Nice.

You make me feel like such a poser...

That would only be if you don't actually ride your bike.

Not since November :( Loaned/gave my fully rigid to a friend who lost his license & needed a way to work, & I'm waiting on the remaining components for a build to come in the mail so I can assemble my new bike. Hopefully in the next week or two I'll be back out there.

Took the dirt jumper out for its inaugural ride . . . on trails. Showed up for my shop's Wed. night ride with the goal of riding the whole thing standing up (left the saddle slammed). 2½ hours later and my legs were pooped. Oh, and 36/16 SS gearing makes for some pretty stiff climbs.

That sounds like a massive leg workout for sure :)

I went out to Riverside with the XC bike and did one lap of the 24hr course (Little Vietnam has two segments underwater at the moment, bypassing them is possible however), then trailed a couple guys around the inner loop at a moderate distance, and headed home afterwards. The relatively high temperature today had a real impact, I had to be careful not to overdo it! Heart rate seemed to be running higher, and I went through my ~80 ounces of water before I even headed home.

Will be at the first Wed. Night race on the DJ tonight too (will crank the seatpost up for this ;)). XC hardtail is not trail-worthy quite yet for the season. You going? It will be laps of the inner loop.

I was planning on going tonight - but Bob and my 4.5 hour tour de Mica last night put a dent in my legs. Probably go on the WSE road ride tonight, but I will make a couple of the race series in the next several of weeks.

So how was the race? I couldn't go because I took the wife and daughter to the INB to see "Wicked" last night. I plan on makng the rest of the series and I'm doing the 24 hour race this year.

^^ I did OK - - got 7th (mid-pack) out of the one-lapper 40+ men. I think that's better than I ever did last year with gears. We did the inner loop of the 24 hr course; and since it's only 5 mi., the 'one-lappers' did two (two-lappers did 3).

Have to admit that I kinda liked single-speeding it. Didn't have to think about gear changes and really, my ratio was just about perfect for everything but the climbs. Also liked how the DJ carved the tight, pumpy singletrack sections. I really think a 1x9 setup would be perfect for most of Riverside.

I'm going to be on Tim's 24 hour Butler team. I get asked every year but there were always DH race conflicts. Finally this year no prior commitments.

I went to the race. Turnout was high, really they need to start staggering the start somehow. Conditions were really good. There were some fast racers on hand, including the Gaertners. We did the inner loop, modifed at the end to bring us through the start/finish area, and since it's pretty short, the 1-Lapper group did two laps while the 2-Lapper group did three.

I did the 2-Lapper option and ended up a solid 6th edit: 5th, actually. My riding was OK but not spectacular and my fitness could use some work, maybe I can do better next time. Here's some video clips, mostly from the 1st lap:

Way to go, ya iron-legged animal :D.

I really liked how that inner loop took us through every baby head-dotted section there practically. I love plowing those.

Rode the course this afternoon with one of the rangers. We're fielding a team this year in the police,fire and military catagory. The one thing about us is we all have to work on the weekends so that may be a bit of a challenge.

For anything but a few short laps your heart-rate was pretty high(unless you're like 19). Later in the video can definitely see your HR dropping slightly and then you start blowing easy corners, so you probably went a little too hard. Good job though.

The race was almost precisely an hour, I'm 41, and yeah, I was starting to ease up once it became apparent I was in a very large gap between 5th and 7th, and would be 6th in the end, whether I chilled out or rode until I hurled :D Average HR was 172, max was 189, and that's similar to past races in this area. In good training, I can keep that up for about 2 hours.

The two-lapper bracket actually did three laps since it was only a 5-mile loop, and in the second half of the race we were also threading our way through riders we'd lapped, but it didn't change anything in my case, so no harm no foul.

Gonna go get a nice pedal in before the world ends. BBL.

I rode out to Riverside and cranked out 1 1/2 laps of the 24-hour course for training (so, fairly fast), then rode home. I don't know if I was having an off day, or if it was having the weight of a 3-liter Camelbak on my back, but I wasn't doing very well with the cornering. Oh well, it was a ride.

Had another run in with an ignorant dog owner this morning. Huge rotweiler mix off leash charged my buddy and the owner made no attempt to reign in his dog. My friend had to use his bike as a shield/weapon to get the dog to back off. After we completed the ride we saw the guy and his dog in the parking lot and he acted like nothing had happened. Startin to get pretty tired of these a holes...

50 mile season opener race... sore.

Might want to carry a spray can of HALT. I don't think it'll permanently harm the dog. Personally, if a dog charges me in public, I skid to a stop, turn on it, and charge it back, snarling aggressively... never seen one stand up to that treatment. And if one does, it's going to find out how sharp chainring teeth can get.

Today I met up with some guys at Riverside for a mellow XC ride and burned some calories. Average HR 113, great for some slow fat-burning :)

I would destroy any dog that charged me, or at least attempt to. If the owner can retain the dog before any harm is done in either direction, great. If not, we're in the wild so I see it as fair game. Kill or be killed.

Or from a legal perspective (since there seem to be an increasing number of legal beagles here lately), I would defend myself from a ruthless animal attacking me for no reason.

Raced at elevation for the first time. It sucked.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/87437051

Ride #1: two hours at Sprain Ridge before the drizzle finally made me pack it in. Didn't see another soul on the trails. Weekday riding in the morning is nice for that.
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f1...prain5-234.jpg

Ride #1: three miles of pavement on the beach cruiser with the dog trotting along. Yes, she was leashed. Yes, I drank a beer. Also made sure to pick up her poop. http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f1...1306203979.jpg

Ride #4: four miles to work on the fixed gear. Yes, I wore manpris. Sorry, no pics of said manpris.

Didn't ride much today, Took a ride yesterday of about 4 miles on a trail right by my buddies house. While riding saw lots of potential for a good 9-10 mile training track to be built. Spent most of the evening after work plotting out singletrack to make into a nice little ride.

TODAY WAS MY FIRST TIME MOUNTAIN BIKING! Can I say it was AMAZING! I have a background in dirt jumping on BMX bikes (about 7 years or so) so I had a pretty good idea about throwing my weight around and menuvering around obstacles exc. (plus I read the sticky in this thread). Trails where in WI, just outside of Madison.

Trail 1: A few miles of 'blue trail riding' stuff with some decent climbs, decent downhills and some cool wood structure obstacles. Also some nice areas to gain some speed and get my legs spinning.
Trail 2: Double black diamond trails with some real gnarly rock climbs, some big big jumps, some really awesome steep wooden banks, and a huge (about 8ft) drop over another trails with about a 8 foot gap. There was also a bunch of other real crazy stuff like teeter tooters up in the air, some real awesome rhythm / pump sections with like 6ft rollers. Just some real cool trails.

I walked around some of the larger stuff but did most of the smaller gap jumps, exc.

Just thought i'd share my ride today. It was absolutely amazing and opened up my eyes to a whole new type of riding.

Bike btw = 2010 Trek Fuel EX 9

Cant wait to hit the trails again!

.Chris