Sunday 17 January 2010

A Case Of The Dwindles

This thing in Haiti is awful. The thing that happened in SD today was just beautiful. Go Sanchize. I thought he'd have a good year this year and show a lot of promise and maybe get them to the playoffs but no way did I think they'd be playing for the AFC Championship. Most important development of the game, however, was that it allowed me to tie my three year old nephew for the lead (at 3-1) in the family's playoff pool this weekend. The little m-f'er did pretty well with the home teams.
Yesterday was a lovely day in the hills and dales of Hardy County. We wound up needing to make many judgment calls (guesses, really) about which trail branches to take. Some were really good, some were less fortunate. On the way down from our highest venture, a descent which was about as much fun as you could have except for those with hopelessly clogged pedals, we discovered a huge error that we'd made. What looked like a snowy, clogged up mess turned quickly into a twisty and challenging yet very clear section with lots of off camber and tons of little sections that needed full stick to stay on terms with. The generally impressive up gradient made sure that you didn't get much chance to chill after those bursts. The way down that was wicked fun, with that hero dirt in the hairpins where you can get your back wheel to do whatever want. The weather was pretty great for January, especially when you consider we (like everyone else on the east coast) had a pretty massive case of cabin fever heading into the weekend.

I got to play shock mechanic this morning, which I really had no clue how to do going into it. The report was a big improvement from yesterday, but I don't think we fixed it all the way. When I bounced it to test it, it felt a little soggy still.

Today was a bit of a different story. Overnight rain, foggy and cold. It was a tough go to convince ourselves even to get out the door, but go we did. We stayed pretty exclusively on what most would call "jeep roads" but which Jay might refer to as perfect road biking roads. Not being on road bikes, we were well prepped. The mud was such that you were definitely sure that you were going uphill in ether direction. We took one turn down this road that we thought would drop us down to the park but it didn't. Instead, we wound up at a modern day outdoor museum of lawn mowers, various machinery of questionable provenance, and the Firebird from "Rockford Files." The climb back up out of there was the most technical thing we did today, which is not to minimize it at all. A few miles of that would have challenged most. When we finally got back on "real" roads going back, it felt like we were going 30 when we were probably hitting a whopping 12. The resistance was pretty significant. At the end of it all, we were totally covered. I was pretty amazed at how much mud there was on my skin, which in most cases was under two or three layers of clothing. But it was fun.

3 comments:

Sigberto Garcia said...

Are those carpenter's glasses? I picked some of those up for a buck-fitty once and they are a godsent for foggy/dark rides.

Chuck Wagon said...

Yup. No reason to wreck a good pair of glasses on a crappy day.

TerribleTerry said...

I can tell by the photo exactly what was running through your mind.... Shower, Mac-M-Cheese, Terry's witty banter.