Big Bikes

This Procrastination's Saving Grace

Ya so I haven't quite got my Great Glen 24 report together yet. Been a little distracted...my favorite girl in the world got banged up last saturday out on her mountain bike. She went down hard after cleaning a thing they call "The Log Roll" up at Massabesic in New Hampshire. What happened to her leg is about the closest thing to a machete wound you'll find this side of Rwanda. 3" deep, 6" wide, and 10" long, seems unimaginable, I know, but I've seen it, it's real...real bad. The thing got infected and now she's back in the hospital hooked up to a bunch of tubes and machines that go Bing! For about a week. Without her at home I find myself drinking too much beer and watching Star Trek The Next Generation.
I have ridden my bike a couple times, old stomping grounds rides at Noanet Woodlands in Dover and Wrentham State Forest. It's fun to go back to these places where I used to be a ninety pound weakling (more like 190lb.fat ass) getting sand kicked in my face and now I've got my Charles Atlas program going and I get to whup-up on these trails that used to kick my ass.

I was also trying out some new tires: Kenda Karma 29" 2.2's.Made the Rig feel like a monster truck, in a good way. These tires were supposed to be my new race tires but thanks to BTI mis-listing them as 500 gram tires (too good to be true) when the actual weight is just shy of 800 grams I now have some fun non-race tires. Man I wish they were lighter! These guys kick ass, what a great tire, so frickin' moto. I was ripping around Dover inbetween hospital visits, then I made a foray into Hale reservation where it looked like the camp couselors over there had just finished celebrating the last day of camp. I came upon a little beach and a little cooler upon that beach, what was in the cooler? Beer, cold Bud cans. Not exactly my cup of tea but this was the beverage with which my high school painting crew was rewarded after a hot day of attacking suburban homes with paint brushes like marauding Mongol hordes. So like a trained lab rat I scooped one out of the melting ice, looked around to see if anyone was looking and cracked it, took a few good swigs, and then I heard a truck coming down the road to the beach. I dropped the can in a pile with the rest of the empties, 'cross mounted my bike and hightailed just as any high school kid drinking under a bridge on a friday afternoon would do when busted. It was a silly thing to do but that was a damn fine tasting beer.

Today I shot down to Wrentham to visit Gramma and do what is literally the "Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go" ride. The stuff down in those parts was primarily cut by Motocross bikes not hikers so they have this thing called "flow". Ya sure you got to give trail to a few armor-clad yahoos and suck on some two stroke fumes but it's the wild, wild south east and what you get in return far outweighs the drawbacks and at the end of the ride you get to jump in Lake Archer.
Oh, and while I'm all over the place and nowhere in particular here's a shot of me at the Shenandoah 100 from last year, I'm cramping massively and somehow this photgrapher caught the moment.
His stuff is really good, check it out, his name's Joe Foley. Far superior to your average "hey kid, here's a picture of you head on with your race number clearly visible doing nothing at all exciting" event photographer.
Great Glen report...forthcoming...I...promise.