And You Thought You Were A Racer: Yeah- 2010 found me signing up for all kinds of stuff and with the winter not being conducive to outdoors riding coupled with my intense dislike of indoors training, well, let's just say I wasn't even close to being ready to do anything until June. Then when I went on a ride/race, it was invariably hot. No.....wait....super hot. No.....stupid hot!
But just before all of that, I snuck up to the Twin Cities and rode Battle Creek which was an amazing trail system and I got to do it with Gnat on a new Salsa Cycles El Mariachi. Pretty sweet!
At the Dirty Kanza 200 it was about 110 with the heat index figured in and it just cooked me. Big fail there. Then the Fargo Adventure Ride came up, which went lots better, but it wasn't crazy, stupid hot either. In fact, it was the only planned ride I would finish in the entire year. Moving on into July, the Guitar Ted Death Ride Invitational lived up to its name big time. I got fried again. August saw me tackle the Gravel World Championships course in another scorcher of a day, going 108 miles before I bailed out. I was on a single speed in that one. Whoa! It was a tough day.
Back To Bidness! Fall then came and much of my time was being spent riding around here on the local trails doing Twenty Nine Inches testing. There was Interbike, of course, which was........meh! Las Vegas.( nuff said.) But I did get to ride and hang out with Grannygear again. Too little of that going on, but at least we get to do some amount of time together. (And discovering a cool little bakery was icing on that cake<====HA!)
The Trans Iowa night time recon rides with my co-director, "d.p.", were happening in the Fall again, and these were some of the best rides I had all year. One particular solo recon ride was also a standout, as well. This was sort of a redemption for all the good, but unfinished rides of the summertime. Early October saw the Rawland Fall Tour happening, which if it wasn't for a flat tire, I would have gotten the whole ride in. Time constraints and the mechanical caused me to cut it short though. Still, it was a fantastic ride with great folks. Then, in late October, I did the Night Nonsense event, which was a gravel grinder held entirely in the dark. It also ended up being held during some of the most horrendous riding conditions you could imagine. Rain, lightning, and wind all figured into a very, very long and tortuous 80 miles for me. Quite the adventure for sure!
Then I had one last hurrah in Minnesota at Lebanon Hills and Murphy Hanrehan with my friends Gnat, Ben Witt, and Captain Bob. It actually was probably the last good shirt sleeve day of 2010 and the trails were perfecto! It was the first and only time I got to ride on those two off road trails all year. Gotta change that for 2011! Then I kept riding the local trails, right into December. It was a long, great Fall season for riding.
And those were my riding highlights for 2010. I will post my New Year's Resolution Ride Post Saturday, so I won't get into next year's plans just yet!
Have a safe, Happy New Year's celebration tonight, if you are so inclined.
No comments:
Post a Comment