Ridin' w/ the boyz...

I've chased away the crickets from the blog & dusted off the cobwebs. Trying not to be a slacker on the blog thing but I sit at a computer all day typing...so the last thing I want to do is sit at a computer at home & do more typing. Yeesh!

Anywho...rode w/ the boyz on Sunday. We were planning a Cove ride but after all of the rain we figured that would be a muddy mess, not to mention the stream crossings being up.

Donnie met hubbie & I at the house. We single speeded it through some streets and alleys over to Wasena where we met up with Ron on his cross bike. Headed down the greenway towards the hospital. I was managing to keep a pretty good pace w/ the boys but was getting really tired quickly. I sat up and adjusted my pace to where I could breathe. We crossed over through River's Edge park, through the tunnel, out the other side and took more streets & alleys to Ferncliff Park. Rode up that trail, then up to Fishburn Parkway to hit Woodthrush on the other side. Woodthrush had a little mud on it but not much. The boys were riding very fast today. It felt like "race pace" to me, but then again, everything always feels like race pace when you can't breathe (asthma sucks sometimes) Donnie was such a good sport & kept slowing down for me. I told him to go on, I was quite used to riding along. As we continued, we passed quite a few hikers. When we got to the gradual, loose rock hill, then the steeper grunt, I noticed Donnie was hiking. I thought to myself...if I can do it, surely he can. As we crested the hill & got to the next downhill, we paused...Donnie's chain was very loose and every time he torqued on it, he was worried it would come off. We took some time to fix it..got passed by a hiker who we had just passed us After we got it fixed, we debated for a minute on our route. We decided to continue down to the Star trail and back up to FB Pkwy

Rode down FB Pkwy, took a left on Sylvan. As we turned, we noticed another mtbkr coming up the road. I told the boys the jersey looked like my fellow chicky rider, Jen, but I wasn't sure. We waited and sure enough it was Jen!...we rode up the road a bit until Monument Trail. I mentioned how the boyz were kicking my butt today. She had a ride planned in her head & was jamming to some tunes so we split off at Monument. Continued up the trail..had to walk one of the short grunts b/c I was getting tired. Let a couple more hikers by the fun zoomy part before you jump the sidewalk. Caught back up to the boys. We proceeded on to Car trail..then climbed back up the old road to do the zoo poo trail. then back down Car trail again, to another side trail which dumped us out at Ferncliff park.

We zoomed back through the neighborhood streets, back through River's Edge Park, through Wasena. When we got to Wasena, we took a different route because we wanted to head to Fishburn Park to see a new bridge being constructed. On the way we took 2 steep alleyways and the steep road which runs past Wasena E.S. Leave it to Ron to find the steepest climbs towards the end of the ride!...Oh well, that's what makes you a stronger rider.

Made it over to Fishburn...the bridge is really ugly. It connects the greenway coming from Patrick Henry HS, crossing Brambleton to Fishburn Park. They could have kept the area natural by cutting in a side trail and looping it around this ditch. It's an eyesore.

Not sure how many miles all that was because I left my Garmin at home. Doh!!!
Good ride...I"ve done more climbing this season than I did all of last year.

1st race is this weekend...Danville......At least it's not in August so the chances will be slim of high temps. Phew...tired of typing....