Brunch Rides And Trail Bush

Since we here in WPA continue to have a rare streak of nice weather, I hit up Boyce a "brunch time" ride. The weather was just perfect, the ride was fun, and my legs felt spanky.

The ride started interestingly enough when the local high school's girls cross country team felt the need to jog to where I was parked and then proceed to stretch for 5 minutes while I was trying to get ready for my ride?? Jeeeezus! I KNOW I'm twice their age, I know that I may end up in jail JUST for typing this, and I KNOW this makes me sound like a big f*cking perv, but FOR THE LOVE OF GOD MAN! I AM human! Of course you know I rolled off feeling like a fat, depressed, creepy, pseudo-jobless old guy in comparison to them, so in the end, they won.

80% of the trails are in just PERFECT conditions. The remaining 20% aren't really muddy, but are overgrown. I'd love to get a machete so as to take some time and trim back some trail bush (I love saying that), but I'm not sure I have the sort of personality or luck that should have easy access to a machete. I see me using it to threaten some kid throwing his potato chip bag in my yard, or lopping off one of my arms trying to trim back some weeds.

With about 4 miles to go today I hit a root that was hidden by the aforementioned trail bush and went sailing over the bars into God-knows-what sort of weeds, poison, thorns and brush. The bike was fine and I'm fine (enough). One knee to top-tube, shoulder to ground, and hip to a root later, I was up and off to finish the last few miles.

Sometimes I think just riding on is the best thing after a crash. Get the blood moving and the mind off the thumping going on at the point of impact. I will say this- as much as I love riding 29ers, sometimes crashing on a 29er feels like I'm throwing myself off of a two story building. Maybe it's just in my head, but falling seems a long way down via a 29er.

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I TRY to not talk about too much Pro road stuff anymore, since when I do I usually get a bunch of pseudo anonymous comments about how lame I am and how much I don't know (all true), but I can't help it...

I'm not gonna lie to you. Originally I was NOT into the idea of watching the Tour this year, with the Lancesturbation, and inevitable drug busts, but it REALLY has captured my interest. And it has nothing to do with Astana, other than all the drama. (Hell there's probably less drama on the high school running team that I mentioned above). But each stage, EVEN my most hated- the Team Time Trial, has been interesting.

Today it was cool to see a break succeed, and nice to see Thomas Voeckler get a win. As I mentioned to one of my blog/FB friends today, Voeckler has to be a sponsors wet dream. The dude always manages to get in some breaks, and if nothing else for the last 5 years he seems to get a ton of TV coverage for his sponsors.


So like the allure of a strip club's "champagne room" I can't say no to the Tour. Because I'm afraid if I don't check it out, I might miss out on something, even though I know I will most likely be let down in the end, or at least feel guilt for having given so much time and energy to watching Pro cycling. But hey, it's feeling good right now, I'm just gonna go with it. Not too mentioned it's pretty much the ONLY thing on TV that has nothing to do with freaking "Wacko Jacko".

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It seems I won a free entry into the Tahoe 100 in September. Long story, but I posted a reply on MTBR.com to a post, and the dude replies back with an offer of a free entry. I PMed with him and it's all legit, but I can't go anyway. 2,500 miles in a long way to go for a race. It was a nice gesture from the race organizer and I thank them.

Check out the original post, I actually do really dig it. Seem the Tahoe Sierra 100 will be having Age Group Categories for the race. That is pretty damn cool, and I hope some of the other NUE racer directors will follow suit in the future. With 300 racers, I see no reason why some of the kitty (or at least prizes) can't be split up a bit more. I mean 150 guys line up, and they pay out top 3 or top 5? Eeesh. And NO I do NOT think I would even be in age group contention for placing, but it would be a TAD more motivating. Of course I'm not a 100 mile race organizer either, and can't imagine how hard a race of that magnitude is to organize.

Time to go. I think I can catch the 4th showing of today's Tour stage on Versus.

Later.