Poo Finger

Over on DAMNelsons I have started a weekly column called “Ricky’s Knee” where I will give all sorts of advise on being a father, husband, annoying etc. If you’re wondering how you’re going to handle being a dad it would be good to check out. If you’re having trouble satisfying your wife, future articles might be worth checking out. If you want to read about baby poop, you most certainly want to check it out. So, in short, check it out. It may not be all that useful but hopefully it will be funny in a sort of “I can’t believe I just wasted five minutes of my life reading this” kind of way.

Back to riding. Yesterday, I met up with my bud Kevin to ride some of this weekend’s race course down at Bradbury State Park. Neither of us had a bike computer so I’m not sure how much distance we actually covered but I’m guessing we hit about ½ of the course’s 30 miles in about two hours. Factor in an increased race pace and I’m guessing we’re looking at about a 3 ½ hour race. Its really hard to say for sure but that’s my guess. One thing is for certain, most of the trails are going to be slower than usual because smack dab in the middle of really fun, fast sections they have added new trails (to lengthen the course) and thereby totally screwing your speed and momentum. Thankfully most of the new trail that I saw seemed to be fairly rideable but some of it will be downright brutal come race day. It also looks like they are saving all of the climbing and super technical trails for the last ½ of the course. Thanks a pantload for that one. It will be sweet to hit all of the brutal climbs and scary descents when I’ve already been at redline for over two hours. It should be mucho fun. Bitching aside, I think it is going to be a sweet race and should actually be really fun assuming I make it through in one piece.

After the ride we ran into Leslie and Olivia. Les is a good friend of Marcy’s and a former Bikeman teammate and Olivia is a current teammate and the dutchess of dirt from two years ago. When I saw them standing at Les’ car, I cruised up and tried to do a rear wheel skid but f’ed it up and almost face planted right in the middle of the parking lot. Leave it to me to screw up a move that any self respecting 5 year old has mastered. Damn, my tech skills are lame!

This morning I woke up with a somewhat gimpy right knee. It must have been the 2 ½ hours of single speed gear mashing that did it since before this week, I hadn’t ridden that small wheeler in almost three months. So its vitamin I time for me so I can get rid of the soreness before this weekend. Fingers crossed.