With CX Nats out of the picture I took two and a half weeks off the bike after the last cross race. I could have gone for more rest but some good rides were shaping up for New Years Day and beyond. Nice chill rides. Well, not all chill. On Friday I jumped on the Amnesty/Memorial ride that Wiser posted up. My body was still totally shut down in full rest mode so I had to really force myself to get up and get out the door. I'm really glad I made it - lots of good people on the ride. I told Chappy this was the first social pace ride I had been on in almost a year. Chap said, "It feels good, right?" Yep. It sure did.
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| Amnesty/Dan Ryan Memorial Ride on New Years Day. 57 strong! Thanks to Mark Wise for posting up the invite on this one! |
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| Dave and Chappy on the Memorial Ride. Always good to ride with these guys. |
Glenn Turner posted up a mountain bike ride for Saturday. I was planning to resume my intensive resting program but the ride the day before had stirred something in me...I sensed a disturbance in the lazy. I added a few others to Glenn's invite and it was on. We kind of high jacked Glenn's ride and the pace was a lot tougher than I was thinking about when I loaded up the single speed that morning. I won't name any names but the initials for the instigators were Buddy, Jay and Ryan. I'm kidding of course...it was one of those really memorable super fun rides.
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| Awesome crew! Contrary to popular reports the trails were fine. A little slick here and there but mostly great and mild temps. Left to right: Buddy, Paul, Matt, Ryan, Mark, Jay, Rebecca, Glenn, Bob and Dennis. Thanks to Glenn for throwing out the invite! |
Jay let me know about a mid-day Fair Hill ride with the Chuckster on Sunday. The disturbance in the lazy dark side was getting stronger...the force was awakening. I was totally stoked for this ride. Chuck was tinkering with a tripod-foot-down rear-wheel-power-slide-through-fast-corners thing. The leafy trails made it pretty sketchy.
Chuck said, "You know like Sagan does."
"Wait, on a road bike?" Jay said skeptically.
I was just enjoying the show. It was like the Evel Knievel documentary I watched the night before. Like something bad was about to happen sooner or later. Except Chuck is a really nice guy. Evel is a douche.
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| Jay didn't get the memo about the sexy gray beard stubble look. |
At one point we ran up on a couple guys with a mechanical. One of them had broken his derailleur hanger. They were about as far from their parking lot as you could get and had no tools. Jay, Chuck and I took over and converted the bike to a single speed in about 5 minutes. There was something really amusing yet really efficient about the three of us working together. I hope our handy work got them back. I have a feeling it did.
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| Glove in my teeth. Wrong gear. Steep hill. One hand. Yeah...that picture. |
I posted up on Facebook earlier in the week about Tyler and I going to see The Force Awakens. We had watched all six of the Prologue and original movies in story-chronology order during the Christmas break. I'm not a serious Star Wars fan but the original 1977 Star Wars is a great movie and The Empire Strikes Back almost as good and Return of the Jedi pretty good except for that Ewok thing. But I was not a fan of the Prologue Trilogy. Anyway, no spoilers here...the Force Awakens is a really great movie. Well done in almost every way. It's the movie the last three should have been.
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| Finally, after a week of watching all the Star Wars movies...the main attraction! |
If you ever get sick of your bike, take a break. Rest up. Leave the bike hanging in the garage all disheveled and dirty with a flat tire from the last cross race of the year. When you're rested and ready...the force will awaken and you will love your bike again. Peace all!
