Half a Night Ride at Yankee

I hit Yankee with the Dirt Dads last night... minus the Dirt Dads. If that doesn't make sense, absent from the ride were the Pastunink brothers and Rusty... to me the core of the Dirt Dads group. Showing up for the ride were Tim, Brad, Bob, Eric and myself. The trail was in very good condition. However, since I really hadn't ridden in a while, I pumped everything up back to where they used to be... 30lbs in the tires, 130lbs in the fork and 90lbs in the rear. Mistake. I felt like I was riding a rigid bike. It felt better with the rear at 50, fork at 90 and the tires around 15. The cold probably contributed to the harsher ride... or my hiatus from a hard ride.

This was a medium-hard effort for me. I didn't push to failure, but I wasn't picking my nose at the back of the class either. Eric disappeared early. I was with Brad and Bob for a while and Tim dropped back to peal off a layer. Pretty soon, Bob and Brad pulled ahead and I would get a glimpse of them every once in a while in the dark. Glad to know I wasn't completely alone out there. Nearing the end of the ride, I come upon Bob, Brad... and Tim on the trail. Bob flatted on a thorn. But I found out Tim took the #3 shortcut getting in front of Bob, Brad and myself. Bob caught and passed him before stopping for the flat.

While standing there, it seemed to be getting really, really cold. I looked up and the sky was clear and yelped out, "There's Pegasus!". Man, sometimes the kid-geek in me just shines right through. Yeah, yeah. All this sophisticated designer frontage... no match for the raging kid inside. Control-freak has regained control of the body...

... so I was only wearing lycra shorts and my trusty Sidi knee warmers on the bottom and my MEC long sleeve shirt and my Gore jacket - sans sleeves. Not so potent against the 45 degree chill.

When we got going again, the wind was chilllllllllllyyyyyyyy! It took a bit to shake the chill but it eventually went away. The last couple of miles to the lot, I stuck with Bob and Brad without much problem. I would get an occassional burn in the thighs, but it was all good.

All-in-all a really positive ride for me. Just got to remember to run softer in the cold.