After 92 rides…you’re bound to get hurt at somepoint!

Connor suggested today would be a really good day to go and hit up one of Squamish’s more, xc trails. The weather was good, Scott wanted to do a DH ride in the afternoon, so I figured…why not?

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Whew! I am exhausted. This was supposed a weekend off!

Saturday was volunteering at the Test of Metal race event, where the MMR team ran the bike check. We checked in over 500 bikes, and washed about 150 of them. Sunday was supposed to be pretty relaxed, I hiked up the Rockstar course to take some photos. Following the Rockstar…instead of just enjoying the post-race part…Warwick, Shaums and I went out to do some photos in the evening light.

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I really hope this isn’t becoming a pattern…

Today’s ride started off well enough. Harrison and I were doing his Freeriders program, which is the group of 9 year-old riders. It’s a pretty relaxed session for me, Harrison runs the whole show and I get to cruise in the back. I suppose I could be doing more, but Harrison is so good with the kids that I really don’t have to at all. Today we rode low-down, Pseudotsuga (upper and lower) and water-bars on Diamond Head. Following that it was into the highlands for Lumberjack…and then down our Squamish Team’s “warm-up loop”. All in all, that was a pretty good ride. Harrison and I, however, weren’t satisfied!

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Now that we’re back from Quebec I was able to finish building my new bike, a Marin Wolf Ridge. The Wolf Ridge is an ‘All Mountain’ bike featuring 6″ of travel front and rear. At the moment it’s box-stock except for the Fox 36 fork, which I’ve kept from my last-year bike build. Harrison needed a hand with his Freerider group today, so I pulled out the Wolf Ridge to try it out. The Freerider group is a set of 9 year old kids who are pretty good rippers. The plan was riding the Powerhouse Plunge, a perfect test for the Wolf Ridge.

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A couple of new Wednesday night sessions have started. First up was our ‘Freeriders’ group, a set of younger guys looking to downhill for fun. I missed that session, but both Shaums and I knew that I was likely to only make it for the end. The next session was the Refine Your Ride session. We had four adults signed up. Shaums, Harrison and I coached the program. It’s pretty funny to head into a program having no clue what the plan is and then coach it. I guess I picked it up quick enough…but my coaching on the basics feels rusty.

The session ended with a ride down Alice in Wonderland…and then a ride back up the 99 to the cars. Loved the trail ride, could do without the ride up!

-D

I need to put the Hood River riding story in here.

I need to put the Ashland riding story in here…

I figured the day was over for riding, but the evening brought on a new set of issues that I wasn’t stoked to have presented. It’s not often I get angry to the point of boiling, but last night was definitely one of those times. Instead of stewing about it on the couch, I figured I’d go out and play on the Balfa for a bit. Playing turned to riding, and soon I was off doing sprints. At some point I was supposed to help Shaums with moving some bike boxes around, so I figured I’d ride over there and see if he was home. He wasn’t, so I just sort of started riding. I made a full sprint up skyline, stopping once to breathe and once to avoid getting mauled by a dog. Still needing to push, I headed up to the University. Once there I played with a couple of sprints, and then worked on trying to manual. Eventually I needed a rest and just lay down on a sidewalk for a while. After spending some time trying to sort out how to deal with things I figured now was as good a time as any to head home. On the way I played with trying to teach myself how to manual.

I think I spent about 1hr 30min or possibly 2 hrs just riding around Squamish.

-D

Miranda popped over this evening to borrow one of my laptops. It would seem that the school board here can’t invest in anything better then a windoze computer running “windows movie maker” for the video-arts class. Um, right. Anyways, while grabbing the mac the questions was asked “hey dirty, wanna do some laps of Rollercoaster?”

Hmmm…sit on the couch, doing nothing, or head up to the highlands for a quick blast before dark? Exactly, it was a no brainer. While Miranda went home to get ready I quickly changed, grabbed my bike and then remembered I hadn’t fixed the rear wheel. Seems I didn’t tighten down the preload on the bearings enough.

Having fixed the rear wheel I then jumped in the truck and raced up to Miranda’s house. Well, almost to Miranda’s house. Step one when leaving anywhere in a rush: check your fuel level.

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I can now say I’ve had my first frustrating day on the mountain bike. Nothing quite like a coaching session that feels like a trainwreck the entire way through.

I don’t even know what to say about it. I’d say more, but nothing I’d come up with would be positive.

Nuff said.

-D