Sunday, January 13, 2008

8 Day Binge

25.5 hours, 426.5 miles, one day off, one recovery ride, pavement, dirt roads, and even some trail.

What a week for riding. A few days of warmer weather and almost no precipitation this week lead to a big grin and some sore, but a good sore feeling in the legs. I got in a groove and stuck to it. Riding the CX bike early in the week lead to some exploration. To my surprise, the trails were in great shape. Frost still in the ground and no tire marks left. After a long ride on Tuesday, I threw on and HID light, grabbed the MTB fixed gear, and hit the trails over at Brighton Rec. Nothing like the rush you get when riding a fixie on the trail at night in unknown conditions. Its the unexpected thrill and "oh shit" moments that bring the fire back. Bombing down a hill uncontrollably with legs spinning and seeing a patch of ice around the corner. Get through it and have a sense of relief and then excitement. Stupid, maybe, but exhilarating, hell yeah!

Rode some of ILRA and Proud Lake trails this week on the skinny knobbies to see the trail conditions. Just as fun to cruise the trails at high speed rounding corners on narrow tires and smashing through sand pits like Sven Nys. This week brought back thrill and excitment for the upcoming season.

With the 14" of snow and inch of rain, the water has been really high. Normally, this is a dry swamp.

I was planning on hitting up a WRCS ride on Saturday to ride with some people for a change. Opening up a work e-mail late Friday night put the end to that. Add in a game mid-day, and I had to shuffle the schedule. Maybe sometime soon. Nothing like riding in the cold with like-minded individuals.

I rounded out the week with a morning gravel grinder on the fixie. No gears, no coasting, and no target number to hit and look at. Just pedaling for a few hours soaking in the outdoors. Nice temps out and no winds to fight with. Just me and one gear pushing up hills and spinning madly down. Ran across the Michigan State CX Champion also enjoying a little gravel goodness this morning.

Next up is the start of a new semester. I have a decent schedule, but a 6-9 class on Thursdays. That gives me 5.5 hours to waste down in A2. Looks like the bike will be packed and new routes explorered. Anyone with route suggestions starting in A2 to anywhere, Dexte, Waterloo, Chelsea etc.. post them up. I have been riding down from Brighton via Mast Rd to Huron River and back Whitmore Lk alot lately. If this weather holds, I will be able to search for some gravel as well.

2 comments:

BrendanBenson said...

Check out:
http://www.mcycling.org/training.php
and
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~aeversme/rideguide/rides.html

You should subscribe to the MCycling e-mail list and post when you'll be doing rides if you want to ride with people. There's a lot of cool routes not on the list, like Barton Shore, that people can show you.

Brent said...

Thanks. I'll look into that option.