Getting Back on Track!

Well, I have officially been slacking on this blog! After comments from several regular readers of this blog, I had to step up to the plate and update this thing! Since the last time I posted, alot of great rides have occured, Turkey Day has passed, a not-so-fun COLD has taken over my body, and I spent a week in Calgary for work.

Highlights of the last month:

1. Camp-n-Rizzle: Team Backbone's annual Camp-n-Ride was a blast (Nov 5-6). It was Murphy's first camping trip (and visit to the ocean) and he did very well. 10 friends from ESRI joined the festivities and exhibited some fine MTB skills! It was a regular tent city! One of the the highlights of the weekend... seeing my non-racer friends (especially the gals) ride some technical singletrack and overcoming challenges. It was like a mini Women's Only Weekend for me. It got me excited to be an instructor again next year. Hopefully it wont conflict with a NORBA race! Other highlights of the weekend include Jose's Crash and an awesome schwag raffle thanks to Chris, Bob and the sponsors include (everyone took prizes home!) . Jose Larios wins the prize for best crash of the weekend as he managed to taco Greg's Bontrager Race Disc wheel by falling into a 12 ft ravine after falling off a g-out section of trail.

Murphy enjoys his first visit to the ocean!

The trusty Kenda E-Z up among Tent City...

2. ESRI Hell Ride: For the past 15 (?) years a group of MTB enthusiasts from ESRI and friends have embarked on a annual group ride in our local mountains. Typically this group consists of people who ride regularly and even some like myself who race, but this group also includes those who only get on their bikes once a year for this event. After a 2 year hiatus from the event due to fires, Steve Kopp passed the organizational reins over to me. I decided that I wanted to make sure that a wide variety of people could do the ride, so I selected something with multiple routes. We ended up selecting SART from South Fork to Redlands as the long course (45 miles), SART to Redlands via Old 38 for the middle course, and for beginners a loop that consisted of riding from the Middle Control/HWY 38 parking lot to Glass Road, down SART, and up Middle Control. We had a smaller group this year, around 20 riders, but it was a great time! No major injuries, no one got lost and no major mechanicals (other than Chris Sharp's truck in the AM). On the way through the Mentone Wash, 4 or so of us suffered double flats due to an infiltration of goat heads!!! Luckly, Joy's boyfriend Jason, drove us the rest of the way to Uncle Howie's for oost-ride pizza and beer.

The Medium/Long course group at South Fork

The easier of the two unrideable water crossings

3. Calgary: I was in the Great White North for another week (3rd trip to Canada this year) and got to enjoy some real winter weather. It was a very busy week work-wise and I had to do some makeshift workouts. Had it been summertime, I would have rented a bike like I did in Ottawa. Might be heading to Ottawa in January, prob will bring the hockey skates!! It was fun being in a real hockey city, as the Flames were undefeated as of my last day in town.

4. Night Ridin': Finally got out to one of the night rides with Matt Freeman and the guys. Joy and I ventured out Weds night and had a great time. It was a fun ride for sure, and for my first REAL night ride, I think it went pretty well. I have some healthy bruises on my legs, but that is par for the course! I have to get my own helmet light as I have been borrowing Bev's. My new handlebar light (NiteRider Trail Rat) arrived 3 hours before ride time on Weds, but only ended up giving me 1 hour of light. As my night vision is pretty poor, I could have used a second light! However Joy a.k.a "Helen Keller" was using my LED camp light and my Trek commuter handlebar light! If I can get over this bad cold , I will try to ride Weds night again.

5. Cross Racing: Well , I registered for Turkey Trizzle Cross in Glendale (tomorow is the race). However, I am feeling pretty junky. Nose is still totally plugged up and the congestion is moving south! Never a good sign and as it's the offseason, missing tomorrow's race is not the end of the world. I was however, looking forward to racing with Teri Strayer for her first (my 2nd) cross race. She will do great I am sure! I will shoot for Santa Cross on Dec 18 as long as I can stay healthy. I go for Lactate Threshold testing in Santa Monica on Thurs. Guess that means I can't do Weds night ride. Legs have to be fresh for the test.

Well hopefully that gets things fairly up to date for my readers (all three of them.. ok so maybe there would be more if I starting doing daily posts! I can't keep up with Joy!) . It has been a very busy month in many ways!