Thursday Night Throw Down

I've been struggling all week with this time change. I get up at 5am for work, so with the hour forward it's been like getting up at 4am. My body just didn't understand but, tonight made it all worth it. I got out on the bike around 5:30 for the Thursday night'r and got a good two hours in before I had to turn on the light..........Bitch'n.

I got a call from Jeremy today and he informed me he was going to break the geared Thursday night rule and was going to bring out his Trek 69er SS. So, I though I would join him on the one geared machine. So like I said I left the house at 5:30 on my Gary Fisher Rig. I like riding this bike, it is fully rigid which provides a real positive feel on the trail, simple and sweet and few parts for me to break. It has a OnOne steal fork, on harder hits it still has a little give so it's not too harsh. Perfect for a Bakers Ride.

I headed out the road to UHS and started out on Grouse Trail. Right away I saw how dry the trails were and felt a long forgotten feeling........Traction. After Grouse I passed on Legs a Fire and went down to the left to what I like to call the Rhododendron Tunnel then back to the road. Hit the other side and headed down to meet up with the rest of the crew. Still noting the tacky, smooth, fast conditions.

The Rowand's and Nate showed a little after the usual go time. Guess Jeremy got a flat on the way over from the shop. Jeremy and Steve were 69'n (that sounds bad), J on the SS version and Steve on the 3x9 type. Nate dog was on his pimp'n SuperFly.

Then it was on. Right off the start the tempo was fast. Nate led us up the access road and hit the steep right. Jeremy and I cleared it on the SS's, probably a first since last fall. Again, there was good traction. Then it was over to 7 logs with J in the front hit'n it pretty good. Felt real nice flowing over those logs and landing smooth and rolling out. The hammering continued up numb skull and back out. Next was turbo and back over to grouse trail on the UHS side. This time we did Legs a Fire. Ouch, luckily there wasn't much hammering up this killer. Back out grouse backwards to the road. At this point the lights came out. It was a real treat to ride that long in the day light.

Back on the main side the hammering continued for another hour or so. It hurt but felt real nice to be able to feel some speed for the first time in many months. Those big wheels smooth things out even more at speed and carry good momentum. By the time it was all over the crew was pretty gassed but smiles were all around. Good ride'n.

Nate was looking real strong. He was doing a lot of the pace setting and hitting the hills hard. Way to go dude, keep up the good work. Jeremy was ride'n strong as usual and somehow didn't even break a sweat and only had a max HR of like 165. He's a freak'n machine. Steve was hurt'n a bit from playing on his new Madone yesterday but kept the hammer down anyway, true Steve style. I was feeling the burn from previous interval torture but managed to hang. Nothing makes one faster and better than riding with some speedsters. So come out and throw it down and get faster and make it hurt so good.

I've got some high hopes this weekend of doing something cool like going to Big Bear or doing the Morgantown RR course. Time will only tell, stay tuned for Team RowMan+'s activites

On another note. Way to go Ryan (coach)! He is now a Master of Science. That a boy! Let's celebrate.

later,

Josh