Monday, July 10, 2006

Catching up.

Sorry I’ve been getting behind in posts lately but considering nobody really cares if I post or not, I figure it really doesn’t matter anyway. Still, I keep plugging away. Maybe one of these days I’ll be discovered and I’ll have one of them there blog thingies that people actually read and stuff. Yeah, probably not but here goes anyway.

The past week I’ve been trying to focus my energy on getting ready for the upcoming race at the Camden Snow Bowl coming up this Sunday. This year’s course is a bit different from years past because historically a good portion of the race course was on trails that local riders built without permission so this year, the organizers (Mad Mike) decided to keep the race solely on town property until an agreement can be worked out with the land trust that now owns most of the other land surrounding the mountain. As a result of the lost land, the course is now forced to go all the way to the top of the mountain (really just a good sized hill but very steep in areas) and then basically come screaming down to start over again. From what I can tell (the course is not marked yet but I know which trails are on town property) there are going to be essentially no flat areas on the course aside from a couple of traverses across the mountain. It should be a pretty tough race. The opening climb which will most likely take between 20-30 minutes is a total nut buster with about a bizzillion switchbacks. The bleeding from the ears climb will be quickly followed by an ass-behind-the-seat descent that truly scared the crap out of me. Its always nice to be seeing cross eyed when you start a scary descent. From there I believe the course dumps back onto some well used trails from the previous course. It should be a good time and guys who like Mt. Snow (ahem-matt) should check it out. Much nicer trails than Mt. Snow.

Whoo, I digressed a bit there. Long story short, I’m trying to ride at the Snow Bowl at least once a week so that I’ll have the course dialed in.

Saturday A.M. I loaded B-Girl into the Chariot trailer and did a nice and easy road ride. She played happily for a bit and then drifted off to sleep. I rolled into the driveway after an hour and was pretty psyched to finally had a successful trailer ride. This opens up all sorts of possibilities now family rides, long slow grinders, kick ass seated hill workouts etc.

4 comments:

rick is! said...

ah but that is the lovely thing about camden, it has lots-o-climbing but almost none of it is on ski trails!

Wheels said...

Hey Rick, Todd Wheelden here. Do you have any time for a ride at the Bowl either Wednesday or Thursday afternoon? I'd like to check out the nastiness.

rick is! said...

as a matter of fact, I'll be riding there thursday evening. I have a client meeting in rangely thursday morning but should be back in time to ride by 5-5:30. If that timeframe works for you, let me know.

Wheels said...

Sweet. I'll plan to be at the base lodge at 5:15. Let's take the chairlift up!