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Saturday night was the MNSCS Awards Party at Quality Bicycle Products. That place is ginormous, and very, very cool. The Peace Coffee crew grabbed a lot of hardware: several riders winning or in the top 3 in their age group and class, plus we Comp racers got second place in the team standings. I squeeked out second place for the season by 2 points, finally finishing in the top 3. We got a sweet Park multi-tool and a nice framed photo from superstar photographer Dana Schoppe for our awards. It was nice to see everybody one more time before the annual winter hibernation.
Somebody needs to integrate Playstation controls into a bike handlebar (that idea ©2008 Chris Van Ert). How cool would that be? Some sort of funky STI shifter/hood configuration. Anything to kill the boredom of indoor trainer riding.
Got out with the "Friday Night Lights" group and hit Theo. My new lights weren't working for some reason so I borrowed a backup set. That was my first night ride in a couple of years, and I forgot how much fun it is. The hard stuff gets easy because you don't see it until you're right on it and your brain doesn't have time to tell you to freak out, so you just let the bike ride right over it without thinking about it. The easy stuff gets harder when the shadows start playing tricks on you. Hopefully the weather cooperates and I'll be able to get out for a few more in the coming weeks.
Saturday I hit Battle Creek with Ton, Kevin, Andy, Jamison and Mario. Ton must have saved all of his training for this ride because he was setting a very painful pace from the moment we left the parking lot. We hit the upper section, down and back up the sand and across the road to the middle section. Down the Wall of Death and over to the section by the lower lot. Ton skipped the hard climb to the top and took us to the switchbacks and down to the abandoned road. The new Overlook Trail is pretty sweet. When you go from the bottom up, there's some good technical climbs and sharp turns. There's also a nice "skinny" feature towards the end consisting of a foot-wide, elevated concrete wall that zig-zags for about 50 yards or so. Nice painful climb up to the overlook. Checked out some other trails, then headed back. Rode for about an hour-and-a-half but if felt longer than that with the fast pace. My legs are still sore today. The post-ride carbo load at the Black Dog hit the spot.
