If you pay attention, you can see the subtle signs that fall is on the way. Last Friday, I woke up and looked out the window as I normally do. Only on Friday, I noticed something different, yellow leaves on the Black Walnut Trees in my back yard. I looked around a bit more and all I saw was green but I knew that those leaves were the first sign, cold weather, winter riding tights and frozen feet were on the way. My house is located at about 600 feet above sea level and on a norther facing slope. Based on past experience, the trees on my street and in my yard are about 2-3 weeks ahead of the surrounding areas. So, if you aren't seeing yellow, orange and red leaves in your area yet, they are on the way!
On Saturday, it was more of the same. Mehdi, Jason, Rick and myself did a 20 mile ride at the the Watershed. On one of my favorite sections of trail, the leaves had not only changed but were already falling off the trees. I felt the need to take a moment, say goodbye to the leaves and snap the above picture. Besides the fleeting moment of sadness I always feel when I realize the leaves are abandoning me for the winter, the ride was great.
We all rode pretty good on the first half of the ride. I got us turned around a couple of times but in the end I figured out where we needed to be. For the most part we all stayed upright the entire day, except for Jason who managed to hit the ground a couple of times.(Look for the video later in the week). For the first time ever, I managed to clear the technical rock climb by Mo's cut. My clearing of this section was fueled by Jason's proposal of buying my lunch if I managed to clear it. ;) Rick also made a few valiant runs at the climb, a couple more trips to the Shed and he's going to own that climb.
The last half of the ride was a bit rough, we were all out or low on water and it's literally an uphill battle back to the car. At one point Rick became so desperate for water that he filled his hydration pack up at one of the ponds.(Hope you're OK Rick!) Mehdi and Jason led the pack for most of the way back. My hands were sore and blistered due to the poor grip choice I made on my rigid hardtail so I ended up walking many of the rocky sections. I hope to resolve this problem by my next ride with a nice new set of super-soft Oury's. Upon arriving at the cars we made a b-line to California Tortilla to replace some of the liquid and calories we burned off. Can't wait to do it again. Hopefully this coming weekend.......
No comments:
Post a Comment