Back in the Saddle

We had a great weekend up at our cabin. I was a little concerned about how it would look after being gone all winter, but everything was just the way we left it. Some friends camped out on our property and my mom brought her camper. There were a couple of long walks for the puppies. Mom and Maizey met some horses down the road from us.

Gretchen and Maddy enjoyed spending some quality time with us.

A little bird has taken up residence on the front porch of our cabin.

On Saturday, we headed to Rifle River State Park, which is only about a half hour from our cabin, to try out the mountain bike trail there.

My mom usually sticks to her road bike, but she was a trouper and went mountain biking. We ended up being out for almost three hours.

The trail was not technical at all, but there were several big climbs at the beginning and the end. It was fun riding and very scenic.

I felt pretty good for not having been on my mountain bike for a long time although I was really dragging by the end. Of course, I need to start going on longer rides if I'm going to do that six-hour race at the end of the season.

There were a couple of interesting obstacles, such as this bridge that they clearly didn't want people to ride over.

There was also an unexpected river crossing.

There was no rest for the wicked, though. Sunday we headed to Grayling to preride the Hanson Hills course. For some reason, I didn't actually get any photos there, but I was pretty happy with the ride. Even though I was very tired from riding so long the day before, I was able to finish and didn't have to walk any of the course. I should be able to do it a lot faster next week when I am rested. I was also glad to find out that there was nothing even remotely sketchy except one downhill at the very end. It looks like Hanson Hills is going to be the easiest course in the whole race series, so I'm looking forward to pushing myself next week to try for a decent time.