Mohican Group Ride

Sunday I got to finally go and ride the entirety of the Mohican State Park. 25 miles of pure single track fun. The original group was to consist of Mike (BionicKnee), Scott (Salsaman) Johnny P, Roger, Dirk and myself. Johnny P or Dirk couldn't make it and Roger showed up but because cell phones don't work in Mohican State Park I couldn't tell him that we were running late. Once again sorry about this Roger, though word is he did run into Brian Lennon from the CAMBA race team while he was out there.

I won't bore you with the details of the course but will hit some of the highlights we had. The first of three mechanicals happened to my bike. I had installed my cranks wrong and the cranks shifted to the left. Making my smallest, aka granny gear, out of range of my front derailluer, which left me under geared for most of the climbs. I, however, didn't walk a single one. Another two miles down the trail Scott broke his chain. Nothing broke for the next 15 or so miles.

I must admit that it wasn't my best day of riding. I went down twice mostly due to washing out on fast turns. Nothing serious or anything but I was pushing harder on the ride and took my tires past there grip level.

We reached the second parking lot at the top of the hill and went in search of water. The horse trailer though busy didn't have any water. We got excited when we found a water spicket at a campground which wasn't turned out. So we rode down the road in search of anything. At this point I had drinking the two bottles of water in my camelback plus a water bottle full of gatorade, and we still had ten miles to go! We found two houses, the first didn't answer their door but the second one a kind lady let us grab water from her faucet. The one thing I should have done on this break was eat and that would come back to hurt me later.

At mile 17 my chain started to skip real bad, and I knew that could only be one thing, a broken chain. I had a feeling that I would break one since I had to grind up every 3000 feet of climbing. Lo and Behold, a pin had pulled out. Fixed that and we were on our way again.

Another 3 miles down the road I started to feel hunger pains. Another mile and I was in full on bonk mode. Even though I had eaten earlier and drank the entire ride I was dehydrated and out of fuel. This all happened during a technical downhill rock garden section. My vision started blurring and my legs felt like jelly. It wasn't long before I was down again. Luckily I fell on soft pine needles and no damage was done. I got up and made my way down the trail and hit an uphill and I couldn't go an further. I knew I had to stop and get some food and water. I shoved an entire powerbar into my mouth and chugged as much water as I could. It took me a couple miles but after a while my legs came back and I finished strong.

At the end I could barely walk and I was on empty again. I barely could change out of my sweat stroke riding clothes and slumped into my car. It was a hard tough ride home where I fought wanting to fall asleep. I gotta admit I was proud of myself and enjoyed every second of it. Thanks Mike and Scott for a great ride. It was a big moral booster to look back and see how far I've come over the last year. Last year at this time I didn't own a bike and now I'm doing MSP in under 3 hours. Can't wait to get back and do it again! Now to taper for The Mountwood challenge. I'm hooked on racing and I look forward to more miles this season.