Two Wheel Blogs

I met up with a huge group for the local Tuesday Night MTB thrash fest and was not let down. Apparently a bunch of the local riders have changed their focus to include some serious training.

The guys were riding fast, and not stopping except to make sure no one was left behind/hurt at each trail head. Once the last rider emerged, the chase was on again.

For once, I was feeling very good last night. I was really enjoying riding hard like this. I started pushing myself well into the red and ended up paying for it.

I took advantage of a nice day, and left work early for a MTB ride. The trails were a bit wet, but most surprising was all the fallen lumber on the trails.

I guess one of the many many rain storms that has rolled through here the past few weeks had enough force to uproot or break off a lot of trees. I must have seen 5 trees larger diameter than my wheels laying down that were not down only a few weeks ago. Most of them were near the trail, but this one was blocking the trail.

Trail report? Downright muddy in spots, but 95% of the trail was great riding, but rough from all the rain. Yes, the rain seems to have roughened the trail, by washing away soil and leaving more roots and stones exposed. Also, the trail is pitted in many spots from serious overland flow scours.

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Let me start by saying I will NEVER again race a race like Syllamo on a fully rigid bike. In fact after the race I vowed never to ride a rigid bike again ever, period. Let me start by saying that for some reason someone told me not long ago that Syllamo wasn't near as hard as Ouachita. That person was a little mistaken. Syllamo's Revenge made Ouachita feel like child's play. Don't get me wrong, Ouachita was a challenge, but this was the hardest race, hardest ride, hardest effort I've ever put out in my entire life... Syllamo's Revenge went down with a bang in 08, and I absolutely can't wait till next year.

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I knocked the dust off my MTB today and took it out for the first MTB ride I can recall in a long time. The excessive rain this year (and ice storms last year) has had me riding road quite a bit, and I have not even thought of riding the trails until today. I was surprised at how good the trails were (only a few mud holes that always are present this time of year).

It was a great ride, made slightly better learning a few lessons in the process.

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I feel if that is the only thing I've had my mind on... More and more of it. Seems like you get a day or two, trails look like they might dry, and them bam! Rain, and more of it. Our race got cancelled today. Last night as of 8:30 it was looking like fast dry trails. Nine hit and the rain began, covering the Perry Lake trails.

I woke at 8:00 to find out it had been cancelled and did what I do every morning I find out a race has been cancelled... I went back to bed. I woke up at 11ish and started looking for somewhere that wasn't getting hit with the giant storm moving through. Blue River looked like the best bet so around 1 I hit the road to Lee's Summit.

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It's hard to believe that all the anticipation, excitement, and nervousness of my first "big" race of the year is now over. Another race under the belt, one that will find it's way onto my calendar for many years to come. I trained, well, I wanted to train... Usually I was left to the road due to wet trails, but that's just been the way its been. The 2008 Ouachita Challenge Sunday was the longest mountain bike ride I've done this year. It was all good though, I was fresh, and thank god because if I had a repeat performance of last weeks 6 hour race, I would be in for a long day.

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