Muse back!
August 16, 2007 / Thursday
Monte Bello
It'd been over a month since my last dirt ride, and since this was my first free post-school weeknight with non-achy knees, I decided to take the bouncy bike out after work. My plan was simply to ride my usual 6-10 miles at Fremont Older, but as luck would have it, it's Thursday, which means that Kirk e-mailed me about french fries, I e-mailed him back about riding, and the next thing I knew I was meeting him and a couple other coworkers at Monte Bello.
This turned out to be a very good thing. Tom and Jonah also showed, and we had a pretty good assortment of riders. Jonah led and pretty much rode circles around us (okay, more like, up and down the trail past us) on his single speed. We climbed, and climbed, and climbed. I lagged a bit at first, but once I warmed up I got into a good rhythm and tailed Jonah the rest of the way up. We rode all the way to the top along the Bella Vista Trail, which was indeed a muy bella vista.
Riding all that way was not easy, though, and by the time I reached the top I was out of fuel. I kept remembering that I had a GU in my saddlebag, then forgetting to take the thing out and eat it. By that time, the sun was starting to go down, it was starting to get chilly, and I was having trouble producing heat. Uh-oh.
The ride down was cold, and got progressively darker, to the point where I had to use the LED on my keychain to put my bike on the rack when I got back to the car. My feet went numb and my legs started feeling weak. Oh, and then there was my poor night vision. The trip back down forced me to focus as hard as I could, and pretty much ride by the feel of the bike and trail. Actually, I think it turned out to be an excellent learning experience. Scary, but good for me. :)
Oh, and on the way down I dropped off a 1.5-2 foot ledge and didn't die. Hooray!
We ended up riding 14.4 miles with 2221 feet of climbing. Not bad for an after work ride! My knees felt fine (hooray again), although the right hamstring twinged a bit as usual. I suppose I should stretch more.
But first, I must finish inhaling my dinner.
August 16, 2007 09:45 PM | Mountain
Comments
well not dying is good ;-)
Posted by: Shadow at August 17, 2007 01:36 PM