Good Saturday ride this morning with Jason at HSF. Jason had us a good route mapped out and we decided to do the expert RTTR course (of course at way slower pace), but it was a good route and put us thru spiderwoman twice which was just what I needed. Wasnt sure if it was the first or second lap but one of the loops I hit my fastest time shooting down the shoot to the creek bed right before crossing the dirt road and climbing back towards the gazeebo area. I recorded a 28.6 max speed today and was cook'n thru them sections the fastest of anywhere today. Its such a sweet feeling when your bikes suspension is soaking up the bumps and you can still feel your suspension remaining active and delivering your pedal strokes with efficiency all the while pushing you to the edge of your speed comfort zone :), awe.. Anyway, it was a nice downhill burst for me.
Our second lap thru spider woman the area where you have that long kinda steep climb (not inner loop though) there was a large woman walking right in the middle of the trail. about 15 feet back I started making noise, saying rider up and everything else and she wasnt flinching. Ok, better hit granny or I'm gonna have to fall or mow this fool down. Well, closed to within 2 feet and still nothing out of this lady and she was still smack dab center of the trail. Now this isnt like a straight away and I gotta make a move or cant keep enough momementum for the climb. Im less than a foot from this woman yelling, mam, exuse me mam, and finally something snapped and she jumped from being startled and let me by. Whew, glad this wasnt a time trial.
On the back side of midlands thru a choppy descent Jason was ahead and cooking thru this section and had to put some hammer down if I was gonna catch up. Well, couldnt hold her today and started to drift to much with a pretty descent oak tree approaching fast. All I could think of was if I hit this sucker with my shoulder head on its gonna break some bones or best case knock it out of socket and with some luck and twisting atleast was able to pull my shoulder in and take the hit where it wasnt just bone. This tree didnt budge a lick and I imediatley was snatched off the bike dead in my tracks with a thud only to watch the Trance crash riderless ahead of me. I dont know if it was because it was still a downward slope or what but when I hit I had to keep running about 20 feet and used another tree to grab and wip around to stop myself. I was ok, just shaken up and this also jarred my still healing sore rib from my catwaba reck and had to walk this one off for about 5 minutes before we could get going again. Shoulder is pretty sore where it took the hit but definatley feel lucky that I was able to do the last minute twist and didnt have to take it directly to the shoulder blade.
Wanting to get a 27+ mile ride in and one more climb I split off from Jason and took the crooked pine path back to get one last firebreak climb by the gazeebo. My climbing may be getting a little better but it is still my achilies heel.
Overall, good steady ride
Distance: 28.76
Avg: 10.2
Max: 28.6
Time: 2:47
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4 comments:
Good ride man. Slow enough to not hurt, fast enough to be fun. Glad both of us escaped major injury from our respective crashes.
I'm still chuckling thinking about your incredibly polite requests for that woman on Spider Woman to move so you would not fall over at 1 mph :)
Those running crashes are interesting. Wait to you get a wheel borrow crash. Thats when you stay clipped in and run down the trail on your hands.
How's the shoulder this morning?
Actually turned out not so bad and its really just the meat of the shoulder muscle thats aching, but not the joint or bone so Im good, just a little sore/tight like feeling. Being able to get that last minute twist made all the difference.
That wheel borrow crash sounds bad, guess you better get with that program real quick or its gonna become face skidding time. I always thought of hurting your ankles/legs by not coming unclipped and never even thought about that one.
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