Fat Boy Deluxe

The past week or so has been a complete whirlwind.  I’m just now starting to catch up on sleep and get some energy back in my step.  I managed to put in 5 days of riding in the past week.  Monday was Colt’s Neck with Gary.  Tuesday was the TNS ride to Paradiso with Steve and Gary, with Stoner making a celebrity appearance and then leaving to brave the rain.  Wednesday was the MORE/City Bikes Colt’s Neck ride.  Only had one other person show up, Corey, but we had a good paced ride.  Must have been a slow night as I when I ran into Nick from Pedalshop, it was only him and one other rider.  Last week they had something like 6+ people.  Thursday had me taking the full day off (civic time baby) to attend a meeting between the FCPA and MORE on the 495 dirt jumps.  It went super good and the jumps are here to stay, at least for now.  You may not care for MORE, but without MORE’s lines of communicaton with land managers and a few key players (Rich Edwards from IMBA, Corey from DCStreet.com, and Adam Ward - MORE trail liaison) the dirt jumps would probably have been plowed as soon as the land came under the FCPA.  After the meeting I showed the IMBA Trail Care Crew the Colt’s Neck loop and possible work sites.  We had a great ride!  Nat and Rachel were great.  Rachel ended up blowing the shock on her brand new Gary Fisher, new enough that the area bike shops wouldn’t have a replacement.  Nat needed to tighten all his rear spokes - that was one strong ass rim.  Bender lost a spoke along the way and had some rubbing issues.  Me…I only stepped off into the creek.  Nat managed to be the first person I think to succesfully ride the boulder crossing thanks to his mad skills and full suspension Stinky.  Scud took pics with his new camera, while Randy pointed out sections of the CCT and spit trail history like it was his job.  A ride that took much longer than expected, but definitely worth it.  Here’s where things start to go downhill a little…

The next 24 hours would prove a test of my patience.  I had to skip the Schaeffer Farms night ride with the TCC thanks to needing to catch up on some work.  A late night of database work ensued.  Friday came early and I was strapped to find the time to coordinate the TCC visit.  I’ll just say it’s a lot of work!  More work than one can imagine.  We had close to 50 participants for the weekend, learning to build sustainable trails, and our biggest day on Friday was packed full of land managers…that rocks in my book.  Anyway, I ended up blowing a full on hole in my car tire as I pulled into the class area on Friday, which makes getting around a little tough…like when you have to go pick up lunch AND participate in a conference call for work.  Like I said, time was at a premium.  I ended up picking up Kristin’s car only to have a rock nail the windshield 5 minutes later, leaving a nice crescent mark.  After the class, I headed back to pickup Kristin and drop off my wheel to have it replaced.  Dropped of the wheel first, then picked up Kristin and we headed back to the tire place.  Still not done…headed over to the pub for a pint of SNPA…tire still not done…wait around a bit and tire is finally done.  Then it’s a mad dash back to my car to put the wheel back on while Kristin heads home to Buster.  Finally get home and it’s back out for dinner with the TCC and some other MORE peeps.  Then home and more database work before Saturday morning.

Whew, done…not quite.  BuKit biked over to my place and we carpooled it over to the TCC class.  Once the class kicked off we dropped the car off to have the rest of the tires replaced…blah blah blah.  Saturday’s class was super cool.  I got to meet a lot of our Richmond dirt brothers.   We took the whole class to Wakefield to point out trail building techniques and then made a special trip to the dirt jumps.  I got the chance to ride Nat’s full suspension rig and it was a blast.  The confidence you have when landing stuff is amazing…it almost gives you too much confidence!  Back home and a visit with some friends that night, you’re looking at one tired DT.

Sunday was Kristin’s birthday.  Mani/pedi in the morning, homemade ice cream for lunch, and steak and lobster for dinner.  She already got her big gift of a wine making kit, but I had to show up to the party with something…a croquet set seemed like a nice touch on a beautiful day.

Finally an early night, only to be followed up by a late night at the DCMTB team meeting.  Turned out to be a good meeting though.  Ended up getting some sponsorship stuff.  Helmets, tools, pumps, sunglasses.  We’re still figuring out how to split the other stuff  - tires, wheelset, lights, etc.  Looks like a lot of City Bikers will be at 12 Hours of Lodi this coming weekend.

I had planned to really hook you all with some Pearl Jam, before the new album came out, but I just couldn’t get on top of things.  I received the album on Thursday, a few days before the Tuesday release.  I also ended up getting a couple of their other discs I didn’t have and gotta say I’m liking what I’m hearing.  I’ll get on it and put together something this week to share.

DT