Last ride of the year

The year is over. Cheated the wind by going to Sac. Still muddy in places but much better than XMAS day. Been doing some tweaking to the SSer this weekend. With a few part swaps I've dropped over a pound and a half off it (21.5ish now). Not sure if its the diet or the parts but it handles a little better. Still needs better tread though. Ground out my dropouts a little more to take some of the excessive tension off my chain. Guess I took a little too much since I threw my chain 3x. Think it was mud building up & pushing it off more than too much slack. I have a little chain tensioner & a guard in mind that should solve both problems; mud & chain drop.

BRRRRR it was chilly washing this off when I got home.

Friday

Friday Night lights didn't happen. Mostly I got blown off for some PRO dude worshipping. Since I'm on the no call list I headed out to Sac solo this afternoon for some PRIMO SSing. Damn the trails were on. You boys missed out. Pretty warm too. The crowded parking lot led me to believe a lot of people were looking to get in some last minute mtbing before the snow tomorrow. I'm having so much fun on the ss'er I think I might even hit the trails in the snow on Sunday just for kicks.

I need to jump back to the beginning of my day to explain a little bit about my Sac experience. This AM I went over to our friends Mark & Mindy's (yes they've heard the Mork & Mindy jokes, most from me) to pull some cable for them in their new home. Mindy's 8 months pregnant & Mark had to work so I got some XMAS spirit & helped out. Easy pulls so not too bad. Except that is for the attic access, its like 30 feet in the air & all they had was a six foot ladder. I had to use some of my mad climbing skills to get up & down. Turns out I'm a little rusty because I crushed my right side ribs on one trip up. Ouch that hurt & still does. Nothing broken, I think, but sure smarts. That made turning to my right while riding hurt a little.

When I got out to Sac I met one of my readers. Every so often someone will come up & ask if I'm Scott & I'll get that deer in the head lights look. UMMM, yes. Turns out he got turned on to the old blog awhile back & checks in every so often. He needs to check in more often because I'm stuck at 90 readers a day, just can't quite make the magic century mark.

The XMAS Cross feast has started. How cool would that be to spend XMAS in Belgium watching 8 races in 2 weeks? That's my version of heaven. The Ridley Factory Team has a girl racing there this year. Check her blog out for a womens view of the XMAS Cross Feast. You can also follow on the Euro Cross Camp blog. & some coverage on Tristan Schouten's Blog.

Sac Scouting report

Yesterday was too nice a day to not get out & ride. So I loaded up the SS MTB & headed to Sac. The parking lot was at full capacity. While kitting up Chris King rolled up with a bike so caked in mud I almost bagged the ride. He gave me some good beta about the trails on the upper section being drier so I figured I was here so I'll get in some riding. Before he loaded up I had to explain to him that there were mountain bikes before 2003. He'd never seen Kooka brake levers or cranks. He was even more surprised to see a Univega Mountain bike. Kids these days.

For the parking lot being jammed the trails were quiet. I only saw a few people riding in packs. Most were friendly though I did get a pretty big snub. Oh well I'm not for everyone. One group was surprised to see me SSing on semi slicks. Makes you a better rider, maybe.

Trails have little mud in some of the corners. The rocky sections are a little slick. I even saw a couple of isolated patches of ice. For the most part very grippy & fast. If we don't get any rain by Friday the trails will be PERFECT! That makes for a great Friday Night Lights with the temp forecasted to get to 63 that day.

After an hour of SSing I changed into to my trail running garb & bagged a big loop on foot. From here till further notice I have a steady diet of SSing & running planned. No geared riding till the new year & then only on the TT bike. If my plan works out after XMAS I'll even be doing a little fixed gear training on the road. That is if my ghetto home conversion works as I have it pictured in my head. Sometimes my ideas don't always transfer to the real world so well.