Thursday and Friday brought two days of crap dirt road rides on the Farley, and Saturday brought five hours at the shop followed by going to Ithaca to hang out for a couple of hours with friends at the 2015 8 Hours of Ithaca in the stifling heat that Ma Nature threw us. I was happy to have got out for rides on Thursday and Friday, but the were less than desirable. I was also OK with not racing Ithaca (that ship has sailed) and with not riding in the fresh turd like heat. However on Sunday I hoped to do SOMETHING of quality. Or at least as much quality as a 44-year-old man with an ever-expanding muffin top and a growing pork chop problem can muster.
Today’s plan had several components:
- Sleep in.
- Drink coffee.
- Dump out as needed.
- Ride my mountain bike.
- Do some fishing (this was for outdoor bonus points if the ride sucked).
- Grill burgers on the grill while drinking some frosty beverages.
Because the trails at MMCC are the closest and the “funnest” trails in my parts of Michiganderburgh, my plan was to ride there and attempt the same ride I did last week: a full sixteen mile loop followed by the lap on the original ten-mile loop. Not much to attempt unless you are someone crap like myself.
Nature can be cruel. Unless you like turkey, then it’s yummy.
Various parts of central Michigan had severe thunderstorms, rain and tornado watches last night, so I was more than a little suspect of how the trails in Harrison would be. It turns out that barring a couple downed trees, the trails were in fucking amazing shape.
Despite how good the trails were, the parking lot was void of riders. I was one of the only cars there until a truck loaded with hight end, flat pedaled, fat bikes pulled in with a family dressed in full on body armor. They sort of looked like a combination of GWAR meets enduro racer. Oh well, at least they were riding. However if they were expecting break you bones, high speed enduro like descents, they may have picked the wrong trail system and the wrong state.
After my 16 mile full lap I couldn’t help but stop on my ten-mile loop to get a photo of what looked to be a violent turkey murder. Something–either a coyote or bobcat–had a nice turkey dinner recently, or the damn bird spontaneously combusted due to the killer heat we had yesterday. You can see the murder scene above.
After a couple less than stellar dirt road rides, it was sweet to get in a quality mountain bike ride. Even with the continued heat, my legs felt good, the Superfly rolled swell and I had and excellent mid-summer ride on singletrack.
With my collection race bottles dwindling and my collection of stank, disease ridden bottles increasing, I was glad to have the chance to utilize my just received (and briefly clean) Alma Grand Prix of Cyclocross/Biggby’s Coffee water bottle that J.B. gave me yesterday. I’m not much into cross racing, but that dude puts forth one hell of an effort to create a high quality cross race, in the middle of the Mitten. If cross is your thing, I highly recommend checking the race out. You can get more information at almagp.blogspot.com.
Not sure what this week has in store in the way of rides and work yet, but if any of them are even close to as good as today’s ride was, I’ll be just fine. Oh yeah, getting out to fish never did happen today, but I hope to make it out some time this week to do some masterbassing.
Later.
P.S. Did I mention that “Larry” the pubis boil/zit is healing nicely and I no longer look like I am trying to grow a second member in the crotchial regions of my chamois bits.