SCOLETRAIN

Singletrack
This mornings ride was a bit early as my brother and I met Mr. O2W at Ella Sharp Park for a warp speed loop of singletrack. Another friend of mine opted out because of his weekly Wednesday night spandex party with the guys indoors on trainers. If he only knew how we were going to rag on him this morning he would have showed up to defend himself. Actually, he had to take his children to school which was an acceptable excuse for a guy who doesn't like to ride in cold weather. Mr. O2W was off to the races from the start with my brother bringing up the rear as he was only trying to get some saddle time in for his mountainous Tennessee trip in a few weeks. I was content to watch Mr. O2W's balancing act on his big 29'r as his dabbed a few times on the tight uphill switchbacks while moving at a good pace on his home trails. His new Quiring 29'r is a beautiful bike and it's nice to see a quality product coming out of Southern Michigan. I found that it pays to know where the trail goes as we all found the corners to be a bit deceiving from the frozen top layer of mud that will eventually turn to soup later in the day. The trick this morning was to not let the bike get into a two wheeled drift and disappear from beneath you in the corners. This ride was a good test of my fitness level today which seems to be on schedule from all the long slow base miles I've ridden this year. I felt a bit rusty and uncomfortable with this being my second day on the mountain bike(last 2 days)this year with some setup issues to deal with on the bike along with just needing more singletrack time. My single speed would have been nice today. The rust will eventually disappear as the weather gets more Spring like in the coming months. I just need to keep telling myself that the big payoff for all these cold training miles will come at the end of July.