Wow, what a weekend. First, Friday night I took out the new Cygolite and did about 1.5 hours on the trail (the gps was a little off due to tree cover, fog and rain). Gotta say, even though I have seen it on other people and have ridden while they used it, it was pretty impressive. I used to use 2 Marwi Night Pro lights, one on my helmet, one on the handlebars and while those worked fine, this new one is much better. It took me a bit of time to get the position correct and to get used to riding with just one light, but once that was all said and done, the light worked great. I ran it on medium low and it was more than enough light to see in even the darkest of conditions. I did however, see a skunk, with the business end pointed right at me from about 5 feet away, so that kept things interesting.
Saturday, I headed out for some trail maintenance. I grabbed the dog and the rake and headed to some new trail. After about an hour or so of raking, my cheapo rake handle broke, but I was ok with that. An hour of cleaning trail is better than nothing. Plus, I got to see a jeep stuck deep in some mud.
I normally would feel bad for him, but he is stuck right next to the trail I was working on. So good for him. As I walked by him, I heard the 3 people in the jeep yelling at each other.
Sunday was another fine day for weather, so Kelly and I went out for a little jaunt with the dog and I showed her some more trails that she would be able to ride, at least she will be able to when some leaves are moved as it was pretty hard to follow the trail.
Its official, this morning started off the 2009 biking season. I started workouts this morning instead of “just going out and having fun”. For now, it is some slower base miles on the road bike, designed to get my legs used to the regular pedaling of road biking and getting a specific workout in. As I am still getting my timing down of riding before work, I only went out for an hour and did about 18 miles. Not to bad for 6:30 in the morning, in 40 degree weather. Since I just got a new Shimano Ultegra SL group set up on the bike, it is taking me getting a little used to it as I was always a Campy guy. But some broken parts and some free ones always makes a person change. I also was running some Hutchinson Fusion 2 Tubeless tires and so far, I like them. I think with less pressure, they rode a bit nicer than the Michelin Pro3s I took off the bike. The big advantage of the Hutchinson’s is that there is actually stock of the tires and they know how to meet the demands of the people. I really can’t say much about the tires, as I only rode 20 miles on them, but I am guessing by the end of the week, I should have a solid opinion on them.
Tonight after work, going to take the single speed out for a little go around with some people from work to find more trails. I plan on taking it east, to keep in line with this weeks plan.
