Wintery Time

I've been trying to get my cycling feet back under me since oh, about November, and I think I've made some progress in the last two weeks.  The week between Christmas and New Years, I actually clocked about seven hours of riding!!!!  A whole seven hours!  It was amazing.  All on my singlespeed, which is nice, because I love that bike.  It is my favorite out of all of them.  It just feels right.  It's even better after I got some new parts for it for Christmas.  It's much easier to pedal with a bottom bracket that actually turns round.

Took one of my friends from college, a new cyclist, on a road ride yesterday.  He brought the great weather up from Florida for our ride and we ended up putting in 31 mi at a chill chill chill pace in shorts and short sleeves.  It was pretty cool to get out on the road again, as I haven't really done that in a few months.

Enjoying some fresh powder trails in upstate NY.

Pretty NY countryside.

Shiny bits for the SS... plus a bath which it hasn't had in a few years.  Salsa Toothfairy is the best bashguard ever.

 After watching the 'Cross nats coverage on Cyclingdirt today, I'm definitely excited to get riding again.  It was pretty awe inspiring to watch those Delaware's best walk away with the women's race for the eighth time in a row, and to see her young protege pick up the silver.  And watching JPow's perfectly timed attack left me with goosebumps.  Now I am really ready to start 2012 with a bang.  I'm continuously honored to be able to ride with the great group of guys and gals that is the C3-Athletes Serving Athletes team.  All of you inspire me every time you turn your pedals over.  I'm also proud to be an Ergon Factory Rider again for 2012.  This year, not only will they be keeping my hands comfy, but my rear end as well, which is always a plus for 100 mile races.  Sore butt = unhappy bike racer.  I'd also like to tip my hat to ENVE Composites, who is coming on board with some support and some super sweet cockpit components.  They'll cut a few grams of weight off the Epic and pile on a few kilograms of sexiness.

So now that 2011 is actually over (with cross nats being finished and all), congrats to all my friends who trekked out and raced, and I'll see you all when the mountain bike thing starts up again!

And so it begins...

I will admit straightaway: I had almost forgotten why I love cross.  About a month ago, it was just seeming like another thing I was going to be spending money on in order to switch my Van Dessel from road to cross mode.  Nittany reminded me why I love cross.  It was muddy, something we haven't seen for a solid year.

It was good.  Very good to be back in the cross ring.  I definitely came into it without any practice since I hung up my skinsuit last year, so I think I was a little rusty on my "cross skills." The good old Holeshot was definitely up to the task, as I think I've finally found a build that is both low maintenance, and light weight enough.  The only thing I could see changing are the wheels, but who has money for a fancy new pair of carbon hoops anymore right?  Lord knows I don't...

I think I enjoyed Sunday's course more than Saturday's, even though I failed to successfully ride the run-up/log combo during the race (rode it twice during practice).  I am happy with this, even though I was riding very slow.  I definitely don't have the top end speed I had at the end of last cross season.  Hopefully I'll be racing myself into that kind of fitness this year since I'm probably not going to be sticking to any kind of formal training program.  Just cross practice once a week (work permitting) and whatever other rides I can fit in during the rest of the week.  Work schedule is definitely picking up more as we are getting near to the end of the year as out timetable for submitting out yearly monitoring reports has been moved up to the end of October.  All the sudden, the end of the year is in October now.  Whouda thought that...