I had resolved to ride my bike to work today. As I was getting ready, I decided to try something new. The result was a commute which generally looked like this:
Sometimes the trail was much harder to see and covered with downed trees. I spent about half the ride on roads and the other half on sections of the Rivanna Trail. In the 1+ hour commute I certainly didn’t set any speed records. But if the cuts on my arms and legs are any evidence, it was an adventure!
Sadly, probably not one that I will do frequently as it took me about 2-3x longer than commuting on the road, but it certainly made for a fun Saturday ride.
The 2009 Tour de France is now under way, having just wrapped up the 9th stage. The race is still pretty tight and will probably stay so until the race hits the Alps in a week. I’ve managed to keep tabs on most of the stages, watching them live on the internet or replays in the evening. It’s been a pretty good race so far.
Correspondingly, I have taken it upon myself to do some needed maintenance on my bicycles. My Giant OCR-3 is now in pieces in the living room, mostly re-greased and ready to go, but with a few minor things to do before putting it back together. I’ve also given my XC mountain bike a once-over and it is mostly ready, but is having a persistent issue with the headset. Needless to say, my hands have been covered in bike grease for several of the past few evenings. It’s been good times.
But, I’ve also been riding bikes, not just disassembling them. I’ve done some of the usual commuting to work in addition to getting out and mountain biking once a week around McCormick Observatory. It’s great to have a bit of suitable biking terrain right there next to the office.
One of the great things about Charlottesville is the outdoors activities which are easily accessible. This includes mountain biking, and suitable trails are scattered around town. My favorite place is Walnut Creek Park, which is just south of town off Old Lynchburg Rd. Fortunately, it is only ~10 miles away from my house…
So, this morning I headed out around 7:45 to hit the trails. After the 10 mile “warm-up” ride to get to Walnut Creek, I started by bombing down one of my favorite trails which features some nice technical turns as well as a stream crossing. Nearly two hours and 14 miles later, I emerged from the woods, almost totally wiped out. There are some great trails down there, most built by the Charlottesville Area Mountain Bike Club I believe. Lots of good climbs and rocky patches keep things interesting.
Almost 4 hours after I left, I returned home, only dragging a bit though. 35 miles under my belt and a great start to the week.
Given the absolutely gorgeous weather last week, I set up a mountain biking event for Sunday morning at Walnut Creek Park (just south of town). When Sunday morning arrived, it was just me left out of the 3 people going, but I set off anyways. I opted to ride to the trails instead of driving there. I hopped on my XC bike, pedaling south. It rained a bit as I started going, but fortunately cleared up after a few miles. On the way out there were lots of cars going by with road bikes inside and/or on bike racks. A few miles later I figured out where they were all headed. The Jefferson Cup Bike Race was going on! I didn’t encounter any of the racers on my way though, but saw a few warming up at the staging area.
After a little over 10 miles I finally reached Walnut Creek… (more…)
Even with the large workload this weekend, I still managed to have some time to play with bikes… I had ~500 tests to grade by Monday morning, plus a homework set I hadn’t started on. So I had my work cut out for me. Fortunately I made great progress on the homework and finished grading the 1500 short answer questions 
As for the bikes…
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