better late

It poured Monday night.  I woke up Tuesday and it was grey and nasty... great, no chance to ride tonight.  I was really looking forward to it and needed a ride to recharge - plus my legs were still feeling the race so I needed to stretch those bad boys out!

All of a sudden the day got wicked nice with the sun just blaring down... I start kicking myself for not bringing my bike with me to work.  But really, what are the chances it will dry up that quick??  I start checking the forums to see what the call is on the group ride.

At first there was no official call, but certainly enough people chiming in that the ride should be called off.  I knew to ignore (laugh at) the bickering on the forum until word came down from the man himself, TheMutt, with regards to the ride status.  And sure enough he did his due diligence, checked the trails, and gave the thumbs up - ride is on!

SWEET!!  Except... I don't have anything for the ride with me.  That's ok, I'll leave work around 5 (at the latest) and be home before 5:30... time to grab my crap and should be like 30 minutes to the trail... Totally do-able.  Except for the fact that people were crashing all over the place.  On the way home the other side was totally screwed and backed up for miles (miles may be an understatement... what's longer then miles?).  As I hit 277, and was mere exits away from my destination, all traffic stops... accidents on my side now... and of course there is a mass exodus from the highway on MY exit... so everyone will be trying to cut through the city... using my route.... ugh.

Suffice it to say I wasn't home before 5:30.  And then traffic out to the trail was no better.  I'm not sure if that was still a byproduct of the highway cluster F or if that was typical after work traffic... either way I was able to read in the car while standing still on a one lane road.  It was GREAT!

I was late, but not so late that I didn't see the line of bikers cross the entrance road.  Ok, I can get my shit together and tear up the trail after them and catch them somewhere.  I hop out of the pterodactyl to do just that and Tom Tom comes riding up.  They saw me coming in so he decided to wait with me and catch the group together.  

We caught the group in the new black diamond section sessioning on a jump.  I "hit" it sans air as the kicked kinda scared me on the first go.  The second run I just let it do it's thing and send me into the air.  With some more runs in there I'm sure I'll be busting tailwhips like no tomorrow.  

Just to rest everyone's nerves let me say this, the trails were in great shape!  The new section was even looking great.  It was a fun ride for sure, and it's a great way to break up the week and get to catch up with some great guys.  Next time I'll be sure to be there for the full event, ride AND food(beverages).