All in a Day's Work

Had one of the best weekend of riding so far this year.  Saturday, I packed the car early and headed up to Palmyra, PA to drop Ms. Geology's frame off at it's maker's shop to have a set of disc tabs installed.  A much better investment than trying to find/build a rim break rear wheel.  It would be a shame to break up the sweet wheelset that is going on the bike.  Once it gets built, and I get a few more parts for my Epic, I'll have to put up a bunch of photos here.  After dropping that off and getting throughly checked out by Ken's huge dogs, I headed to Shippensburg to join Zach and Joe on Zach's much talked about Coffee House Loop.



Food stop after we found the headwinds in Adam's County

 The Coffee House Loop is a ~ 68 mile loop from Shippensburg, over Big Flat (the longest climb in the Valley), through the awesome Adam's County back roads (kinda like riding in Lancaster County... huge rolling hills), then up and over the short side of Whiskey Springs Gap, and into Boiling Springs for a coffee/pastry refuel. 



Zach

 


Joe

 

If that's not a perfect road, I don't know what is.




Gaggle of bikes outside the coffee shop

 Once we head out again, we fought a stiff headwind pretty much all the way back to Shippensgburg.  That would explain why we felt like superstars on the way out.  Winds turned what should have been a 4-5 hr ride at our conversational "no douche bag" pace into a 6 hr, rolling in just as the sun set adventure.  A truely epic ride.

Sunday I headed again to Fatmarc's place for the seemingly annual Turkey Point Ride-a-thon.  Turkey Point is pretty much an out-and-back to, you guessed it, Turkey Point in Elk Neck State Park.  One of my favorite rides because it includes a lot of great climbing.  It's a pretty easy pace with many regroups out to the amphitheater just before the point.  From there it's all out if you want out to the point, enjoy the view, turn around and ride back to amphitheater, regroup and stay together as much as possible back to the base camp.  Made it to the point just behind Kid Chris, who is less of a kid than I am technically...

View from the point... my appartment is over there somewhere



I'm gonna call this one "Peaches... Fat"




It's all Kurt's fault...



Travis contamplates the brakish water below



Travis says: That's a hiking trail? What?



The majority of the group made it to the point.  The road is long and hard and always turns some back.

I'd say the nap I took yesterday plus the awesome pot roast dinner were well deserved after the weekends riding.  Heading up to beautiful Waterfall, PA for another training camp this weekend.  If there are trails we will ride them, but since there probably won't be, we'll just ride the road.  Roads up there are pretty damn good so that's not too bad.

Still hoping to get some trails in MD soon.

Everyone should keep Marc and Diane in their thought as they mourn the loss of Riley, their lovely dog.

End of the Year, End of the Line PART II: 'Cross Edition

New season, new team, same old bike. <--- This was written like 2 weeks ago.  Shows my commitment to keeping up this blog over the winter when I really have nothing to write about.  Whatever.  I retroactively and proactively use my 45+ hour a week job, plus all the riding I have been doing as an excuse.  So there blogosphere, take that.

So far, I'm enjoying riding this year.  I got a new bike.  I've ridden it a handful of times, although not on open (i.e. snow-free) trails yet.  Therefore I have yet to completely dial in the suspension.  I'll post pictures of it once I get some more parts swapped on (got some ENVE bars coming) and race wheels finished.  Hopefully the weight will be between 24 and 25 pounds, which is pretty awesome for a FS 29er with second shelf parts.  Top shelf parts are a project for next year, since I have officially spent all my extra funds for the year on this bike.

I've started my training a fair bit earlier than I usually do.  I think that's a good thing overall, since I'm planning on doing a bunch of NUE races this year.  I've already signed up for the Mohican 100 and the Lumberjack 100 (which sold out in 14 minutes... WTF...), and am planning on hitting the Wilderness 101 and Shenandoah Mountain 100 as well, once those reg pages open up (if they are not already).  Not that I think they will sell out as fast as Lumberjack did... jeez.  So those four races are going to be my focus for the year.  I think that it should be good fun season.  Already looking to stay with some good friends for the Lumberjack.  Needless to say I'm really excited.

I need more of this in my life. (c) A.E. Landes Photography.

So anyway, I had a really good ride with Fatmarc.  He tells all about it so I don't feel the need to.  It was good to get out with some good friends on a nice mellow road ride.  Perfect way to start the week in my opinion.  Anyway, as promised, I'll leave you with some pics from 'cross season.  Not as many as I originally planned to, but some...

First cross race always hurts... but hey, all cross races hurt right?

Whirlybird 'Cross was the muddiest race I did this year.  So sad...

First, and last, time I cleaned my bike this season.

Me and my Crossresults.com Top Victim... MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA *cough cough cough*

Tom being creepy at Super Cross Cup... creepy, creepy...