Monday, October 08, 2007

Yooper Off Road Riding


This past weekend I went to the Upper Peninsula and rode bikes. I forgot my camera so I didn't have any photos, but this morning my pal Kelly graced my in box with three photos. Two are really good and one not so hot since it had grown dark and was raining.

During the weekend, I managed to bust my Rock Shock on my Jamis Dakar. It slides, but has no damping ability whatsoever. I rode it anyway. Made descents terrible. I was leaning over on the handlebars more than usual and my hands took a beating. Some downhills were too rocky and steep and I had to walk down. With the leaves and the rain, skidding and slipping was a constant companion.

I'd also hauled along my Quickbeam and Kelly and I did a fixed gear road ride too. Great fun as we climbed Mount Marquette via the roadway. Its the site of a ski hill, so you can imagine what it was to climb. I've no idea how long it is, but it was a hoot even though by mid way up you begin to rethink your priorities. I had to use the brakes on the way down, I just didn't have the leg to maintain any control at the cadence required. Fixed is fun!

In the photo above, that is Luther on the left, Kelly in the middle and some big oaf that slowed them down all day long. Thankfully some fellow happened by to help by taking the photo. The second photo was taken by Kelly at the top of the first climb before it began to rain. You of course can tell the conditioning of the big dummy as I promptly got prone the moment I found them waiting for me. Hell of a warm up to climb that hill right from the get go. I should have asked Kelly to take a photo of the vista to give an idea of how high the climb was. Otherwise, I'm a lousy estimator and don't know how high we'd just climbed. For me it went downhill from there. Still had fun though. A bad day of cycling even in less than idea weather, is better than a great day at work.

1 comment:

Bill Connell said...

looks like fun rides - a bad day riding is better than a great day of work indeed!