Although the weather was perfect (POIFECT!!!) this morning, I didn't ride in. I spent yesterday evening walking around on the hills in Seneca Park, helping the guys and gals from Rogue Racing Project put together a tricky little devil of a short-track MTB race course. I also (rather stupidly) decided to jog on some concrete in my cycling shoes ("It's okay -- they're Mountain Shoes!").
D'oh.
Between the jogging, the walking, and the couple of short-but-stiff climbs I rode on the way from the bus to the MTB course, my leg was a tad sore this morning (it's actually feeling a lot better now, after much stretching). Since I have a 15-mile group ride tonight, and I don't want to push it, I decided to give it a rest.
I had a great time last night doing the setup for the short-track races. The Rogue Racing folks are awesome (though I feel really fat in their company, LOL). Seiler thought the course up on the fly while the rest of us wandered around dropping stakes and/or pounding them in per his instructions, making smartass remarks, and generally having a good time. Suffice it to say I like the team, and I hope I'll fit in okay. 'Fitting in' is not really my strong suit :)
I don't want to give away the details of the course, but suffice it to say I think it's going to be a lot of fun to ride. I'm a little envious of those who will actually get to ride it — I thought about taking a spin around the course on Quicksilver, but the climbs were a bit stiffer than I thought my leg was ready for, so I opted not to. I'm pretty glad I made that choice. I did ride around a little in the flatter areas, and learned that Quicksilver handles beautifully off road — so it looks like Quicksilver may be doing 'cross after all.
PT Guy arrived around 7:00 and helped finish staking the course. We all got done about 7:30, and as PT Guy and I were loading Quicksilver onto his truck so we could go grab some dinner, a couple of the Rogue ladies who had been out riding were tooling around the course on their road bikes. Later, on the road, we saw a big group of about 30 or so riders, most clad in various flavors of team kit, rolling along together. I have no idea where they were coming from (it was too early for them to be the return trip from the 5 Spot Crits, and besides, they had already passed the jumping-off zone!), but they were all smiling.
After dinner, I swapped Swift's saddle with Quicksilver's — initially, I wanted to swap the seat posts, because Quicksilver's current post has an inline shock that I think would be nice to have on Swift, but it turns out that Swift takes a skinnier post than Quicksilver. Who knew? At any rate, the saddle I had on Swift is a lot more comfortable. The one that came with Quicksilver (not the OEM saddle) is one of those gel saddles that are supposed to be comfy, but it's configured for a more upright position. PT Guy installed Quicksilver's old saddle on Swift.
I also raised Quicksilver's seatpost about another inch or two, just to see if it would feel okay, and found that it did actually make the bike even more comfortable. I was kind of surprised by that, because the drop from the saddle to the bars looks a little intimidating, now. I've been riding with the bars just a shave lower than the saddle; now they're noticeably lower.
I'm thinking about taking a quick spin at lunch time to verify fit before tonight's ride. There's a five-mile loop I should be able to do pretty quickly which will leave me sufficient time to eat and change (I'm wearing my favorite shirt today and I don't want to get it all sweaty, LOL).
While we were busy swapping seats and otherwise installing stuff, I stuck a taillight and my favorite headlight mount on Quicksilver. I think I'm going to have to buy another one like that one for Swift, and a set for PT Guy. Ideally, I like to have a dedicated set of lights for each bike, plus a few spares rattling around. I actually do still have spare taillights, but I didn't want to go back in the house and dig one up, so I just cannibalized Swift's. Swift will get my newish Zefal taillight that hasn't been used yet, unless I stick it on PT Guy's bike.
I am now quite comfortable using Quicksilver's Presta valves, so tire inflation is much happier. I need to figure out where I stuck my C02 cartridge, though, since it's supposed to go in my seatpost bag with my tire-change kit. I do have a frame pump which lives in my bar bag, but I understand that pumping skinny tires up to pressures above 100 PSI with a frame pump can be a pain in the neck.
In other news, LBC's 'A Good First Century' ride, postponed some while ago due to flooding, has been rescheduled for July 11th. I think I'm going to hit that bad boy, even though it's 2 days before the 5-Spot Crits. I'm not going to the 5-Spots as a contender, anyway — I'm just going to do the N00b Racer class and maybe the "B" race if I'm up for it. I've added 'A Good First Century' to my events calendar.
If you're in the area and you're interested in riding, it's called 'A Good First Century' for a reason -- the route is mostly flat (there's one good climb, so I'll be working on getting the climbing legs back), and they literally won't drop anyone. Not even your great-grandma, if she wants to come along. You can find the route profile and map on the Kentucky Bike Rides site — it's ride 4253.
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