Betty Fu strikes again....

I had a long list of things to do on Saturday. I had to get my nails done. I really need a haircut badly. The cars need to be washed. I can't remember when they've been this dirty. There must be at least 7 loads of laundry that need to be run through. Instead of riding this weekend, I decided to stay home and get some things done. Boy was a I glad I did. I hate starting off the week feeling like I didn't accomplish anything over the weekend.

NOT! Bwhahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

That is about as un-me as you can get. Screw all the stuff I was "supposed" to do, I'll do that later. Its time to get out and go riding. It was supposed to be close to 50 degrees on Saturday, so I scheduled a ride at Elizabeth Furnace. I think lot of people had the same idea that I did. Brian scheduled a faster paced group to ride at the same time. We had more than 40 people in the parking lot ready to ride exactly at 10:30. Well maybe it was closer to 11am.

Brian took his group up the blue trail and over the top from the Bear Wallow side. Tommy took a faster, casual-paced group up over Mudhole gap. I lead the third group up over Mudhole gap right behind.

Jason was freaking on fire today. I chased pretty hard and stayed about 20 yards back from him most of the way up the climb. When we started passing people in the faster group, I figured that I'd better hang back for my own group and just count the people that got past me. We all had radios, so we figured we'd sort it out pretty well. That worked okay.

We picked up a few people from the faster group who decided to hang with us for the rest of the ride. I hung back to the back of the group to make sure all was well with my sweeper. Everything was rolling along nicely, so I hopped on and headed to the top. I managed to catch up pretty quickly. Jason was getting cold (read "antsy") so he'd come back down to meet me. We regrouped right before the short, rocky downhill section, then headed up along the trail that follows Passage Creek.

This was my first time riding this trail on a rigid single speed in close to 13 years. It was not as bad as I remembered it. I did three of the 5 creek crossings and walked the two that I've bailed in lately. This is not a good day to fall in the creek. JoeP found out the hard way. I felt kinda bad since I did manage to get photos of him falling, though I didn't have the ISO set right on my camera. The photos came out fuzzy. That isn't why I felt bad though (well okay, its a little bit why). I don't know Joe *that* well, and I didn't want to piss him off with the photos. He and I talked later and he's cool about posting them. You'll see them on the link at the bottom.

Did I mention that we needed to do more climbing? The rocks were actually kind of fun on the SS. I think I'm going to like riding a steel SS with steel forks though. The oversized aluminum is great for lightness, but you really feel every single bump. My bike will gain a little weight, but it will also be much more ridable. More on the new bike situation later. :)

I hung back on the next seciton and talked to Chris for a while. He'd been off the bike for a month or more after having surgery. The doctor had Okayed him for the ride a few days earlier. He was seriously itching to ride since he'd built up a new bike in his off time. He was sporting an absolutely gorgious Turner 5spot. His goal to keep the later upgrades to a minimum was to deck it out with all the nicest stuff. He did a damn good job of it. :) The bike is beautiful. He was riding it well too. He was definitely enjoying the 5" of cush in comparison to his old hardtail.

Back at the front we split off and took the loop that skirts the resevoir to the west. Ricky has dubbed this the "Raise Skirt" section after a bad abbreviation I'd typed into the last time I'd GPS'd the route. No raised skirts were there to be seen, but a few people dropped trow to mark their territory. This section of trail is a lot of fun. Its got a few steep stomps (that I didn't clean) and some slightly rocky drops. I took a bad line on one of them and paid the price bigtime. As I started down, I told myself "Self, I'm okay as long as I go to the right of that rock at the bottom". Well that didn't work out as planned. I got into a rut and could't get off that line. I hit the rock I was trying to avoid square center. It launched me over the bars and I smacked my head pretty hard. Thanks to Bob Gyro for designing a kick-ass helmet. I had some good bruises on the side of my leg and my left butt cheek, but only a bruise the size of a yoyo (I just measured it... its the same size as a Yomega Wing Force ball bearing yoyo with the new and improved clutch) on the side of my head where the helmet has saved my noodle. I was up instantly, did a quick invantory... 10 fingers, 10 toes, both arms and legs work, dang my head hurts. I hopped back on and decided that I'd deal with that later. I didn't see stars or anything. I wasn't rattled, just sore.

I flatted and bob stayed back to help out. Thanks dude! I had switched packs and didn't have my tire levers. I could have gotten it without, but it was easier to have him around. Many me pumped up the new tube so fast that the valve broke. Not really... it was an old tube and the valve failed from being ancient. Tube #3 is still holding air nicely. Joe hung back and lead us up to the hike-a-bike.

Then came the hike to the top. Yowza that still kicks my butt. I rode a few sections and then just gave up and hiked to the top with Bob. I've seen Jay and Larry ride that section bottom to top. Neither of them is human. I could never do that.

The ride down is great. Still feeling a little rattled from my fall, I walked almost everything to the first switchback. I had fun talking with Karen on the way down. She's always fun to ride with and a great person to have in the club.

Once back on the bike the flow came back pretty well. I walked two of the bigger rock gardens but I rode a few of them too. I had three walkovers when I got myself into trouble. The switchbacks were SWEEEEET though. The Colorado boy in me still oves those things. I ride them every chance I get. Chris said he striaghtlined one and went flying down the backside of it. I met Tommy in one and it looked like he'd had a rough day. That guy is FREAKING TOUGH! He'd had some hard falls and was still making his way down. My hat is off to him. He's picked up skills really quickly and is becoming a great rider. It is fun to see and read about his enthusiasm. It helps me psyche up for rides like this.

We were finally back to the parking lot. Gina and Joe were still taking it easy on the way down. We'd stayed in touch with them on the radios on the ride down. Joe's hand was bugging him. Gina was just not feeling so great. Jason, David, Dennis and I hopped on the bikes again and headed back up to meet them and make sure all was well. Ricky had found them and was riding down with them. The 4 of us climbed up for just short of 2 miles. I'd really wanted to make it one more mile up to the junction of the pink trail and cut across for a fast doubletrack downhill. I didn't have it in me though. After stomping around all day and slamming pretty hard on the back side, I was finally done. I figured I had just enough to be able to stomp my way to the top of the three little climbs we had to do on the way back down. I was right. I was happy not to have to drive home.

After all that, Betty Fu took us on a seriously fun ride. The group was great. It came out to just short of 18 miles by the calculations of the GPS.

Sorry for rambling. I just thought I'd write while I had this stuff on my brain.

Pete

Here's the link to the ride.