"I can crack a wallnut with my but."

This famous quote comes from Jean-Claude Van Damme during his cameo appearance on the ever popular TV Show "Friends". I think the only episode that I ever saw was this episode. In fact I somehow only remember that one little part of that episode. I think I changed the channel soon after that line, knowing in my heart that I had heard the best line ever to come out of that show.

Why, you might ask, am I talking about that one line? I feel like in a weird sort of dream world, I wish it would apply to me tonight. Jason, Denis, Chris, David and I rode a rather epic death march today. It was the first weekend that Schaeffer Farms was really open this year. The Hoyles Mill Connector was also open. That made it possible for us to ride from Jason's house to Schaeffer farms almost entirely on really nice trails. Alas, I'm just dreaming. Monkeys are more likely to fly out of my butt than any wallnut getting cracked. Actually, I might be able to if I have something hard in my back pocket and I sit on it. I'll give that a try.

The ride ended up being just over 34 miles in all and had over 2000 feet of climbing. Everyone rode really well, though some didn't do all of the loops on the way home. I wanted to finish as much as we could in Schaeffer. There were little bits of the yellow trail that we didn't loop back to hit. There is probably 1/4 mile of trails that we didn't ride in Schaeffer. There is another 1/3 mile of trails that we missed in Black Hills. We'll have to do that another week. At about 6 hours, this ride was plenty long for me.

For some reason, my preparation for this ride was great. Lots of sashimi, a little pizza and quite a few beers the night before was great. I didn't get much sleep, but that didn't seem to bother me after my warm-up. The warm-up took almost 2 hours though. My legs would let me heat them up some, but I didn't really get my power until we started into Schaeffer. That timing was pretty good because that was the part of the ride that I lead. I had to remind myself to hold back on some of the early climbs. I knew this was going to be a long day.

Here's a map of the ride. I'll post up more tomorrow with some photos.

Black Hills, Hoyles Mill and Schaeffer Farms Trails