ONE: I was able to meet up with Adam, Art, Van, Eric and Robert from Team PossAbilities at Loch Leven. I rode from the house and we started the climb up to AO. There, we hit up the usuals of the Postal Loop, up Hill Ranch Road to Glass road and down the single track. For those of you who have no idea what in the world i am talking about, i took no pictures to help you out. Up in the San Bernardino mountains the Santa Ana River trail traverses some of the coolest terrain in the area.
The Company: GREAT! Super cool guys, solid athletes, and totally safe to ride with!
The Weather: Bit warm, would have been horrid down in the valley!
The Mechanical: Now i have extremely lucky on the mechanical side of mountain biking. On this ride, however, there are a lot of rocks, roots, dirt and sharp corners in narrow single track going down the hill. Going around one such corner, i realized my front brake lever was all the way to the grip and nothing was happening. MY rear wheel was locked up and i was "sliding" on about 6 inches of single track. Oops. I had lost my front disc brake pads and the the pin that holds them in. I gingerly made it to the huge water crossing where i met random guys who had just crossed. They were really funny and i told them i had been left in the woods alone with no brake and i had been crying. I finally caught my group where we decided to put rear brake in the front for more breaking power. (I actually didn't cry, just so you know. i quite thankful this happened on a training ride!!)
Once back to AO, i met Jason for a delicious lunch at the OAKS, we like to support the local economy!
When i was cleaning the bike and figuring out what parts i need to get by next weekends Cal State race, i realized my rear tire was a goner!! The sidewall was pulling away from the bead by about 2 inches!! I was VERY lucky i had decided not to descend back down Loch Leven with one brake and a sidewall that was about to blow!! I have heard that going down on the asphalt remnants from the 60's, weeds, and dirt of Loch Leven REALLY sucks!!
RIDE TWO: i TOTALLY did not want to ride my road bike this weekend and since both Christie and Shellie were out of town, i needed to be creative with my riding motivation. Mr. Freeman said to come along for another ride in the woods. I took the bait, and pulled out the Fat Possum. Now this is the bike that could make me look fat. It weighs in around 38 lbs (compared to the 22.5 of my bike). I think it has 6" of travel both front and back, but it was set up for Jason, so i only got about 3" out of both shocks!! It feels like riding a cruiser bike, all laid back and what not. So we just started climbing. Once at the top of Jenks Lake, i sheepishly asked Matt, um, how long did we just climb. 1.5 hours, 12.7 miles. At that point i received a phone call from Jason "So, how do you like my bike???" It really SUCKS. I haven't even riden down a hill yet!!! I kept entertaining the idea of bailing out, but there was true EPIC down hill to come.
Once we collected the group (they waited as i just continually pedalled) it was on. I haven't bailed, cased it, jumped off and purely wrecked so much all year. Nothing BAD happened just a lot of really odd looking and located bruises and nicks.
Funniest Part: We took an off shoot to the trail that i had never taken before, within about 4 minutes of over grown descent, we popped out on the river, crossing a bridge DIRECTLY into an occupied campsite, pumpin the Musica en Espanol, consuming cervesa and fishing. We had to actually pick up our bikes so we wouldnt hit any of their camping implements or children. Once squeezing through their tent lines i realized we were actually in 7 Oaks, right by their store when i promptly blurted "This is weirder than living in Forest Falls" Matt said the guy in the store heard me and was offended and charged them $8 for peanuts. i think he was lying. There was a swimming pool, Mobile home for sale only $53,000!!! We might go look at it today. or not.
This is when i remembered where we actually were and how much climbing loomed ahead to get us back to Angeles Oaks. Oy. What a day to feel fat, and ride Fat. Now my moral side took over and i began to feel bad.
This is Jason's bike, and i have made him ride it 18.6 miles in Big Bear, at altitude. He also rode it on the Hell ride last year. Every time i dumped this bike, it was a struggle to pick it back up with my weenie-cyclist arms. I couldn't clip out because the pedal was too tight. No wonder Jason threw his helmet 7 times and walked a lot. But it was even hard to push the dang thing.
Oh well. Today is a holiday, so no kids. I got up at 4:30am to go teach spin, very unwillingly. I kept remembering the last holiday that fell on a monday and that we did not have spin, but i was not informed otherwise, so i went. And there was a sign on the door that the first aerobics class of the day was at 8:30am and it was step. I stared blankly at the door for about 58 seconds. I had brought my swimmers so i sat in the hot tub in an attempt to appease my very angry quads, then came home for a nap with the puppies that began at 6:45 am. They like to cuddle!
1 comment:
I am not lying! We went back to the 7 Oaks store on Monday, threw the same size bag of peanuts on the counter and walked out having only spent $2.00. You owe me $6.00.
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