146: eye

The weather man forested 50% chance of rain. Which also meant a 50% chance of ride. Those of us working our tails off to get Granogue groomed and ready for race day would congratulate ourselves with a few laps of our course.

Sure enough as I drove through Montechain, the skies opened up as one of those spring showers that enables everything to turn green and come alive, pounded the estate. As I parked, I looked up the hill to see Buddy the leg breaker, E-town, Papa Smurf, and Jebbagger rolling in from a lap. They were wet, but smiling ear to ear.

The spring shower quickly past, as I along with Wes t. Conqueror, Dennisbike, F-Rich, Green Trek John (on a bologna bianchi), Breyla-la and BLElizabeth, joined up the original group and we headed back out for a lap.

For me Granogue has always been one of the most challenging places to ride. The combination of quick punchy climbs, gratuitous roots, and loose rocky sections, just lead to a very unique set of trails. The fact that the trails are rarely open, never really gives you a chance to totally get the place dialled in. The course has a natural flow and looseness to it, which can be deceiving. It's very easy to gather a good head of steam as you rip through a nice section, only to realize all too quickly you're in over your head ripping through a technical section. Panicked you quickly find yourself white knuckled, and reaching for the brakes.

Last night the addition of a spring shower made the roots that much more slimy, the corners that much more challenging, and the rock gardens, and roll ins that much scarier. It was pretty damn perfect. Granogue is a special place normally, tonight it was borderline magical.

The fact that much of the trail system is off camber, requires another level of understanding, skill, and patience that is not quickly learned or faked by bigger wheels or full suspension.

Bombing through the trails with this group of riders: all very proficient- all folks I have a lot of respect for, I felt as thought my timing was off, as if the angel on my left shoulder was saying, "you're pushing the edge there faticus..." My angel continued as I struggled across a off camber field section almost planting myself into a hedge row, "Danger! Danger! back off..."

The demon on my right shoulder chirped away, "push the envelop, this is what you live for, stand on the pedals boy..."

Despite my knowing better, despite the fact that crashing tonight and getting hurt would but an text book case of bad judgment, I drove on with this amazing group carving the estate's trails up.

At the end of our loops, I smiled, and wiped the dirt out of my eyes off my face. I felt tired, but refreshed, hungry but satisfied, any angst I may have had with the world- past.

A small group of us ended the day sharing a burrito and a laugh. It was a perfect ending to a pretty damn perfect day.

New Henry's Kits came in. They look great, but something's funny about Jeb's collar:

Freaking PIMP. 14 year old pimp...

respect

faticus