FINALLY summer is back.
It was a long, cold winter.
Ruth, LiLynn, Bob and I thought we'd take a break from cabin fever by heading to Georgia in February to race Southern Cross, a 50 mile ultracross race which is part of the North American Ultracross Series. Bob should have come with us but dealing with family matters detained him. So we had road trip weekend with the girls. Yes! Georgia in February would be a GRAND idea, and we'd come back sporting tan lines. OR so we thought.
Temperatures stopped rising at the high 30s and wind gusts blew us sideways as we raced 50 miles including a couple of massive climbs to dizzying heights and descents that nearly induced frostbite. The race finished with a gratuitously brutal cyclocross course. I might do it again. Perhaps if the weather forecast next year came up milder. Thank goodness for microweight wool base layers. Bonuses: Getting to meet a college friend of Ruth's who dished up all kinds of crazy things about Ruth and her delinquent behavior in college (that explains a LOT) and meeting LiLynn's brother Jeff. What a nice guy-he even volunteered to be the designated driver for us. Because we had an awfully good time the night after the race.
After going to Southern Cross some long slow months went by before Bob and I attended Michaux Mountain Bike Camp, also known as the "School of Hard Rocks." I rode outside with Ruth and LiLynn and the group we call "the usual suspects" when weather permitted. I spent a lot of quality time in the basement with an ever-growing collection of Sufferfest videos, The Collective, Ride the Divide, Reveal the Path, Behind the Barriers, and every episode of the Atherton Project I could stream online.
Michaux Camp turned out to be a weekend of campfires and cabins made fun by lots of technical learning opportunities that challenged every rider there. Some of us, um, maybe learned as much or more just from watching the others as we did from trying things ourselves. It was my first outing on my MTB, which had been recently repaired after my little shoulder-wrecking tumble at Windham last year. I overthought most obstacles, rode a few, stared at some in horror and said "No way" to myself, and then rode some more small stuff. All right, I did work pretty hard on that biggish log (not the REALLY big one) and I rode off the artificial drop a few times.
Bob took on a particularly tough rock challenge that Saturday and broke his nose. He was perhaps a little stoic about the pain but I don't think he fooled any of us. It probably hurt like hell. Although he's healed a hundred percent by now, it meant that on Sunday I barely rode anything. I have never been such a head case on any kind of bike in my life.
Rain cut Sunday's riding a little short, and it poured all the way home.
But we had fun at Michaux MTB Camp. We made new friends. We shared beer and drank bourbon out of coffee mugs around the campfire. We made s'mores.
And heck, the women's group amazed me. Sue Haywood and Cheryl Sornson worked together well as a teaching team and the other women there provided real demonstrations of persistence and gutsiness. They went for it. They tried repeatedly. I've never seen such gutsy women. I wish I could say the same for myself but not having spent much time on a mountain bike yet this year, prior to that camp, my brain really got the most of me that weekend even before Bob hurt himself.
I raced the Tour of the Battenkill again this spring. Maybe for the third time now? I didn't plan on going on this year after our whole team went last year and had some serious mishaps out on course. But Bob had to go for work reasons, and sure, it's a good early season fitness check. Having never raced it as a category 2 before, I turned myself inside out for a mid-pack finish. Women's 3/4 road races just ride tempo until a few are left to go at each other. In this race, everybody jumped on every climb, knives out. I ended up riding with some other flotsam and jetsam. Guess what? We still sprinted at the finish. Because every spot mattered. Haha. GREAT times. No really, I had fun, especially since the dirt road sections had hardened to brown concrete and unlike last year, there were NO freshly graded dirt sections where you suddenly hit three-inch-deep sand and gravel heading downhill at 30 mph, on skinny road tires. Sections the promoter never warned about. It took a lot of hip-steering and swerving to dodge the flying bikes and bodies last year, and a friend of mine broke a few bones.
But as spring started creeping in, the more Bob and I got back on our mountain bikes, the better and easier it got to start making the wheels roll over things. I started to apply some of what I'd heard at Michaux. It helped SO, SO much to return to my "happy place." If anything can get you out of a mental rut, it's Shindagin Hollow. LiLynn and I rode out there one Saturday morning. She worked on getting a feel for her new bike and I renewed my acquaintance with mine. Which was timely.
Because for some of us, myself included, it's shaping up to be a summer spent more on dirt than ever.
Both LiLynn and Ruth have new mountain bikes. LiLynn LOVES hers. While Ruth isn't maybe completely sold yet on mountain biking, she still recognizes that mountain bikes are just another way to have fun on wheels with the usual suspects. I bet you five bucks she rides Bitch Ditch and Dizzy D backwards and forwards any old day now.
I planned to buy a new bike. I wanted a carbon hardtail 29er-specifically a Cannondale Flash Carbon 29er 2. I started saving for it over the winter. I put spare cash in an old glass jar, and called it the "Flash Fund."
And then I decided to give up my savings, and this year's chance at a new bike.
Because I wanted to race the Transylvania Epic.
