Branched Oak day 2

This morning I was up early again with the plan to head out to Branched Oak Lake for more riding on the race course. Things were looking good when I got up and got the bike on the car and had everything else ready and then I came inside and Ryan called and said look at the skies and as I looked out the window I noticed it was starting to rain. I was waiting for Sean to get to my place so he could follow me out there and it just kept raining but I talked to everyone on the phone and said I'm going to go out and do something. Shortly after that it stopped raining and when we got down to the singletrack the grass and trees were wet but the dirt was in prime shape so we road. Justin also met us out there so the 4 of us road a couple laps and then Sean and Justin had to take off and me and Ryan headed back out for a couple of more laps in the opposite direction. I'm hoping to find out what way the course is going to run this year for the race so I can focus on one direction and finally be able to have the home field advantage like everyone else does at all the other races out of town.

I did have my first couple of crashes on the new bike today though. I was really putting out some effort on the second lap and I was flying down a hill which goes slightly into a turn and as I hit the turn there were all the sudden 4 people on the trail running. I grabbed both brakes hard but coming down the trail I was going over. As the rear wheel came up I was able to jump out of the way off the bike and land pretty much on my feet. Nothing damaged to me or the bike luckily. The people were real appalogetic and so was I. The second one was after another big downhill with a turn I was going into it fast and the wheels just slid out from under me. Again nothing hurt for me or the bike.

It was wet out there today though and with the bikes and us getting wet the dirt clung to us and the bikes leaving things covered in a big layer of mud. Here's a couple of picks:

my cool mud sock lines

the rig with the thin layer of mud covering it

As for tomorrow I'm going to go head down to the hometown on the bike via mostly gravel roads. I have my course planned out on mapmyride.com and it looks like it is going to be about 59.5 miles house from my house to my wifes uncle's where we are hanging for a while. It should be fun. I've never done this long of a ride before on my mtb. Here's a link to my route. Later.

Harp