The more the merrier!

Thanks to Cornfed for finding this sweet photo of your boy in action. Thanks to the photographer and the race promoters for such an awesome day. I am counting the days until I return to Snake Creek Gap.


Work:
The week's end was closure to a few projects that have been lingering in my court for quite some time now. The most important on this list was making contact with a well know cycling media personality and organizing a custom bike build for test and review. Now that I have that ball rolling, I can mix that project into the tempest that is my work load. I will offer more details on that subject as they develop...it's hush hush right now. j/k. In exchange of one monkey for another, Boss Man drops the NAHBS on me late Thursday afternoon. We have less than 1 month to prepare and build what we need for the show. From bikes and parts to graphics and shipping, we all have our hands full or fuller. We rocked out a plan and had our marching orders within an hour...we are going to blow this show up...just a sample of what we have planned.

Ride:
This is Bishop's last weekend in town before he rolls out to WNC. We were hanging out at my pad on Friday night after work trying to decide where to ride. All we could agree on was wanting to go out and rock the trails one more time on an epic ride. Then out of the blue Bishop gets a call from friend and former Krystals team mate Jon McLaughlin. Within a few minutes we had a meeting time and place for a day of mountain biking. The Tanasi it is.

Saturday we rolled out at 7:30am and had an uneventful trip to and through Cleveland, TN which is all you could ask for. We arrived at the Thunder Rock campground to frigid temps and damp air. That is the rough part about being down in the dense Tennessee valleys along the rivers, it is easily 15 to 20 degrees cooler. When you begin climbing and work your way to the top of some of these mountains, it gets warm fast. We took off pretty quick because the thought of climbing to warm up started to sound pretty good. As we found a quick pace up the fire road it became clear that it was going to be a power day on the bike. Which was fine with me since I had a pretty chill week due to the rain.

Throughout the day while zipping up and down some of Tennessee's finest single track, we only ran into a few other riders. Early on in the day we ran into a few guys climbing a section we were descending. And later we ran into a couple of ladies that we riding strong. The last few times I have been out there I have seen some black bear. Jon, Bishop and I talked about bears and each of our experiences seeing them out there. After a while I was hoping to see some bears after we talked about them while climbing up a long section of single track. Never happened. They should be sleeping right now anyway. They will be freaking people out all Spring, Summer and Fall...they need to rest up for that. I would say that we had an amazing day on the trail. That may have been the fastest I have ever ridden those trails. Jon knows that place so well that we had a hard 4 hour day at tempo and only left the single track a few times. It took me a while to get settled in to my pace, but once I was there it felt great. I went all out several times throughout the day just to test the legs. All is working well. I cannot wait to get back out there. Maybe even before the next Snake? More photos of the day are here.

Later that night I went out to dinner with the wife, her co-worker and his wife. Couples dating...what a rush. Actually, Will and Andrea were great to hang out with. A liberal couple from Cali, one a History professor and the other a creative copy-writer, a solid intellectual couple. We had no shortage of conversation and I think we all had a good time. It is always nice to hang with some left coast liberals, there is a major shortage of them down here in the deep South. What is they say about birds of a feather? New friends are good...both on and off the bike.