Mountain Biking

Yesterday I went mountain biking w/Ryan P. at New Fane. It was a BLAST! I am borrowing a Trek Superfly 100 from Extreme Ski & Bike. I am trying to get some needed handling skills for a race that I want to do in October up in Sheboygan.
We didn't ride each loop separately. I am not sure how this works, but what we did was follow the painted arrows for the most part. These trail are marked with "loop #'s", 1, 2, 3 and 4. I thick our loop was like 5 - 5.5 miles. The trail is a lot better than what it used to be when I rode there about 15 years ago! It is all single track which is what I have always loved! It made me wish I had a mountain bike again, but not going to happen.
I led the first lap gaping Ryan many times and pretty easily. We were riding much faster than our handling for sure. Ryan went off the trail a couple times and even crashed once. He led the second lap and I was able to stick on him like glue. He said he tried to lose me a couple times, but it wasn't happening. I am going to say that it is all bike, because he was riding a cheap hard tail! My handling might be just a hair better than his. When I was following him, he wasn't choosing very good lines.
We are going again tonight and we a bringing lights so we can ride a bit longer. I am hoping to see others out there, would be nice to check my levels with other mountain bikers before my race, just to get an idea where I am at. This would help me decide if I should race sport or comp.

CF Cycle for Life

This past weekend (9/8/12) Tammy and I did a charity ride to help raise money for Cystic Fibrosis. I first would like to thank all of those that donated! Thanks a lot, it means so much to me. The ride started at 7:30am and in the town of Middleton. It was a cool morning and very windy, but sunny, thankfully. I rode the 50 mile route and Tammy rode the 25 miles route. The route was very challenging will lots of climbs and the wind made it that much harder. The route was the same as last year which was a good thing because some of the marking were gone. I am assuming someone didn't like them there or were just being asses. I did pass an intersection that I remember from the past year, but thought they changed the route. Not the case, I didn't make it to far before I had some come up to me at an intersection and say we were suppose to turn back there. So, later in the ride when the markings weren't there I just turned where it did the previous year. I can't believe I remembered the route from last year.

My fitness is coming back slowly and I compared my ride this year to last years. This year I was a .5mph faster and used @ 200 more kjs. Oh yeah, one other thing, my rear derailleur cable almost broke on my too. I new it was breaking with @ 15 miles to go so I tried to shift as little as possible.

Sunday Tammy and I went for a 8 mile hike on the Ice Age Trail just north of Hwy H and headed north. We are really enjoying hiking lately, just might be our new Sunday thing.