Where did last week go?
It seems like it just vanished. I planned to ride a bunch, but that didn’t happen. Instead I fit a bunch of bikes, used Darfish to teach a few others the finer points of a good pedal stroke, and prepared bikes for the Dirty Spokes 6 Hour race. With everything on my plate I lost the motivation to ride near home (last week’s huge hours may have had something to do with it too). I really wanted to be back up in the mountains where laptops and cell phones are barely a thought. Before this turns into a pity party, I’m psyched that 55nine Performance is doing so well. It’s been a lot of work to get this far and it’s really rewarding to be a positive part of so many people’s riding.
If you have not heard the ATL was hit by a tornado on Friday night. This all took place about 5 miles from our house. We certainly heard the storm, but had no idea of the damage that was being done so close to home. Sometimes I feel like we live in a vacuum. If it doesn’t have anything to do with bikes we have no clue. Anyway, we woke up Saturday morning to more of the same…thunder, lighting, buckets of rain…and were supposed to be heading over to Heritage Park for a race (the same direction this storm was moving). We, Namrita & house guests Danielle Musto & Carey Lowery, watched the radar and drank coffee. The storm was making a bee line for the race course. We had a choice: 1. go race in the muck, if not pouring rain…or 2. go somewhere else and pretend to race. We eventually chose door #2.
Door #2 took us to Macon to ride all 4 trails in the area (actually the Thomson trail is not to be missed, but involved a lot of pavement to get to). We started at Arrowhead with 2 and then some laps. Namrita, bring on a single speed opted to drive the truck and the dogs while Danielle, Carey and I rode to Mable White Church for trail 2. We averaged about 16 mph over the rolling hills. Not too bad for having fat tires. We rode all Mable White had to offer in about 45 minutes and were soon on our way to North Macon Park. The trip over was rough. The tail wind we had earlier was replaced by a strong cross wind. The kind you have to lean into and when it lets up you may fall over. The trails at NMP were packed into a narrow, but deep ravine between some softball fields and tennis courts. There was one incredibly steep descent, but mostly the track tacked back and forth up and down the ravine walls. It was interesting, but short. On the way to trail 4, East Macon Park aka “the pig trails,” we gave motor pacing a try. Namrita lead the way in our Escape and the three of us held on as best we could. Carey, who was recovering from a chest cold, was having some trouble with the 30+ mph pace and I was drop back to pull her while Danielle, in full roadie style, would just keep cruising behind the truck. Later Namrita said they peaked our at 35 mph! Did I mention that Danielle has only been on the Wobble-Naught fit for less that 24 hours! She has some impressive power. Anyway, we made it to the pig trails and rode a lap there. By now were more than 5 hours into the ride and all were feeling the effects of the trails and painful road sections. We decided to call it day.
BTW – I’m finally back on my American Classic wheels. I’ve been running some WTB Dual Duty wheels which Vassago supplied to get me rolling on a 29er right away. They are solid, but at the price of being seriously heavy for a weight-weenie such as myself. They did great for training purposes, but it was time to go light for racing. The AmClassic MTB Disc 29 are just as good as the 26 version I have been racing & training on for the last 3 years. I could really tell the difference when I lifted the front wheel up to go over logs….I could actually clear some big ones for once! They certainly didn’t hurt when motor pacing either 
Sunday I planned to make it down to the Perry road race, but after getting home from Macon at 10:00 PM the idea of driving 2 hours to make the 9:30 start was less than unappealing. Instead I joined the girls for a ride in Ellijay at Bear Creek and the Pinhoti trails. It was a great day. We were joined by Lisa Randell who had already been riding for two hours. These girls do not mess around. I brought my video camera to document some of the ride, so I took off on few occasion when my legs would allow to get ahead. This was no easy task as all the girls were just hauling it up & down the mountains. I really enjoyed the day and here some of the action captured:
I’m having some technical difficulties, but still working on the videos.