Saturday Shop Ride

I got out for a beautiful ride today. Met up at the shop at 7:45, got changed, stretched and everyone headed out, maybe 20-25 riders. We headed west from Paceline, and ended up somwhere between Yadkinville and Farmington on some roads with amazing scenery. It was most excellent! On the ride back we picked up the pace a bit heading into Forsyth county from the river. Up "Turbo Hill" through Lewisville and back to Paceline. We were met with all kinds of wonderful concoctions courtesy of one Mr. Van Brown. Thanks, Van! (One of the "edibles" only a few of us considered edible was hot pickled cabbage).
On a side note, Curtis and I made a trip up to Boone to meet our Easton Rep. on Thursday. Curtis scored a killer deal on a set of EC90 Aeros...they're sick! I forgot to get a picture of his bike, but I should have one over the next couple of days if plans stay true!


Moving Time (h:m:s) 2:44:31 3:18 pace
Distance (mi ) 49.83
Moving Speed (mph) 18.2 avg. 36.4 max.
Elevation Gain (ft) +3,157 / -3,184


View Larger Map

Auto-Tuned

My buddy Alex showed me these videos a few weeks ago, and I can say that I have become verifiably addicted to them. This is the latest installment..

Burn

Well, I got in 12 laps, one more than last year. I'm pretty pleased, but would have liked to have gotten at least 3 or 4 more. It was good enough for 20th out of 38. Looks like 94 miles and 14k feet of climbing. I'll have more to add later, as for now, I gotta get some more to eat, and some more sleep.

my right palm is literally a massive bruise...weird. And my fingertips are numb...weird.

Shop Ride

Moving Time (h:m:s) 1:41:06
Distance (mi ) 28.47
Moving Speed (mph)16.9 avg.
Elevation Gain (ft) +2,170 / -2,082

Every Wednesday night, the shop has a group road ride that is billed as a, "recovery ride." The ride starts out at a pretty chill pace headed out into Lewisville. Once in Lewisville, we start three laps of a pretty well-known, enjoyable loop. The first two laps are relatively tame, only averaging maybe 16mph. The third lap ramps up the pace into the 23-25mph range and is a pure sufferfest. Towards the end of the lap there is a nice little sprint that my legs can never manage. At the very end of the lap though, my legs pay off on a nice little climb that everyone kind of pins it going up. I can usually manage about 5th or 6th on the sprint, pretty shameful. The last climb though, I have a bit better chance of hanging and it is usually Scott, Mitch, myself and a couple of others working hard at the end. There were quite a few people out enjoying the great weather tonight, maybe 25 or so on the ride, very cool! Anyways, here are a few pics from the ride tonight.

Me and Andrew hanging out at the shop before the ride

Mitch(hand waving) and Scott (in blue, leaning in) enjoying the ride

Post ride meal, my awesome wife had lemon dill salmon, broccoli, squash and peppers ready for me when I got home....yes!

Night ride the other day at Tanglewood, just for good measure...

Hike and Vineyard

The last week or so has been a pretty crazy week. Plenty of riding and other activities, just no blog entires! Anyways, Lisa and I had friends from Ohio visiting this weekend. Saturday morning me and my buddy Doug decided to go check out the falls at Hanging Rock. With all the recent rains, we were hoping that the falls would be roaring, but I guess that the drainage area is so small that you'd have to be there while it was dumping rain to get to see high flow. Kind of like a ditch, the only time that it is running with lots of water is when it is raining hard. The falls were still pretty however. In the afternoon we decided to check out one of the local vineyards. We took a tour of Shelton Vineyards, enjoyed some wine and went to dinner. I had quite a few rides this week that I didn't get to blog about, on one of which Curtis exhibited unbelieveable sprinting abilities...Quadzilla strikes again! More riding early this week, then tapering off to easy rides later in preparation for BURN!

China Creek

Distance (mi )25.39
Moving Speed (mph)8.7 avg. 35.1 max.
Elevation Gain (ft)+3,597 / -3,370

Curtis, Alex, and I had all been trying to plan a longish ride for like a month now and were finally able to make it out. On the way to Boone, it dumped rain the entire time. We made one pit stop along the way to get some coffee and cookies at Stick Boy Bread Company (Magic Cookies are magical). Alex exhibited his ADD combined with cookies and caffiene and uttered these three things within about 3 seconds, "I've gotta take a dump, wow, I think I have a cavity, that's a nice car." No pauses for breath, nothing.... Anyways, once we got to Alex's apartment, we hemmed and hawed around trying to decide what to do. Finally we got changed, took, off and were drenched within about half a millisecond....so we stopped in at Boone Bike and Touring. We licked our proverbial wounds, hung out, and decided to just man up and go ride. A short climb out of town led us to the top of China Creek. The trail basically follows along its namesake for its entirety. Much beauty abound! The day was incredibly foggy, slick, and colder than we had anticipated...but proved to make it more fun.

First shot of the day, Alex in a Rhodo tunnel

Evidence of the foggy, humid conditions

After taking a couple more overexposed shots, we headed further on the trail. After stating, "This trail is a blast, it's rocky," Alex responded, "Just wait." Within a few minutes Curtis had a flat. He pressed into service a road bike tube he had, instead of using my tube. It lasted about 30 seconds, we pulled the tube from the tire, and it looked like sausage links. Apparently we received a batch of unruly tubes, so we replaced it with my tube, and headed out.We crossed China Creek quite a few times on the upper portion of the trail. Alex got another opportunity to interject, "Just wait," when Curtis or I commented on the creek crossings. Once we got to the lower portion of the trail, the creek crossings grew in depth and width each time. At the top, they were only about 4 feet wide and maybe ankle deep. By the bottom, they were knee deep and about 25 feet across, with some gnarly current.

Alex having some fun at one of the big blowdowns

Once we popped out at the bottom of the trail onto Globe road, it was time for a nice ascent in the gravel, through the clouds. The climb went by pretty quickly, and soon enough we were back to civilization in Blowing Rock. We rode through Blowing Rock, around App Ski Mountain, back to our original route, and back to Alex's apartment. A quick change and a meal at Black Cat, and we were on our way back to the shop...a great trail, great company, and a great day!

A few more photos

I'm doing my best to not look like a complete incompetent fool here, but alas, this is what the photo captures....

Ends in Rain

Curtis and I had a great ride tonight at tanglewood. We were rocking, both riding in good form, feeling strong! We rode a bunch of the horse trails, singletrack, gravel, and even a little bit of pavement for about 19 miles. We were ripping the horse trails for extended sections at 23+mph. At one point we came tearing around a corner, and there was a surprise pile o' pooh that Curtis made one of the most elegeant bunny hops over. Hard to call bunny hopping a big pile of crap elegant, but it was! The ride started in clouds and ended in rain, a good refreshing way to end the ride!

Copperhead carnage on the way back to the car, just glad we didn't run into this one on the trail!

Creakiness!