Single Speedin....

Thursday night we met up at Explore Park..The weather service was predicting freezing rain so there was a winter weather advisory out. I think this scared some folks from even venturing out after dark. I got to the parking lot & Skippy & Chris were already out riding.. My hubby showed up and we prepared to ride. Weather was chilly but not unbearable. Skippy & Chris rolled up to meet us...Chris got a call from work so he had to leave but the 3 of us who remained rode. I wasn't really feeling great on this ride but I figured I'd plod on. As we ventured towards the inner loop, my bike kept making this weird cha-chunk noise whenever I stood up on a hill. I was scared my chain was going to break. When we inspected my bike, we noticed the chain was really loose. None of us had any tools w/ us to try to fix it so we decided to head back. On the way back, Skippy kicked up this enormous stick into his frame. Luckily it didn't break anything. It was bigger than my forearm. As we descended my chain kept making the same noise. I was really worried b/c my hubby mentioned that I needed to be careful on a climb b/c the chain could come off, then I'd bang my knee into the top tube & stop dead in my tracks.

Shortly after he issued this warning, I had crossed the big wooden bridge and was starting the climb up the int trail....sure enough I took a pedal stroke, the chain came off, and I banged my knee on the top tube!...I shouted something about what a fine bike I had, then let out an "ouch!"...my hubby asked what was wrong....I told him I had broken my bike....He said "well wheel it up here so I can fix it"...I said "I can't, it won't move".... The rear skewer must have been lose and on the pedal stroke I pulled the wheel from the drop outs.....

We were able to get it fixed and we returned to the parking lot. By this time Skippy was cold and had already gotten in about an hour & 1/2 of riding so he was done. Hubby & I continued to explore some stuff on the closed portion of the park. We only rode about an hour & it wasn't much fun this night.

Saturday I took some pics of my hubby at the Falling Creek Bike Race hosted by Bedford County. It was a neat format, with less skilled riders getting a head start on the more experienced folks. THe course looked fun....I knew I wasn't going to race based on how I felt on Thursday..just wasn't into it...Hubby came in 5th overall..not too bad.

Sunday we ventured our for a ride at Mill Mountain..the plan was to do 3 hours..but we only ended up doing 2. We did some exploring on this ride as well..so we probably spent 20 minutes hiking, plowing through hub-deep leaves, and bushwacking. I was able to finally conquer a climb on the Woodthrush trail. I was so pleased...it's the first time I've done that complete climb on any bike..let alone my Single Speed. I guess I'm getting stronger which is good. The ride got cut short b/c we had to high tail it back to the house b/c we had a realtor coming to show it. I guess it wasn't too bad of a ride.