riding or socializing

I've said it before, and I will say it again:

A good ride can wipe away a day of work.

A social ride, although not possessing the wiping power of a good ride, can offset a day of work nicely.

An excellent gathering after a social ride can more than make up for anything else in the day.  And that, my friends, was the case last evening.  After hitting the trails at the USNWC some of us headed over to The String Bean in Belmont NC.  This place is AWESOME!

If you're a local and haven't been there, you need to get over there.  It's like the Common Market, except with more food, and bit more family oriented (read: less hipsters).  Don't get me wrong, I love me some CM as I can walk over and enjoy their fine beer selection.  I've enjoyed a sandwich from their deli as well and it's top notch, they have a creative menu for sure.  But, with The String Bean you get a full menu with sandwiches, burger, flat bread pizzas and a very large beer selection.  I can't say who has more/better beer selection as I've never seen CM's offerings listed like I did SB.  But the beer menu at SB was a bit overwhelming.

Like CM, you can grab your favorite bottles to go - or enjoy them on the patio.  I didn't take any pictures - so I've google hacked some for you to enjoy.

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).    

Two in One

Yesterday was absolutely gorgeous.  I already had plans to hit up a night ride sponsored by the Trailblazers, and led by Chris, but I couldn't pass up the day.... I figured something "easy" would be nice, so I hit up Sherman Branch.

My garmins told me that the average temp for my ride was 75.4.  75.4 in January.  Yeah, I don't miss the northeast.  Sherman Branch is a fun trail.  It has three sections, that I guess you can pick and choose from to string together your ride, but I look at it as one giant loop - so nothing gets left out.  I wanted an "easy" ride, but that isn't to say that Sherman is a boring easy trail.  It is a fun trail for sure.  But it is a super singlespeed friendly trail - so no big climbs or super technical sections.  It's a fun, fast, bermy, flowy trail. 

Somehow, on my "easy" ride I managed to get my PR - even with a stop to clear a fallen tree across the trail.  (Maybe my fitness is getting better) It wasn't a big tree, but the angle it lay across the trail (on a fast section) made it more difficult to cross... and seeing how people tend to complain about challenges on the trail I figured I'd just get it off to the side.  But that was ok by me, made the ride feel a little more like a January ride up north.... without the snow, and bitter coldness, and constant stopping to repeat similar trail clearings this time of year.  

After the ride I had to run to the grocery store, get back home, eat something and hustle over to North Meck for the night ride.  I wasn't sure how bad traffic would be to get out there, but it ended up not being too bad.  There was a pretty good group for the ride, probably close to ten riders.  This was my first night ride in a long time, and my first group ride in a long time, and my very first group night ride... wow, that was a hand full (you know, cause I was typing and not actually telling you).  Anyway, the pace on the first lap was just about right.  Chris called it a social ride, and it was.  Good pace - you were able to chat while you rode, stops to regroup, chat some more.  At the end of the loop there was again time for some chatting and then planning on what next.  Who wanted more, and to what degree?  For the second lap we hit the trail in reverse and broke up into two groups.  A fast group and a more social paced group.  I went off with the fast group, which was fun, but interesting - since that was my first time hitting it in reverse.  

It was a great ride, and something I'm going to try to make a regular in the rotation.  It was also great to hang out with Chris a bit more out there, and talk with his wife - who offered up the Diva's services to help get Annie back out on the trails.  Oh yeah, the temp for the night ride?  66.  Yup.  

Today though... a big rainy, windy mess.  I guess that's ok since it's time to kick my own ass on the trainer.