Exhibit A, I've ridden my bike only 3 times in those 2 weeks. It's not that I don't want to, it's just that things haven't been working out for me to get out there. Like now, we got a good bit of rain in town yesterday so it'll be a while before we can get on the trails again.
Exhibit B: Saturday Richard and I went up to Huntsville to ride some trail. I was really excited and motivated to get some good riding in. Unfortunately there was a trail run that day we didn't know about so the trails were pretty crowded. After about 7 minutes I had a stupid crash over a 1" root drop. I have no idea what happened, I was in a gentle turn over a few small roots, just cruising, when suddenly with no warning my front end was pushing and then I was smashing myself to pieces on the ground. I got up after a minute of laying dazed and confused to find a bloody knee and a hurt thumb on one hand and a hurt pinky on the other. I rubbed some dirt on it and we got back underway. We were just cruising and having fun, enjoying some good weather and nice trail conditions. Then about mile 6 of 10, on the complete opposite side of the lake, Richard's chain fell off. We couldn't find his powerlink, my 10 speed link wouldn't work, and I'd left my chain tool in the car. So we were hosed. I pushed him most of the rest of the 4 miles around the trail. He would walk up the hills when they were really steep, sandy or rough and I couldn't push him. Then he would coast the downhills. But I pushed him a lot. When we got back to the car, he realized he'd lost his glasses somewhere on the trail. I got the chain fixed and we went out to look for the glasses on the last few miles of the trail. We had to ride slow looking for the glasses, and we were going against traffic so it wasn't much fun. We turned around and rode back, then found that someone had turned in his glasses at one of the trail run aid stations, that was pretty much the only positive point of the day. We got about 5 more minutes of singletrack then we had to leave. It was a pretty dismal day overall, but still was good to just get out in the woods for a while and we did get a little bit of good riding in so I'll take it.
In non-biking/racing news, after Easter I took a couple of days off and we went on a little family mini-vacation. Monday we went down to the Houston Zoo for a few hours, then we drove on to Galveston to stay a night. We found a good deal at the San Luis Resort right on the beach. This was Ben's first trip to the beach and he had a blast playing in the waves with me. We would wade out and I held his hand and jumped him over the waves. Then he got comfortable enough to squat down in the shallows and let the waves hit him. We had a nice dinner, then the next morning we played in the hotel pool for a while. He can't swim or even float by himself in his lifejacket yet, so it was mostly me holding him and walking around, but we did go down the waterslide a couple of times. He loved that. After we checked out we went to Moody Gardens to the aquarium. Ben just wanted to see the big sharks, of course they were at the very end of the walkthrough, but he did really like a lot of the other things. Raine was a real trooper walking around everywhere being pregnant. The idea was hers to go and it was a really good one, it was great to have a long weekend with them just hanging out.
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| Ben at the petting zoo |
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| Enjoying the view off the hotel room balcony |
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| Ben at the Moody Gardens Aquarium |
This weekend is LOCO Fest up in Shreveport. My old friends at LOCO (Louisiana Off-Road Cycling Organization) put this race on and I always try to make it up to support them. They do a good job with the race promotion and the trail is a blast so it's not really a burden to go to. My thumb and pinky from the crash last weekend are both pretty sore and purple, but maybe I can ride? I don't expect much from my fitness due to my not having any good riding lately, but hopefully I can just have a good fun day and enjoy the event.
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