In celebration of me surviving twenty four years with half a brain we did an AA->poto->AA ride on mountain bikes. Though my birthday was on Monday, its hard to squeeze in a 3-4hr ride followed by copious amounts of beer without upsetting the work life balance. Naturally it was pushed to the nearest Saturday. Meeting at 2pm 8/16 we started off by ogling at Alan's new rig:
Completely untested and new we were breaking all the rules (never ride an untested rig long distances or in races)…but hey, rules are meant to be broken. So we rolled on.
Took us about 57minutes on the road (sorry no dirt) to get to the trail head. We had geared up for an "easier ride" but Mr.John Heft begged to differ with our 17-22mph pace on the road. Paul took the lead out of the gate at the poto trail head. He quickly disappeared into the distance. Nothing new, Paul just goes one speed at poto: fast. Alan couldn’t get his new rig to shift and was otb with me. We regrouped every now and again at points on the trail chatting it up as an excuse to slug back more water.
We met an interesting DNR employee who got to sit in a lawn chair and just tell people a parking lot was full. Where do I sign up for this job? Heft opted for the shorter 15mile loop while Paul, myself, and Alan went on for the full loop. We stuck together till the last paved road crossing, and then we all hit our own strides. Eventually hitting the parking lot after
On the way back about we identified Alan's shifting problem as a stiff link (to go with his other two stops: lose skewer, lose headset). Seems SRAM chains have been plagued with stiff links recently. Anyone else notice this? After a few minutes of messing with it we back on the road. The way back was quite a bit faster with periods of 24-27mph. The tailwind helped quite a bit. Paul decided to work on his tan lines a bit also:
Ride Time: 3:31:14
Ride Distance: 58.99 miles
Beers Consumed: ~8.3
Upon return we drank a few brews right in front of Alan's house sitting on the curb. I'm sure the neighbors loved this….
After showering up and it was time to hit up the bars in AA. Grizzly peaks for foodage (mmmm pulled pork sandwich) and an eight beer (5oz ea) sampler. Paul in his competitive nature naturally finished first, Heft second, me in third, and Alan with assistance from Paul was DFL. If you wanted me to recount the complex flavors of each beer good luck…Next up to bat was Ann Arbor Brew Co. followed by Ashley's. Even Mr Stephen Cain of UofM cycling showed:
(This is a rare sighting at best. Drink it in)
Now it's Monday and I'm officially 24. Miller High Life anyone?
(that's March 2008 in TN - good stuff)
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Linked!
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www.danfrayer.blogspot.com
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