Gravel, Sand, Dirt, Dust...

Two days of single track goodness had me wanting a 3rd day of single track goodness, but I needed to get some work done and even though I like to think that riding single track 2 hours a day is "work," it's really not. I mean if I REALLY wanted to stretch the truth I could say that if I didn't spend time "doing stuff" on my bike, I couldn't compete in races, and if I didn't compete in race then XXC would suffer in some way. Of course that's not to say that the mag has reaped any big benefits from me finishing mid to back of the back over the years either. Ha! But I digress...

Work needed to be done, but a ride also needed to happen. So rather than drive to do trail ride, I headed out the back door, rode 3.5 miles of pavement and then hit the dirt roads. The ride wasn't that long, coming in at just 2 hours but some newly laid gravel and dirt made for a high heart rate, some near wipe outs, and some power sucking on the hills. Seems like just a couple weeks ago (because it was) I was riding deep mud and goo. This week it was powdery dirt and sand. Damn that happened QUICK! I will still take riding on the dusty sandy dirt roads over snow, cold, ice, mud and slush. Eph that! The grader was out today packing down some roads but it seemed that more than half the roads I rode had yet be hit by it. Drat!

It was nice to once again be able to head out in shorts and short sleeves. Damn the sun felt good! Of course its reflection off my paper white legs could blind a person. The ride was pretty darn not bad, but I was missing the single track. But I have some super mind numbing not so top secret endurance race prep that I want to do this weekend with the Spearfish, so I think I will MORE than make up for no dirt (trails) today.

Even with the fresh power sucking dirt and sandy shoulders the gravel roads treated me well today, and got me 6+ hours of playing in some form of dirt over the past 3 days, with the weekend's plans still ahead of me. Storms in the forecast tomorrow, hopefully they won't be so bad as to derail too much of those ride plans.

I was able to post up a neat blog post by one of my operatives in the UK on the XXC blog today. Pretty neat look at some of the mental things that endurance racers and adventure cyclists face, and how sometimes NOT doing a ride or race isn't as bad as it seems. Check it out HERE.

Gotta split, need to get some stuff done, and then tomorrow more work, and a trip to Terry's for some bike love.

Later.