is seeing more action now with the entry bridge and the big bridge in.