Shit and crap.

Such a weird weekend. Saturday had it's up and downs.

I woke up at 6:00AM.
Ate breakfast and then snuck out for 20 miles on my shitty road bike.
Tried to rid all the trees in my yard of invasive English ivy.
Helped my neighbor find her lost dog.
Laundry, mend The Pie's shirt, fix lunch.
Straighten up the bike room.
Head out to fix my Raxter rack (I broke it doing something stupid).
Talk to Big Worm to finalize Sunday ride plans.
Set phone down to continue work on rack.
Move car to the shade to make it less miserable.
Slam thumb with a hammer.
Realize I backed over the phone in the driveway when I moved the vehicle.
Slam thumb with hammer again.
Fix rack.
Walk with The Pie and smile, because even though I smashed the phone and my thumb I'm heading to the mountains the next day.

Sunday:

Big Worm and I headed out to rendezvous with Tommawicki and Dejay Birtch for a little Wilson's Creek action. Big Worm had an idea for an unprecedented ride hooking up some parts of the woods we've never linked before. After waiting for our ride partners to show up late in their true Hollywood fashion we kicked off a most excellent ride.

photo cred: Big Worm

Warming up for the big ride by doing intervals over the bridge or killing time impatiently waiting for folks who lived one hour closer to here than we do but still managed to be 45 minutes late?

I gotta chance to fart around on Dejays carbon Niner fork. Folks that gave it any thought when I put the Salsa fork on last week might have anticipated my reasoning for the swap. The two forks are very similar in geometry (Niner: 470A-C/45mm rake and Salsa: 468 A-C/43mm rake). There is a chance that the new carbon fork from Niner MIGHT be available before I leave for the Breck Epic. There is also a chance the Bolt Brothers can get one for me before I leave. There is even another chance that I would love the fork and that it could drop more than 1.5 lbs (I'd loose even more when I was forced to give up my 8" front rotor) from my ride BEFORE a very climbing heavy stage race. We'll see. The timing looks bad at the moment as Niner expects the fork right around the time I'm leaving for Breck. Shit. Too bad, as my very unscientific farting around showed that the fork had a lot of flex in the right direction and absolutely none in the wrong direction. Did I mention it weighs next to nothing? Shit.

I got to see Dejay put the fork through its paces throughout the day, and he proved to me that it was very durable at least four times as he attempted to show me how it handles "mishaps". He told me he doesn't normally wreck this much, so I assume he was just trying to show me how the fork could handle some abuse and misuse. Tommawicki on the other hand is just plain shaping up to be a NBK. I've never seen her looking so fit... she's gonna do some damage this year for sure.

So our ride plan was just a little too aggressive given the time allotted (minus the time I spent warming up on the bridge), so we missed the final loop of the day. We still ended up out in the woods for a good six hours, so not a bad day at all. For all you locals (outsiders can skip to the next paragraph) we parked down at the bridge, rode up to Sinkhole Saddle, over to Raider's Camp, took a left at the bottom, headed over to Edgemeont, did Yancy's Ridge, and then headed back (skipping Sinkhole proper).

It was one of those rides that will never be repeated... snakes, vultures, long distance friends, a trail I haven't been on in seven years, shop talk (sorry Dejay, I just wanna know everything about you), nobody got (seriously) hurt, no mechanicals (aside from multiple tire burps and a slightly wacked wheel), and a lot of laughs. I'll have a smile on my face for days...

unless...

Morning weight report
135.4 lbs
8.5% BF

Crap, my post ride feeding frenzy on top of my weaknesses on Saturday have me sitting 1.4 lbs heavier than I was two days ago. Crap... well maybe it is just crap. I guess we'll find out tomorrow.

Late Edit: Big Worm has better images up already. Look over there, or I might have to steal them for tomorrow.

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