10/22/05

on an october saturday last year a girl from philly got up early in the morning to drive to an estate in delaware to go watch some boy she'd met a couple of times do some kind of bike race. the boy was from dc.

she was worried she wouldn't be able to find him; he was worried it would be really muddy and cold and she'd have a miserable time.

they found each other, he won his race, they didn't have a miserable time. they went back to her house and hung out in her kitchen while she made spaghetti for her friends and then they went to a halloween party (she was a cowgirl; he was the black knight).

on the way home he held her hand...

Postscript: i wrote this post last week. on friday night i proposed to heather. she said yes.

barbeque

good riding this weekend... wakefield on saturday, gambrill on sunday.

saturday was the MORE picnic at wakefield. heather went with a beginner group and i ended up leading a small group (dom, ashmore, junkins, and myself) over to accotink. once we were over there i gave up point to junkins, who did a much better job of picking a fun route than i would have. we had a good ride, in spite of my slowly softening rear tire and dom cramping up a bit. it was good to ride with jason, who i've hardly seen at all this year, again.

once we were done with the ride we headed back over to the picnic and heard the tale of heather's run-in with a tree -- it sounded a lot like mine on thursday -- and then we ate some great bbq and fries (and i had a few too many desserts) and hung out for a while.

wakefield...

wakefield ride tonight
dark, wet, twisty, slick, slippery
rode with the fast guys, rode fast, rode well, leaning over the bike, feeling it slide around
got off my line in the trees, hit one
a little scraped, a little brusied, otherwise ok

DCist photo of the day!

one of my shots from douthat was photo of the day yesterday on DCist...

douthat...

while the full douthat recap is in the works here's the short version and a couple of pictures...

it was pretty cold in the mornings...

but many people still showed up (even if they were a little slower getting up)

and, as always, the riding at douthat was very, very, good.

more pics on flickr

even if you'd rather they did

the character's won't leave you alone...

at jimmy buffet's margaritaville in orlando with bob and john

now thats more like it

ed sanders cyclocross today. got a better position at the start line and had a fairly good start, took the first 1/2 lap fairly easy, my legs weren't feeling great, but then started to push a little bit on the B loop. the course was flat, winding around the ponds at lilypons, with a lot of hard 90-degree turns that got pretty muddy as the day wore on.

2nd lap i was riding with mike and we were closing in on The Bike Lane's dave crouse when mike took a corner badly and took a tumble into one of the ponds. we'd been trying to work together to make up some ground, but i decided to go it alone. i was able to keep reeling in a couple of riders a lap, moving up through the field slowly and surely to finish 19th out of 62 starters. on the last lap i was closing in on a snow valley rider and was able to catch him at the top of the downhill into the start finish but just wasn't able to get around him on the last corner before he hit the downhill. he got a little ahead on the downhill and i just couldn't catch him before the finish line.

the mud made it a good course for mountain bikers... being able to hold more speed through the corners and stay on the bike on a couple of short and muddy 50/50 climbs was a big help. i think i rode a good race, attacking where i knew i could make a difference and getting gaps on riders to give myself a chance to recover.