Mt. Bike Now

Grave Ridge, as we knew it, though not what it was 15-20 years ago, but still a major accomplishment to clean, is gone. A classic East Coast nasty tech trail in Michaux, the infamous Michaux, fell victim to logging.

Here’s what it looked like prior to logging: http://vagoscribe.com/tag/grave-ridge/ Then I wrote this piece for DR: http://www.dirtragmag.com/webrag/access-action-michaux%E2%80%99s-grave-ridge Unfortunately, here’s the result: http://the-skinny-on-mbm.blogspot.com/2012/04/eulogy-for-grave-ridge.html

What irony. RIP Grave Ridge.

Saturday evening, I drove from Dahlonega to Conyers. Pandora Radio is awesome. I found this song that you should listen to while you’re reading (warning… contains light use of the “F” word):

I also experienced the absolute worst b******king ever administered from a GPS device when my route took me through every known shopping center between me and my destination. The sheer volume of traffic solidified my hatred of large cities like Atlanta. Memphis traffic is a cakewalk.

When I arrived, I stopped by the expo area to meet up with Mike (my favorite Niner rep ever) and to find out where Dicky & his roommate Chris were so I could find the room I was splitting with them.

Turns out, they were on an extended beer run from which the spoils were a bunch of Sierra Nevada and a 30 pack of High Life. In in attempt to keep everyone else from drinking the non-High Life, Dicky drank as many of the Sierra Nevadas as possible.

The hotel was nice. Apparently, the last people who stayed in the room thought so, also…

Sunday at the expo was a blast. I started out by riding a fridge green Niner WFO. The thing about a 5.5″ travel 29er that I didn’t realize from my previous mountain bike experience is that NOTHING SLOWS IT DOWN. Well, except for a big uphill. Honestly, though (and I’m not just saying this because I love Niners), with the exception of the additional frame/component weight, pedaling a WFO uphill feels exactly like pedaling a Jet9 uphill in the terms of pedal bob. Pretty effing awesome if you ask me… I was both grinning and puckering the entire ride. None of the downhills were appreciably long, but a look back on the Garmin file shows at least two spikes in speed above 30mph. Hey, y’all, watch this!

Next it was a slightly less airborne ride on a Scott Foil road bike. I’d ridden a slightly big 54cm at the shop, but the Scott guys had a 52 in the demo fleet so I could get a feel for how a better fitting bike would handle. I still stand by my statement that it’s the Air9 Carbon of road bikes as far as stiffness and overall badassness. It’s going to be a tough choice between that and the Cannondale Women’s Supersix, which has a geometry that’s closer to my current road ride, but I can’t imagine rides as perfectly as the Foil.

After un-funking myself, I checked out all of the other booths before heading back to Memphis. I was tired. Much truckstop coffee was involved.

Our final day of riding was another easy one- an out & back on the “easy” part of the yellow trail with a lap of the red trail in the middle. Aside from Ryan taking a spill when he handlebar-hooked a vine, it was a pretty laid back ride. The weather was finally trying to be sunny, so the scenery was excellent.

Once we were back, I cleaned up and started with the real highlight of the day (week?)- Thanksgiving dinner. The night before, I’d brined a turkey and prepped the dressing and mashed potatoes, so everything was set for an amazing dinner. Did it turn out just right? Check out the photos and see for yourself…

This concludes the Thanksgiving series of what’s probably the most uneventful trip to Syllamo I’ve had in a while. I’m looking forward to better weather on my next trip… whenever that may be. With prep for worlds heating up, I’m looking at a busy training schedule focused more on bringing the CX pain than negotiating rocks and trail for hours on end.

Yes, again, I’ve been slow to post. Stuff’s been busy, though. My shop is covered up in both winter clothes that need to be stocked and bikes that need to be repaired, and  I’ve been riding a bunch (as usual).

Last Sunday, after a night of couch surfing, I found out that my new Nashville friends thought I was a “lesbian biker chick.” After clearing that one up, I went with Dan to go ride a lap at Hamilton Creek. Apparently, whoever thought we’d get along well figured out that we’re both similar brands of crazy.

I like carbon fiber, though, and he’s a carbon hater.

Hamilton Creek is the business. We rode part of the “easy” loop, then headed under the interstate to the “advanced” loop. It reminded me of Syllamo sooooo much- lots of rocks… awesome, wonderful rocks. We got most of the way around before Dan informed me that if you can get 5 or fewer dabs in your first lap of Hamilton Creek that you’re automatically a badass. I’d had 3 at the time, and, according to him, there was only one more difficult spot… which, of course, since he’d told me that, I dabbed, along with the following slightly difficult section. Luckily, I remained within the 5 dab limit of badass-ness. I also fell even further in love with my RDO.

P.S.- When we left to go to the trail, Dan mentioned that the truck needed gas. On the way home from the trail, we were on I-40 when, in the middle of his telling of a story of how his current shop manager swore he’d fist-fight the previous shop employee for the job, the truck began to sputter. We laughed about it and rode the wrong way up an on-ramp to a gas station.

Thus, photo #2 from the “weekend preview” post.

After a little pizza, I packed up and headed back west to Memphis. It’s been a minute since I’ve had such a great time at a race weekend- gorgeous scenery, badass trails, and lots of friendly people.

Just got home from the Crush & Run weekend in Nashville and don’t have time to write a full post right now. However, these two photos prettymuch sum it up…