23 July 2010 - 8:30Thursday Night Rides

We have been trying to do a pretty consistent shop ride every Thursday, but sadly, the weather has consistently been total crap on Thursdays. After the tornados and heavy rains of Wednesday, our trails took a serious beating. Lots of trees down, and lots of mud. We are going to have to do a good bit of clean up before things are somewhat back to normal.

In an effort to not be total slackers, we decided that we would ride our bikes on the road. We ended up doing an 18 mile out and back to the Jonesville bridge. Mostly flat and rolling, and mostly a ride I do on my La Cruz. I rode Pale Horsie, as everyone else brought mountain bikes to the road ride. I also rode in my finest leotards, something I initially got crap for, but hey, we were riding roads. Once I put the lead on them, I couldn’t hear them anyway…;) I’m pretty much over riding in bulky shorts on the road these days.

I was a little bit cooked from the KT scouting ride, and a mostly flat, high speed spin was just what my legs needed. And what ride would be complete without beer?

Joe had stashed some mid-ride beverages near our turnaround point, which improved the overall mood of the group immensely. While drinking the beer, Jonsie found some weird looking rock, it looked as if the pieces had been joined at one time, and was pretty neat to look at. I’d never seen anything like it. I’ll bet it’s actually petrified raccoon poo or something.

I had suggested that we add the Camel’s Hump Rd climb in to add a little mileage and elevation, which was shot down, and I was OK with that. After all, I’m not training for the VT50. Instead, we raced the coming darkness. I kicked up the tempo and had a couple of chasers and we motored back to the shop in good time.