It's a Trend

The new trend is not posting on the blog. Life has become too busy to post even though lots has happened on the bike since the last post.

Yesterday I went out for a ride with Matt and Corby and had a great time. I hadn't been on the bike since last Thursday, so I was anxious to get out again. Plus I had picked up my bike from Rock'n'Road and was excited to see if the new drive train parts would work well.

I can't even remember the last time I had been out at El Moro prior to yesterday. It's been that long.

The ride was really good for building confidence, cockiness and for clearing my mind. Only two of those things are good, but oh well. Two out of three ain't bad.

Some major points:

- Corby has gotten much faster. He was right there the entire ride. You can see the hard work and dedication paying off.

- I climbed "I Think I Can" in exactly 11 minutes. This was a very tough climb for me. The grade is not bad at all and the length really isn't anything to write home about. The reason it was tough was that I went as hard as I could. When I finally got to the top I was spent. I remember spitting and my spit tasted like metal. Not a good sign.

- Talked with Matt and Corby about how there are no black mountain bikers. Five minutes later what do we see? That's right. A black mountain biker. Haha.

- I thought I had been on "Fenceline" before, but I guess I was wrong. It's a short singletrack, but it's fun.

The first route took me 56:30 to do, which was 20 minutes faster than the average time on GeoLadders. It also got me over the coveted 10mph speed. This is one of the big new metrics for riding. I like to look at average speed as a good barometer of how I'm growing. Obviously the faster, the better. My goal is to get an average of 9+ on most rides. So for the first loop it was "mission accomplished".

Since we had some extra daylight we decided to go back out and do a quick ride up "Poles". I had never been on it and Corby told Matt and I it was worse than Dreaded Hill. I still think Dreaded is tougher, but Poles is definitely a challenge.

The last section is very steep (maybe the steepest thing I've ever climbed) and on top of that it is loose with sand. Not a sand pit, but just enough to give you some trouble. The climb was also tough because I couldn't decide which gear to use. I ended up going with the granny on the back which worked out ok. It takes some extra skill to keep the front end from coming up though.

Overall I was very pleased with the times on the loops and I was pleased that I was able to push very hard without cramping or blowing up.

Manuel Prado (my socal mountain bike hero) has a quote on GeoLadders that says something like "Pain is temporary, but glory is forever." I keep thinking about this when I'm trying to push myself. It might hurt now, but when you get a good time on a ride, that will last forever. Have to look for motivation where you can get it. Ha.