Case Mountain Ride

Riders: John Sattar, Andy C., Dave H., Glenn, Jim, Mickey, John Stockford, Doug M., Rick, Michael, Jill

Super cold morning, but clear and sunny. We took a gamble and organized 2 ride lengths – one to start at Gay City for a twenty miler with John Sattar and a 2nd shorter ride starting at the towers with me for 12 miles or so. We figured it would give our racer’s a chance to get a good training ride in and if nobody showed then John would huff it up to Case to join the shorter mileage ride. It worked out pretty good, John started at Gay City with Andy and caught up to the rest of the crew as we were climbing up past the reservoir. We ran into Dave who thought the ride was at 9am and caught up with us from the Girl Scout camp. He, John, and Andy chatted with us for a bit then continued their sufferfest, I mean really fun training ride! Case was kind to us this week, no mechanicals, no injuries, and only one crash that I saw – but it was quick and painless (I think) so we won’t hold it against the mountain. We followed a pretty traditional route for this ride to make sure John would know where to find us if he was solo so it ended up being quite a bit of climbing. Everyone hung in and rode really well today (especially Stockford – it was his first mtb ride since his back surgery!), must mean we are starting to get our Spring legs back. We joined back up with Dave at the bottom of Fern. He decided not to head over to Gay City to finish the ride with John and Andy seeing he was parked at the girl scout camp so he finished up the ride with us then headed back. So excellent ride, and not just because Rick brought my girl scout cookies, it was because the trails were firm, the conversation was plentiful, we had a huge crew (love seeing a parking lot full of bikes and cars!), there was no whining whatsoever, and our grand master plan of 2 rides worked to perfection! – Jill

The March 30th 12 mile ride is purple and the red is the March 22nd ride.

Grayville

Riders: Doug, Glenn, Jim, Andy M., Michael, Jill

Ahhhh, a great ride tonight. Sort of makes up for all the problems we had at Case on Saturday. We followed our old route without any discussion tonight. The lower trails were still a bit soft and muddy and there were quite a few new bridges and boards to cross but after we got through the lower windy sections the trail firmed up and it turned into hardpack. Nice steady riding, haven’t been to Grayville in a while and forgot how much fun it can be. The temperature dropped steadily while we were out there, at least 10 degrees or more but we kept the pace up and stayed pretty warm. Great route, great crew, great riding, 20 degrees warmer would be perfect! – Jill

Case Mountain

Riders: Glenn, Jim, Dave H., Michael, Jill

Ummm, let’s see. Michael and Jim flatted in the 1st mile of the ride. It was about 28 degrees and the wind was howling, my hands were numb, Dave had to be home by 11am and it was already 9:45 or so when the flats got fixed. We rode for a little while, it warmed up a bit, Dave found a Mercedes car key and split off to try to find the owner, we saw a huge bikerag crew then Glenn got a stick in his der. and the hanger snapped. Then Michael’s inner gps broke and we ended up following a crazy long fire road out to Birch Mountain Road while Glenn ran with some pushes from Jim. Out on the paved road Jim decided to ride ahead to get his car and come back to pick Glenn up. While we were waiting for Jim we decided to keep heading toward the car so I took Glenn’s pack and Michael pushed him on the flats, he coasted down the hills, and ran the uphills. About 50 yards before the parking lot we ran into Jim coming to get Glenn but we were almost there. So I’d give this ride a 2 out of 10 although everyone said they had a good ride it was almost like a comedy of errors. Giving Case a break for a while, the mountain was not nice to us today… – Jill

Mystic Velo Road Ride

Riders: Skip, Kelly, Mark, Mark, Little Dave F., Michael, Jill, ???

All I have to say is I’m thankful I survived this ride and I really, really hope Mike T. is back next Thursday to lead it. Can you say hill, hills, more hills, and Noble hill repeats? It’s Thursday a night ride and it’s March Mystic Velo!!!

Case Mountain

Riders:  Andy M., Michael, Jill
Ok, we are back to our regular weekday rides now that that we have some extra daylight.  Mentally it makes a big difference to begin a weeknight ride while it’s still light out.  Good to see Andy again, with his new schedule he can’t ride on Sunday’s anymore.  A little late to start while I fiddled around with my new toy.  My polar hrm died so I just got a Suunto hrm with a gps pod and wanted to test it during the ride.  It worked great by the way.  So we definitely wanted to avoid Tinti after seeing what a mess it was on Sunday so after much discussion and Andy and I not giving much input we ended up riding up the power lines and taking the first right down then up toward slick rock.  Very shaky start for me but Andy and Michael zoomed right down.  By the time we got to slick rock I felt fine and started to enjoy the ride.  Michael headed toward the stunt trail and Andy and I followed.  We got a little lost, there are so many side trails now that seem to lead nowhere that it got pretty confusing.  Ended up following another group for a little while until it became clear that they also had no idea where they were going.  Andy and I were absolutely no help.  We just followed Michael because we knew he would get us out of there (although Andy did take a mental tally of how much food was in his pack).  After his display of inner gps abilities at Cockaponsett a while back we know we can just blindly follow him and he will find the way.  And he did.  Headed up toward the fort and a gentle snow started to fall, it was quite a sight with the snow falling, the deer, the silence (except for the excessive screeching of my brakes on every downhill).  Started to feel like I could actually push it up the Fern trail and thought I was going to catch Michael but every time I got close he picked up the pace.  Headed down the power lines and shockingly Andy and I both mucked up the steep descent down the power lines.  That’s the first time I’ve done that in years, got ¾ of the way down and jammed right into the banking.  I think I messed Andy up too with that little mess even though he said no.  This was a really, really good ride, conditions were great, the snow was cool, the temps were perfect… – Jill

Case Mountain

Riders: Andy C, Glenn, Rick, Doug, Michael, Jill
Wow, first Sunday Case Mountain ride in forever. We’ve definitely been doing too many rides at Bluff because the Case ride was a tough reminder that it’s spring, I haven’t been riding enough, the climbs hurt, and I forgot how to ride over rocks. Of course the 11 mile trail run I did on Friday probably didn’t help but holy crap those climbs were rough. We headed down the Tinti trail to the reservoir which ended up being really muddy so we avoided the worst of it and headed toward the lookout and with Andy’s help ended up with a pretty good loop. Glenn had his 29er today and seemed to have no problem with the climbing because I barely saw him or Andy the whole time. The weather held out with just a fine mist throughout the morning so we really lucked out. Rick ended up getting a flat just before the pink trail but Andy and Glenn had already headed down so we convinced Michael to head down to let them know and decided we would meet them over on the rocky part of the blue trail after Rick fixed the flat. Of course this was totally unfair seeing Michael was on the Enduro but Doug and I would have done anything to get out of making that long climb back up the blue at that point. Plus we had to give Rick moral support (even though he forgot to bring our girl scout cookies!) while he fixed his flat, he needed us – well he needed my bike pump… A lot of yapping and catching up and judging from the total ride time (2:55) verses the actual ride time (1:56), there was much more yapping than riding. Ran into Matt on our way out, there were a lot of people out enjoying the trails today. Oh – for those of you who remember riding with Karl, he has moved back to the US from South Africa has recently purchased another bike and will start riding with us again very soon. Welcome back Karl!!! – Jill

Mystic Velo Road Ride in Norwich

Riders:  Kelly, Mike, Mark, Kim, Steve, ?, Michael, Jill

I survived the first Mystic Velo ride of the year, got dropped a couple times on the climbs but not too bad considering it’s only my 2nd road ride this season.  Michael breezed through it without breaking a sweat.  What a great welcome by super Kelly (riding a fixed speed bike!), he was pretty psyched to see some Nerac Earth riders especially after we only got to one Hartman ride this year.  He wanted to know where everyone else was so I totally expect to see some more yellow Nerac Earth jackets in the parking lot next week.  Please come out and suffer with me, I mean have fun and ride with me…  We did get pelted with hail toward the end of the ride so I’d rate this ride a 9 out of 10 for freaky weather.  I always love riding during strange weather, it seems to punch up your adrenaline.  Hmmm, am I a danger junky?  Maybe.  Only one car/bike incident when somebody beeped at us when they couldn’t pass on the narrow road.  Mom was driving with her kids in the car while she screamed at us as she finally passed our crew.  That’s always a nice touch.  But on the positive side I think we made some little kid’s very happy. Lots of little ones on the side of the road yelling Hi to us and so excited to get a Hi back.  I think everyone enjoyed being outside and not on the trainer even though it was a little on the chilly side.  Really liking the early time change this year.  So, fun ride, fun people, fun weather (sort of), great seeing Mark, Kelly and Mike again.  Oh and Kelly – I’ll have to post a pic of all my Mary Janes for you… – Jill