Northern Kingdom

I wanna go back!!!

One week ago today I was camping outside of East Burke, VT. I'd wake up that day, drink good coffee and eat oatmeal, and go ride brand new (to me) singletrack for 3 hours with Cody and Riley. We'd get back to camp and eat whole wheat pasta with our homemade pesto, about a pound of bacon, and good romano cheese. And drink beer.

(Today I woke up at 4, came to work, and am currently drinking bad coffee - there's something about the Turbo Shots that Dunkin' Donuts put in their coffee that make me feel all hella cracked out. I mean, more than normal espresso. 'S weird. I currently find myself grooving to a La Bouche song at 5:30 AM, inspite of my better judgement.)

Anyway, needless to say it was a totally fantastic vacation - complete with sitting around a fire drinking beer and making s'mores. I think we spent about 12 hours riding ripping trails while we were there. My legs still hurt. A couple friends from Gloucester came up to camp and ride with us. One of them compiled some pretty fun videos from her helmet cam. Mostly there's just some shots of my butt, but you can see Cody getting rad over a couple jumps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuFW3AFk8-A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6E0MkmkH4U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlIhj2ulyjE

On Thursday me and Cody spent almost 4 hours riding in a downpour. It actually was one of the funnest days, trail-wise. It was slippery with all the wet roots, but god those trails are fun.

New Christmas card photo???

After that picture was taken we went out and split a medium pepperoni pizza, an order of mozzerella sticks, and an order of french fries. Yeah. It was a lot of cheese. But it takes a lot of cheese to stay warm whilst camping in Northern Vermont in September. And with 3+ hours of hard riding each day I think Iate like, 10K calories a day and came back a pound or two down from when we'd left. Hey, it's race season, I gotta keep tabs on these things.

Anyway, the downside of taking a few days off work to go play is that I'm super busy and utterly vacation-hungover this week. Nonetheless, I'm looking forward to heading BACK up to Burlington, VT this weekend for the Nor'Easter UCI cyclocross race. Two words for you: Euro Pros. Yeah, Crossresults has my ranked LAST on race predictor. Sad face. But I guess I can only do bettter than that, right???

Dude, Reno, what the hell? Why can't you get in the news for something not terrible? Seriously, the economy? Suicide rates? Mass involuntary aeronautical vehicular manslaughter? (Not that Gloucester is much better.) I tell this story a lot, but back in 2002 a dude crashed his plane out at the Air Races, and, well, died. I saw his picture in the paper and he was this guy who I'd waited on at The Diner out in Golden Valley (that's in Reno, for you non-Reno-ites). Anyway, he had been a jerk and had tipped me like, 51 cents, so I remembered his face. Then, well, you know the story. Life's weird, huh?

On a lighter note - did anyone watch the Pats game on Sunday? Did you see Wilfork's interception? Look it up on Youtube. It's priceless.

This digression brought to you by Dunkin' Donuts Turbo Shots.

Cape Cod

Oh bikes. I love bikes. Love love love.

Last weekend we went down to Cape Cod to find some snow-free trails. I'd never been, so it was a pretty cool little road trip. The first day we rode something called Trail of Tears, because the trial descriptor said it was the more technical trail in the area. It ended up being pretty fast and flowy, really fun, and not particularly technical. And there was hardly anyone out there, which seemed a little surprising on a Saturday. Weee! Singletrack and sunshine.

We spent the night in Hyannis at an Econolodge. There's a weird feel to these tourist-driven-economy places in the off season, but it was nice that it wasn't totally jam packed. I mean, I guess Gloucester is pretty tourism-heavy, but there's also a ton of commercial fishing, so it has a little more life in the winter.

Anyway, on Sunday we rode Otis, which is what they call the trails that border Otis Air Force Base. That solved the riddle of why there wasn't anyone on Trail of Tears the day before. The trails on Otis were soooooo much fun! More technical than ToT, by far, but super fast, too. Fun little rock drops off to the side of the trail, and steep, long-ish (by east coast standards) climbs and descents. And it was sunny and gorgeous and I was way overdressed in my long sleeved jersey and knickers. I didn't even BRING a short sleeved jersey with me, that's how long we've been stuck here in the cold. It didn't even occur to me. But I'm happy overheating a bit if it means the sun is shining. Rad. So rad.

This weekend we might to up to York, ME to visit some friends. I think I'll ride up there. It sounds pretty cool to say I rode in 3 states on one ride (MA, NH, ME), even if it's only 62 miles. But I have no endurance at this point so 62 miles will be a good grunt.