Leading Casually, from the front.

Tonight I took up my regular fall duty of leading the Thursdays at Wakefield Night Ride for Sept and October. It was a blast, ended up with near 20 miles. Did a pre-ride with Tuba from MORE pushing out a respectable 7.5 miles in 50 mins. I then led out a group of 4 other riders on a merry chase for the next hour and 20 mins for another almost 9.5 miles. We were taking some sections slow so our sweeper could catch up. We did loser her once for about 10 mins and I felt bad! We did a quick lap of the section and found her near where we had stopped and waited before. Oh well it was a nice quick loop. I then did another quick almost 3 mile chunk after hanging in the parking lot a while talking with people. It was nice to be out alone, but it's always a weeee bit creepy. I startled something at the creek crossing and it almost scared me off the trail!

Next week I think I'll try and start off with a ride out to Accotink before dark with the group. Then come back and pound out some time in between phase 4 and such. Maybe a longer section, loop of the bowl also.

I'm wiped out. Its time to hit the shower.

Down with the Sickness

My cough cold continues to hound me, but I refuse to slow down much since it put me down early in the week.

So this week I got out for a schaeffer loop with the guys, and J came out and trooped with us on tbe beginner loop. She fell a few times but more to stopping issues rather than terrain. She cleared some tough logs!

Friday I hit the Little Bennett Friday Night Lights ride, we had a couple of regulars and of all surprises Brizn was out! It was a damn fun ride with everyone even though I did take an unplanned bath in the larger creek due to an unseen rock. The rest of the ride was good, and the slower pace was fine with me trying to hack out my lung every frickin 100 feet.

Sunday I went out and hit the Fairland Regional Park trail and had a good fun ride. Ran into rob, gary and co again who I hung out with Thursday after the Schaeffer ride at DFH. I kept missing the turn to head over to the easier area near the main rec center but it was okay. Ground out some hard riding before I went over there.

For the week I hit darn near 32 miles total. I'm pretty happy. Probably won't ride tommorow, think I'm gonna go hit the gym actually and do a bit of weight work.

Black Hills Friday Night Lights Inagural Edition

First Black Hills Friday Night Lights was last night. Damn good time for the most part. Though at the end I was bonking majorly. But back to the beginning.

Got there a bit later than I wanted do to Traffic, Spending to long BS'ing with Phil at G-Town Cycles, and missing the West Old Baltimore Rd Turn off. Ugh. So I had to change in the car and that was exciting as usual...And cramped. But 15 minutes later I was ready to go.

New cassette check, new chain check, new rear tire (Some big tears phil spotted) check.

We started off as one large group, and rode the first short section together. At that point we realized we needed to split. A fast and not so fast, with a few of us straggling the fast, as tweeners. Our group was led by Jim with Yeuq, Mark, Harry and myself bringing up the rear. We tackled Hard Rock and looped around to the boat house.

We then rolled onto the HMC trail all the way to the big bridge. During the last section we lost a rider and that sucked. He was behind me then he wasn't. When I got to the end we all turned back. No sign of him at the first lot and so 2 guys went back to double check while I called the ride leader. The county sheriff patrol stopped to check on us and thought we were crazy but cool for riding. They didn't care about our permit even. hahaha. A bit later the ride leader called back having seen our missing rider heading back to the lot by the road. I call the search party back. After they return we take off.

Well they do, but I'm burnt and frozen. Got way to cold during the 12 minute plus stop and I can't crank well anymore. So I convince Harry to head back the "easy" way back. Roads to the main center lot. But there are 1 major 1 minor grind back. UGH. We made it back in about 9:48'ish. But I'm toast. A quick change of shoes helps, my poor toes are frozen and barely feel my feet. Load gear and head home. Time for a final purchase for now.

A pair of Lake Men's Winter Mtn Biking Boots. Ahhhh warm feet and toes ho!

Ended up doing near 10 miles with a moving pace of 8.3mpg average. Pretty cool. Without that stop I probably would have gotten 12 or so and maybe been a bit faster.

First Night Ride at Wakefield.

So this Thursday, I did my first night ride out at Wakefield Park in Springfield, Va. It was a good time. Got out there nice and early and spent an 40 minutes gearing up, adjusting equipment. A new pair of gloves, socks, and headwarmer. Very nice. I now just need my new fleece tights and I'll be almost good to go for the season.

Did a little preride to warmer up and see how things would go. And it was pretty damn good. Put on a extra pair of socks and was good to go. I went out with a nice casual group, we had 8-9 riders through out. We made an average pace of 7.1 according to my cycle computer odometer. We went down to the creekside trail, then climbed to the power lines. The most of us hit the bowl. We then rode the trail back up and out to the parking lot. We then headed over to Accotink and rode most of the trails over there. A bit more challenging. We kept having people not make it up and out of stream crossings. We had a woman along who'd never mountain biked before excluding one light trail ride and never night rode before. She kicked ass and rode hard! I was impressed.

I did head over to kilroy's but it was too noise and smokey and my wife bailed on her late class so I headed home.

Maybe there will be a post ride stop at DFH after Black Hills tonight.