Day 400 - Pre-Hurricane Ride

The first hurricane of the season, named Alex, is headed for the Rio Grande Valley. It was projected to make landfall Wednesday night in northern Mexico about 100 miles south of Brownsville. Instead of making hurricane precautions at my house, I called for pre-hurricane ride. Got to have your priorities straight. Bike first, hurricane second. LOL. The National Weather Service was projecting hurricane Alex to dump 6 to 12 inches of rain on us. That meant the trails would be flooded for a few days to a week. Headed out to the trailhead and met up with Nick, Grape, Marty, Marcos, Tweezer, and Ridehard. We took turns leading the group and putting in a good, fast pace. You know it is a good ride when people hit the dirt. Tweezer went down on one of the loose Berms. Ridehard also hit the dirt. We ended up doing at 10 to 12 miles. Satisfied I went home to get ready for the hurricane.

Day 395 - No Fear Grape

Rode with Grape today at the trails. Grape is one of the best mountain bike riders in the club. He's fast and has no fear when it comes to riding, especially technical stuff that no one else would dare ride. I remember on a ride at Sullivan City back in 2008, when he did a gnarly, 20 foot, descent down a steep, rocky drop that was scary just looking at it. That's the picture I took of him riding it. What made it more impressive is that he rode it on my old Trek Fuel since his bike was messed up. He just hoped on it and rode it like it was nothing. Anyway, back to our ride. Since it was just him and me, I was expecting it to be a fast ride, since there would be no one to slow us down. I was wrong. His back was wack. He rode slow and gingerly, not wanting to aggrevate his back. He managed to finish the new lap and we finished up our ride. I hope his back gets better. I don't like riding slow. I like the No Fear Grape.

Day 391 - That's Why Its Called Tweezer

Nico and I rode our singlespeeds on Saturday morning at the trails. I had brought him his fixed bike and he was looking forward to trying it out. We hit the trails with him in the lead. He put in a fast pace. I was impressed. We were flying on the Upper Levy Run. He kept up the pace until Jackhammer when we slowed down for a while. He enjoyed riding his singlespeed. I took this picture of him as he came blazing around a turn. His singlespeed is fun to ride, since he has a high rise stem. His handlebar position almost feels like you are riding a chopper. We were riding along fine on Tweezer when he came too fast in a turn and I heard a loud crash. He went down after losing his front wheel in the loose dirt. Luckily, he fell next to and not into a cactus. He did pick up a few cactus thorns, which he pulled out with a tweezer. That's why it is called Tweezer. We mounted our bikes and rode, finishing up where we started on the Upper Levy Run. He made all the climbs. It was a fun ride.

Day 389 - Grass in My Shorts!

Ate a bunch of my mom's chicken salad - yummy! - before I headed out for a bike ride with Ridehard. Bad idea. Ridehard said we were going to take it easy. He must of meant in the parking lot, cause he took off like a rabbit as soon as we hit the trails. We completed half of the new lap up to El Gato climb and I had to stop because my stomach hurt. Stood still for a a minute or two hoping my stomach, which was turning summersaults, would settle down. It didn't help. Something wanted to come out. Hastily, I bummed a small roll of toilet paper from Ridehard and went off to find a secluded spot in the tall grass. I dropped trou and squatted, trying not to poop on myself. Quickly it came out. It was mushy. I wiped, pulled up my shorts and started walking back to Ridehard. As I walked back, I kept feeling something poking me. I stuck my hand into the back of my shorts and felt around and pulled out a few long strands of Johnson grass. I has grass in my shorts! It must of gotten stuck in there while I was pulling up my shorts. It was comical, like the scene in a movie where the roll of toilet paper gets stuck in someone's pants and trails behind them as they unknowingly walk around as everyone laughs. We shared a good laugh, got back on our bikes, and finished up our ride. Mountain biking tip: always carry tp in your camelback, and always check your shorts before you pull them up! LOL.

Day 387 - Tired of Being a Skinny Scarecrow

After months of procrastination, I finally began weight training. I'm tired of getting pushed around and being called a "bag of bones". Ha, if you remember those print ads you're old, like me. The real reason is I wanted to strengthen my core. Mountain biking works the legs, but not the upper body. I purchased an e-book online on a MTB-specific workout with dumbells. Took some exercises from it and added my own. My workout consists: situps, pushups, plank, curls, overhead press, reverse lunges, and squat. I started with 10 lb. dumbells for the curls, press, lunges, and squat. I do three sets of repetitions of each exercise, except for pushups. I could only do 5 pushups. How pathetic! I'm hoping that increasing my core strength will lessen the back soreness that has been lingering with me for the past 6 months. Will see if it works. I don't like lifting weights. It feels like a chore. It is not as exciting as riding my mountain bike. Will see how long it lasts.

Day 386 - Singlespeed Workout

I rode Sunday afternoon. Took out my singlespeed for a spin. She was getting lonely since I had ridden her in a while. Enjoyed my singlespeed ride. It is a good leg workout. When you want to accelerate on a singlespeed you have to stand up and crank. Same goes for climbing. I think I may be too spoiled when riding my full suspension bike. It's easy to stay in the saddle and spin. You can't be lazy when riding a singlespeed. The only thing I don't like about riding my singlespeed is my body takes a beating. Been seriously thinking about moving to a 29er singlespeed to smooth out the trail. Today marked the third consectutive day that I have ridden. I rode Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I estimate I have ridden 30 miles this week. For me that is good.

Day 385 - The Cure for the Hangover

Was dragging most of the day. Had a few too many frosties last night celebrating the wedding. Popped two aspirin in the morning and drank a lot of water. Ridehard, on of my riding buddies, called up and asked if I wanted to ride later in the afernoon. I didn't feel so great, but said yes. I met him at the trails at 6 p.m. and we got in a ride. Mcfly, one of our club members, was out there when we got there so he rode with us too. It was hot so we spun at a moderate pace, around 13 mph. We rode all the rideable trails, putting in nine miles. Cooled down with a cold Session frosty when I got home. Its a black lager brewed in Oregon. Good stuff. Felt much better afterward. A ride and a cold frosty. The cure for the hangover.

Day 379 - Drop the Hammer!

After putting in a hard day of trail maintenance on Saturday morning at Mission, I rewarded myself by going down to Brownsville on Sunday to ride the Monte Bella Park trails. Ridehard and a few of our club members met us down there for an afternoon ride. I suspected that is was going to be a fast ride since some of the fast guys -- AC, Hector (that's Hector climbing in the pic), and Richard -- were going. My suspicions were confirmed less than 50 yards into the ride when Hector puts up a fast pace. I'm content to stick to his wheel with AC in tow. I thought the first lap was fast, until AC took over on the 2nd lap and dropped the hammer! I managed to stick with him for 1/2 of the lap until we got into the twisty stuff when he dropped me. I thought I would have an advantage on the tight stuff since I was riding a 26" wheel bike and he was riding a 29er. Boy was I wrong. Those big wheels had much better traction. He also pedaled through the turns. I usually coast through turns. I hadn't thought about it before, but I noticed that by constantly pedaling through the turns he was able to accelerate quicker out of the turns.I need to work on that. We rode another lap and replenished our lost carbs with a couple of ice cold frosties before heading home.

Day 378 - Fixed at Last

Fed up after weeks of trying to fix Nico's bike into a singlespeed, I had dropped the bike off at the bike shop to see if they could fix it. I had already replaced the middle chainring, and had the rear wheel trued, and it still skipped under power. Well it turns out the bike shop couldn't fix it either. They couldn't get the chain sized to the proper size. That was the same problem I had. Then a light bulb clicked on brightly in my head. "Why don't you go down to a smaller cog on the rear wheel so it requires less chain and will engage more of the cog teeth?" He was running a 15T. So I ordered a 14T, which is what I am running on my singlespeed. It came in and I installed it and removed the extra links and viola -- the chain fit like a glove. Now for the moment of truth. Hesistantly, I got on the bike and started to pedal. I stood up and pushed down hard on the cranks and it didn't skip!! Problem solved. I was even able to remove the chain tensioner that he was running before. Fixed at last.