Dirty Gloves by Russ Campbell...as if there was any doubt that Russ was one of the best photographers in the NECX. He made my dirty gloves look like art!
All hail the Epic. Not The Epic but that which is epic ie "dude that road trip was epic!" Epic has a slightly different meaning in cycling. I prefer the surfing vernacular myself. More fun to be honest. My good friends at MRC specifically Gary David, Russ Campbell and Scott Sweeney hosted an epic mtn bike ride last saturday. Its hard to say where all the drive to create these non-racing rides is coming from. For me the inspiration has always been the Grasshopper series out in Norcal. But I think its just as simple as we all want to get out and ride together without all the bs. Pinning numbers on is fun but why drive four hours when you can get 20 or so friends together and have just as good a time out your back door?
Gary invited 19 MRC and its friends to his house for a nice mtn bike ride and BBQ. He and his family were fantastic hosts! Huge thanks to them and MRC for being so nice to the 3 interloping Hup riders in the mix. To me there really is no better way to get to know someone than to ride three or four hours with them. After the first mile or so of bushwhacking a persons real personality starts to come out. We rode some amazing trails. What was even more shocking was we had 19 riders of varying abilities riding on pretty challenging trails and no one died. We had zero flats, one tiny mechanical, no injuries, only a couple of crashes and one time where riders got lost.
I could go on and on about the ride itself but I am wayyy too fried for that type of blog post. I will go clif note version. Camelbacks are awesome. I had to ask my good friend Ron Steers how to put it on and use it but man I am glad I did. Stow has some amazing trails. Hope saying that doesn't get me in trouble. They are technical but not kill you technical. Fun swoopy stuff with margin for error. Perfect for me. One of the funniest parts of the ride happened about mid-way through. We were grinding up a hill and I hear Russ yell from the back "Chip this is a strava KOM!" I took off like a shot! Cause I am a strava addict. Gary David took off as well. And I thought I was being smart pacing him up the grinding wall. I felt like we were going pretty good and at the top I threw the bike over the pitch hopeful that I had taken the KOM. Doooh 4 seconds. I lost it to Russ by 4 seconds. Gary was clearly blocking as a good teammate should..next time I will find a better line and get those 4 seconds...
We did lose 3 riders ever so briefly right before we stopped in at Scott's house for a water break. Still not sure how we did it but it was only for a minute or two. And of course the guy we lost was the one guy who had been cracking the whip all day about making sure no one got lost...oopsies. But what a great day. And as much as I love racing this trend is something I can really get behind....Thanks Gary, Russ and MRC for a great day out there.
Gary invited 19 MRC and its friends to his house for a nice mtn bike ride and BBQ. He and his family were fantastic hosts! Huge thanks to them and MRC for being so nice to the 3 interloping Hup riders in the mix. To me there really is no better way to get to know someone than to ride three or four hours with them. After the first mile or so of bushwhacking a persons real personality starts to come out. We rode some amazing trails. What was even more shocking was we had 19 riders of varying abilities riding on pretty challenging trails and no one died. We had zero flats, one tiny mechanical, no injuries, only a couple of crashes and one time where riders got lost.
I could go on and on about the ride itself but I am wayyy too fried for that type of blog post. I will go clif note version. Camelbacks are awesome. I had to ask my good friend Ron Steers how to put it on and use it but man I am glad I did. Stow has some amazing trails. Hope saying that doesn't get me in trouble. They are technical but not kill you technical. Fun swoopy stuff with margin for error. Perfect for me. One of the funniest parts of the ride happened about mid-way through. We were grinding up a hill and I hear Russ yell from the back "Chip this is a strava KOM!" I took off like a shot! Cause I am a strava addict. Gary David took off as well. And I thought I was being smart pacing him up the grinding wall. I felt like we were going pretty good and at the top I threw the bike over the pitch hopeful that I had taken the KOM. Doooh 4 seconds. I lost it to Russ by 4 seconds. Gary was clearly blocking as a good teammate should..next time I will find a better line and get those 4 seconds...
We did lose 3 riders ever so briefly right before we stopped in at Scott's house for a water break. Still not sure how we did it but it was only for a minute or two. And of course the guy we lost was the one guy who had been cracking the whip all day about making sure no one got lost...oopsies. But what a great day. And as much as I love racing this trend is something I can really get behind....Thanks Gary, Russ and MRC for a great day out there.
IT's good to mix it up with HUP, especially these dirt rides. It's a warmup for CX season!
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