Discovery

As I'm sure my two loyal blog readers know, we've been riding a lot more lately—about five days a week. For a number of reasons (gas prices, laziness, etc.), we've been pretty much riding the same trail over and over. Now I'll admit that riding the same trail five days a week can get pretty boring, particularly if you're putting multiple hours in. It means either riding every single offshoot of the trail (even the ones you don't like) or riding parts of the trail multiple times.

There have been some advantages, though. Namely discovering this trail section. I had been on it before at least once, but in the last couple of weeks I have been riding it more and more. It's probably something I wouldn't even bother with if I weren't spending so much time at Burchfield.

I think that would have been bad, too, because I've come to really enjoy this trail. I only wish it were longer. It seems to end too quickly.

There's nothing spectacular about it. As I said, it's pretty short, it's somewhat twisty in places, is a little rooty and has a few logs and log piles. I'm not sure why I like it so much, besides the fact that it goes right along the river, is pretty fast and is just very scenic.

Shift

It's that time of year again when my t.v. is on vs. (not to be confused with hockey season, when it is also on vs. quite a bit), when mixed in with the other sounds of summer are the voices of Phil, Paul and Bobke. Yes, despite the ridiculous shenanigans of the ASO, I am still watching the TdF. Of course, watching the Tour makes me thinking about road cycling, which I have not been doing.





In particular, I'm thinking about my Bianchi Imola, which sits upstairs in the trainer, where it sat all winter as I pedalled away on it. Last year at this time, I was riding on the road three or four times a week, getting in shape for DALMAC and completing my first century. I was also having the habitual argument with Chris—road or trail. (This always ended in me grudgingly riding the trail or him grudgingly riding the road.) My mountain bike barely saw its way out of the garage until KissCross season.





I knew this year was going to be somewhat different. After a fabulously fun and unsuccessful cross season, I was all fired up for my first mountain bike racing season. What I didn't expect was the fact that I would have virtually no desire whatsoever to take my road bike out. The other day I even opted to do a trail ride when Chris was training on the road.





No matter what, my road bike will see some hours this winter. Even though I'm pleased that I've gotten so excited about mountain biking, I do hope I will get that road bike out before the season is over. It deserves to see some pavement.

Photographer Extraordinaire

I have to interrupt my regularly scheduled blogging to brag about my husband. Last year he bought a digital SLR camera and he's been having a lot of fun taking pictures. In June when we went up to Lumberjack, he took about 500. At any rate, he found out Michigan Sports & Fitness was looking for some photos so he submitted them. Their July issue just came out, and not only did they print two of his photos with the article, they also used one of his photos for the cover!

Miles

I have this problem. I need to know how far I'm riding. I had a computer on my first mountain bike, but I put it on my road bike when I bought that and it never got replaced. I was convinced by a few people that there was no reason for a computer on a mountain bike and it never really bothered me until I started racing.





The other day, Chris and I were talking about the race we have coming up on July 19. It's our first six-hour race and I think we're both pretty nervous. We had originally planned to do a six-hour race at the end of the summer at Drummond Island, which we may still do. However, we decided to do this race as a trial run, since it is at Ithaca and we can get there in about 45 minutes. We figured that before we spent all that time and money going all the way to Drummond Island, we'd make sure we had some chance of putting a good effort into a six-hour race.





At any rate, Chris shared with me that he had a goal of a certain amount of miles at Ithaca and it seemed like a lot to me. I knew it was something I couldn't even get close to and I wondered what kind of a goal I would set for myself. After all, as far as I was concerned the farthest I had ever ridden on a mountain bike trail was at the Yankee Springs Time Trial, which is something like 12 miles. Chris thought I had ridden a lot more miles than that just when we've been riding at Burchfield, but honestly I had no idea.





So, yesterday, when Chris was doing intervals on the road, I decided to head back to Burchfield by myself and see how many miles I could ride in two hours. You see, Burchfield is not like other mountain bike trails I've been to. From the trailhead, there's a 3.5 mile easy South loop and a 1.5 mile easy North loop. There are also several "advanced" mountain bike trails that are either offshoots of one of the easy loops or you can reach them through other advanced trails. None of the advanced trails have any indications of mileage. Normally, what I do is a warm up on the South loop and then head up the North loop a little before shooting off onto the advanced trails. By the time I'm done, I've done so many different combinations of trails I barely remember where I've been. Obviously, I have no indication of what my mileage is.





This time, I opted to just do laps of the South loop so I would be able to see how many miles I'd done. It was like a simulated portion of a six-hour race for me. Granted, I didn't do any hard trails, but from what I've heard Ithaca is supposed to be an easy trail anyway. What I was mostly concerned with was my ability to keep going out again after I'd returned to the trailhead.





It was the best I've felt on a ride in a long time. I figured out after the first lap that I should do six laps total. I was starting to get pretty tired by the end of the fourth, but I made myself go out twice more to get the entire six in. The last two were a little slow, but I was rewarded with some wildlife viewing. On the fifth lap, I saw two fawns feeding at the side of the trail. (Of course, by the time I got my camera out of my jersey pocket, they were gone.) This guy was a little less skittish, though, and I was able to capture him. If the trail signs are correct, I got in about 21 miles, which I am pretty pleased with. I definitely need to get a computer for my mountain bike, though.

Back to the Trail

We went riding at Burchfield last night. We were supposed to ride for 2 hours, but I ended up quitting after an hour and a half and reading my book in the car while I waited for Chris. I don't know what's wrong with me. I felt lethargic the entire time. I hope I'm not coming down with anything, because I felt dizzy all day yesterday and had some head and stomach issues, too. I actually feel a bit worse today.

Even so, the ride was emotionally gratifying because the weather was perfect for riding and it was just so beautiful. Riding in the evening is nice because of the way the light and shadow fall on and enhance the natural look of everything.

Regardless, I've got to keep putting in the miles. We haven't had a race since June 1, but we've got some coming up very soon. The way I've been riding lately, I don't know how I'm going to kick it up to race pace.

Serious Slacking

We missed four training days. Four. So much for consistency. Last Wednesday, I think we had a legitimate excuse because it was a torrential downpour with thunder and lightening. The holiday weekend was a different story. I'm not sure what that was about, other than laziness, wanting to do other things at our cabin and the fact that we hadn't had our kayaks in the water since last fall. But, the only the thing to do when you fall off the horse is get back on, so last night we resumed our training (sort of). Given the type of training Chris was supposed to be doing and the timeframe, we thought the best thing to do was ride the river trail.

We were supposed to ride for an hour and a half. I knew I needed to get out there because I was still reeling from some bad news that led to a huge disappointment that I don't see getting over any time soon. I thought riding would be good therapy, but it wasn't doing it for me. Hopefully, when I get out on the trail tonight it will be a different story. We were a little afraid the trail would be flooded in parts because of the amount of rain and storms we've had lately, but that wasn't a problem.

Common Ground, our week-long area music festival, was what stopped us. We weren't able to get to the end of the trail because it was blocked by this. Chris spent did some doubling back to get his time in, but I had enough, so I just headed home. I was bored and my foot was bothering me (more about that it a later post) so I really didn't feel like going any farther. I ended up with a pretty pathetic 55 minute ride. (It's funny how your perspective changes. Three years ago I would have thought an hour was a long time to spend on a bike.) Some random photos from our weekend up North are below.

Puppy girls relaxing at the Creek

A field of unidentified purple stuff on our road my mom and I discovered while going for a walk

Kayaking the lovely Au Sable

How I Rate

Last year Chris got some cool new Ergon grips, which he really likes. I mentioned to him earlier this year that I would like a pair. He told me he was going to order another pair for his full suspension bike, but that he was waiting until he could get the super cool carbon model. So, a couple weeks ago he told me he "ordered our grips." When we finally went to pick them up yesterday, suddenly both pairs were "his" grips. Wait a minute, I thought you were ordering me a pair. You already have a pair of grips. Then he explained it to me. He ordered himself two new pairs of grips so I could get his castoffs. When I protested, he just told me how ridiculous I was being. "Like I'm really going to put a pair of $100 grips on your $800 bike so I can have a $65 pair of grips on my $3,000 bike!" Silly me. I guess I now have a slightly used pair of $65 Ergon grips, which is still pretty cool.





P.S. I am well aware that if I wanted the carbon grips I could buy myself a pair. That's not the point!