...i should be tired...

ok, so i should be tired. by all calculations i should be in a near-coma-style sleep right now. but i am not. so i'll kill some time till i am tired doing this.

today i went to burlington to ride with the burlingtoners, namely: scott, tracy, and amanda. i got up, worked from 6-8:30. for some reason took my house keys out and left them at work on a table. found my keys on that table after coming home and becoming slightly frustrated. packed my bikes, cooked a couple of bagels for the road, and took off.

arrived about 20 minutes late. fancy that. i met the crew at dane's, some very nice singletrack behind the ymca. dane's = fun. big fun. lots of skinny, and shady bridges over gaps. ridiculous bridges. scary bridges. i like bridges. we rode the 5 and a half mile loop twice, once in each direction. scary downhill bridges become scary uphill bridges. big, sketchy uphills mated with big, sketchy downhills. and all kinds of fast, fast, fast flat inbetween. i crashed. twice. evidence:
from crash number two. good times. both falls happened within the first 20 minutes of riding. both times on sketchy-esque downhills curving to the right at the bottom. rear wheel skidded out. think it might be the new tire. not as much tread on the side of the tire, rather all tread is in the middle. or it could be just that i took it too fast and leaned too much...but i prefer to blame the tire. we even had a nice little sit in the grass between laps...it was good.

off to geode. they then took me out to geode state park. four mcdonald's cheese burgers later, we arrived at geode, and rode a gravel-esque trail that circled the lake. fun times. a shared use trail with hikers, but we didn't see a soul on the trail. some very tricky sections out there too, particularly some climbs involving rocks. but, in my opinion, not as tricky as dane's. but still fun, and quite fast in places. i bet even faster in the opposite direction. we only rode one lap, and then we lay in the grass some more, watching some clouds literally disperse to nothing above us. it was really neat, they were swirling around until nothing was left. never seen anything like that before.

finally we decided it was time to abandon mtn for the day, and get ready for the group road ride at 5:30. scott's girlfriend megan was kind enough to let me shower at her place, twice, but we'll get to that. shower #1 = post mtn riding. she, being quite a nice girl, even fixed us some sandwiches. got all geared up, and rode over to the bike shop, where the group ride starts.

rode about a 35 mile route, just trying to hang on the whole time. i succeeded, so i'm calling it a victory. good riding, nice scenery, good guys (and amanda). much fun was had on this little stint of a road ride.

post road ride, the burlingtoners decided it was necessary to climb snake alley, seeing as i had never had that unique pleasure. and pleasure it was. i did it once and was left questioning..."and you jokers do this 11 more times?" (let alone at race pace...) we also finished out the crit course for fun. it was nice to ride what i got to watch earlier this year. then, off to the cemetery. burlington has a huge cemetery, built into a hilly area. so as a result there is quite a nice maze of hilly, curvy goodness out there in the access roads. literally, we just rode around on the access roads, on scott's crit course he made up, and even a bit of off-road road bike styling involving me getting snagged by a very low downed tree. it was a lot of fun to zip around those roads. finally, after a long day in the saddle, it was time to head back.

got back to megan's place. shower #2. ate some dinner with them (which i owe you for!). chatted for a bit, and headed back to iowa city.

all in all a phenominal day. that crazy burlington crowd, they know how to knock together a day of riding...

danes: 10 miles
geode: 8 miles
road: 45 miles
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total: 63 miles