Two Wheel Blogs

I had a peak at my upcoming calendar today and realized it's pretty full between now and the end of the month. Counting it all up, there are 2 crits and 5 separate TT's.

That set off a bit of a panic, because it was only yesterday that I began training in the TT position. I might have to race myself into being comfortable on my TT bike.

Oh but wait, can you ever be really comfortable on a TT bike?

Video: 

No need for me to say much here. I stumbled onto this video today, and I was impressed.

These guys are fast, and they have skills needed for passing people at break-neck speed on downhill single track.

Personally, the only way I could be more impressed is to see someone ride back up!

As you may have seen recently, 2old2goslow and I went on a night ride. We tried to capture some decent video wow!! is that ever some lousy filming. Anyway, we had a great time hammering out some single track on the monkeys (Surly Karate Monkey SS 29ers).

I thought a nice comparison was in order however. You may have noticed one thing from that video...there appears to be no light source near the camera, and there is a light as bright as a solar flare forming an ora around my brother. That has got to be the only thing we can learn from that video!

Here are the facts. I was riding with a nice light that cost about 100 bucks, and he was using an HID (that costs about 4 times as much) that I borrowed from a good friend. I dont want to start pontificating about lights and what is best, because I dont really know that much about the new technologies (new battery technology, the new LEDs are getting much better, and "projector" lenses are trickling into the scene). I will say that while a good HID costs 3 to 4 times what my light costs, any observer will conclude quickly why it costs more.

Sunday night. Already? Back to work tomorrow? So soon? I can't believe it. Where did the weekend go?

I hope you had a good weekend. For me, this was just about the perfect weekend - just short of heaven. In the span of two days I managed to ride both road and trail. Trail ride followed by an after dark ride Saturday night and a nice road session today.

Saturday afternoon - trail
You saw my semi-coherent post from Saturday earlier. Not having been out on the trail for a while and then chalking up a near perfect combination of great weather, great trail conditions and riding so well I wasn't sure it was even me... My mind was just blown away. I still get all weird in the head just thinking about it.

Saturday night riding
It didn't stop there though. When the sun went down we headed out for another round of the trails. Two more hours of sweet single trail in the darkest dark - no moon, just the lights we carried to tell tree from trail.

If you have never experienced riding at night, you simply must. Beg or borrow a light if you have to. This is something not to be missed. One time. Do it while you can. There's nothing like it. For my Saturday night ride I rode with a borrowed NiteRider system.

I have a lot to learn about the various lighting technologies, and I have some great help from a couple of trusted sources who've been there and know what works well and what doesn't. The system I used put out some amazing light - bright and uniform. I'll be looking into the alternatives, but the NiteRider HID setup has set the bar for the others to beat. And it won't be easy. My impression was an immediate "This is the light for me."

Riding at night is heady stuff. A whole new high. And the buzz just won't go away. I don't know really how to describe it to you. Will pictures do the job? Video maybe? I tried to capture some of the thrill on my digital camera. Brought it along, you know, for posterity and all. Check out the video:

My entry from yesterday seemed to me to be mostly about how DeClue spanked me and my monkey. I didn't want to leave the impression it was all the harsh kind of goodness. Had I been more balanced in my reporting I would have said more about how some of the sections of trail are the sweet kind of goodness. You know, cake and ice-cream good. Guilty pleasures and all that.

You're going to find out there some areas which will leave you with the feeling the landscape was created solely with trail riding in mind. A landscape architect with Bill Gates' budget could not lay out a tract of land and put a trail through it better. When you see it you won't believe it. These sections are at the far opposite end of the spectrum from the steep and rocky challenges DeClue tosses at you.

The whole seven miles of trails at Greensfelder seem to run the gamut from buttery smooth single track to double black diamond technical. The extremes of this continuum are all out on the DeClue trail. The Dogwood trail has all the stuff in between.

So you may be asking yourself why I'm writing again about my trail ride yesterday. Fair enough. I have four reasons:

1. I really did want to complete my wrap-up from yesterday. I was tired and fairly well beat up when I wrote it. Adding more today with a little distance in time for perspective helps to balance out my recap of the experience.
2. I wanted to show you the smooth sexy single track - see the video below.
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So while Jens and company were out killing themselves on the roads of Fraaaahnce yesterday I was tooling around on my own bike enjoying the great weather we're having. Had - looks like the good stuff is nearly over. Ah well.

And actually while the boys on tour were riding I was probably having breakfast and doing other morning stuff.

One cool thing to watch out for in this video