Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Sunday, December 28, 2008

Holiday Ride

Great time today with many friends.

DC Tony put a Sand Flats ride together today at 10 am. I Pulled in a little late, but was met with many friendly faces and a full lot. Bek, Skipper, Dave G., Lars Von Chambersburgen, Jules (not Verne), Ricky, better half, and MORE's Stoner. No Tony. We were joined a little later by the White-haired devil of Single Speed Outlaw fame. Todd, aka Skipper, helped me install the front disc pads Speedgoat had recently sent me - the ones that were sorely needed.

Feeling pressure from the ADD crowd and not willing to leave without Tony, I tinkered with my bike for a while to kill time, and then went for a short ride to relieve my GI tract. While crouched, I saw Tony speed past. Upon returning, I realised that we had lost Todd, Dave, and the girls, but the majority remained.

We hit Sally-mander, passed the Fridge, and reconnected with our inner Icebergs. Ran into some folks at the beginning of das Berg, and later Chris Eatough and compadre near Vulture Rock. Supersweet led us to Rock Candy (where we met up with Ernie, Liz and a bunch of dumbasses climbing up Rock Candy), we went up Trail of Tears to Sally-mander to finish.

I learned several things today: From Larry's sleeves, Swobo has got to cut them shorter; From the trail, WTB Weirwolf LT 2.55's fook'in rule; some pro riders still ride 26 inch wheels; From Ricky, red pants don't mean your gay; just because it's wet, doesn't mean you can't ride it.

Great times. I wish everytime I typed Ricky's name it would auto-link to his Flickr site and Larry's blog, and Single Speed Outlaw - can't one of my IT buddies take care of that?

Monday, December 22, 2008

Shed

Sunday was a beautiful day in the Shed. Cub came up and we enjoyed a nice cool ride in the sun.
Saturday, I took Thomas and his friend, Ian, up for a hike. It was only 25 degrees out, but we managed close to a 3 mile hike with some rock scrambling thrown in for good measure.
On the summit.
Ian and Tussey making friends.

Monday, December 08, 2008

Michaux

Nice wintery trip to Michaux with my DC/MD friends. Larry met us there and we enjoyed excellent trail conditions and little to no chance of heat exhaustion, mud, or mosquitoes.
Having destroyed nearly every form of eyewear I have ever owned, it came down to this pair of Bolle glacier glasses from the 80s. They were really dark, cosmetically devastating, and never fogged up.
Disembarking after parking.Some small batch tasties from Troegs (compliments of Brett). We hit a bunch of nice stuff and Lars Von Chambersburgen showed us a new piece from the Michaux Endurance Series 50 miler.
Gliding after riding - at the Chambersburg Pump Track.


We all had a really fun time. It was nice to be back at Michaux and in such good conditions. The snow was light and dry, not crunchy or sqeaky; it gave positive traction and made for that eeriely silent winter riding that I like so much.Never thought I would say that I was missing rocky trails after riding at Michaux, but well, I'm looking forward to some quality rock crawling in the Shed this weekend and the singletrack we hit up North wasn't particularly rocky.

Thursday, December 04, 2008