A First

For this year at least. Marcy's and my first mountain bike ride together happened this weekend.  Lets hope that there are many more to come but first we need to build a cage for Brynna to stay in while we're out...

Right before the start.  We really need to get some landscaping

done so that the chickens will have something other than rocks to eat...

Rolling from the casa rockin last year's kit.  The new kits

are in and looking pretty sweet.  Can't wait to try them out.

somewhere in ze schmid

a rare moment of me being series and Marcy being the goofy one.

Good times were had but, sadly, we don't get these opportunities very often these days.

Last night I made it out on the Wednesday night Cyclemania mountain bike ride.  There is usually a good, fast group there putting the hurt on so I went mentally prepared for a butt kicking and boy, did it get kicked!  I'd never ridden the Cape Elizabeth trails before and it had dumped rain right before the ride so the trails' continuous slick rocks and roots were a challenge to be sure.  Thankfully, I had two very fast sets of wheels to TRY to follow and I found myself pushing at race pace for the duration of the ride literally sailing through the technical sections as I gave chase.  Having such fast dudes in front of you really motivates you to push past your comfort level which I did in spades.  When you're in a world of hurt, with total tunnel vision and snot laces hanging from your nose, who really cares about those pesky roots?

Our average speed was just a hair under 10mph which is pretty freaking amazing given the conditions and if you were to deduct the couple of short stops for air adjustments and my chain falling off (twice!) you're looking at 11mph for the ride.  I need to ride with these boys more!


This was only my second really hard effort of 2011 (last wednesday's group road ride being the other) so I was pretty happy with how I felt.  I've got a decent amount of rides in my legs so far this year and now it's finally time to get things amped up.  Bring it!!!  (if you can't tell, I'm kind of psyched to have had such a fast and fun (through the pain) ride).