Saturday, March 17, 2007

Dirt tan and a new arrow for the quiver

Well today was the Sedona day for the Spring Fling and it was a good one, even if it did have a bit of a rocky start. Star and I got to the meeting place at around 8:15 and started to get our bikes ready to go when I discovered that I had left my shoes 110 miles away in the garage. After quickly weighing my options and decided to head over to the Bike and Bean and see if I could find a cheap pair. I had my concerns about sending Star out there on her own and my Northwaves are looking pretty bad anyway. I figured I might miss the start and need to play catch up but as it turned out Paul was running late too so there would be no C ride start until he showed up so I was good on time. When I got back everyone was gone except Star and Brad. With Paul and myself that made only 4 out of 46 for the C ride. Paul showed shortly before I had my shit sorted and we were on our way in no time. As a group we decided to 86 the original plan of doing just the loops around Bell rock and instead we headed out Verde Valley School Rd toward Baldwin Trail, down to Buddha Beach , up to Templeton, down to the Bell Rock pathway and over to Courthouse Butte Loop. This makes for more of a B ride which is good for me, but I knew I'd need to keep an eye on Star to make sure she didn't get in over her head on any of the technical bits.

The road is always the worst part for me, I run a a pretty low gear and keeping up on pavement means I'm really spinning fast, good thing I was the sweep. Things went pretty well on Baldwin and Buddha Beach with a minimal amount of walking involved. On Templeton things were going pretty well until Star hit a big dip on the sidewalk and augured face first into the slickrock. Amazingly enough she didn't even draw blood, nothing more than a hurt ego. After taking a few moments to reassure Star we were once again on our way after a brief moment to reenact the scene for photographic record. The rest of the ride was all gravy and I was feeling good through to the end. 13.3 miles and 1800 feet in the and and it only took a mere 3.5 hours to complete, stops included, not bad for a lazy group ride.

Back at the Bike and Bean we had a Keg and a shit load of pizza waiting for us. We hung out for about an hour before bailing back to the near 100 degree heat of the 'nix. Poor Michele is stuck in Canton with snow and sub freezing temps. Boy do I miss my wife.

Red dirt on man.

Red dirt on bike.
Oh yeah, here's the new arrow, picked it up yesterday before dinner. If you've got doubts about what a good relationship with your local bike shop will do for you, look no further than here. The shop saved me a couple bills just because I'm a good regular. On a another note, I really wanted the new bike to be a single speed, but my research indicates that one gear in Seattle would be a fool's errand, so here it is.

2 comments:

JMH said...

Sweet new ride. I'm saving my pennies for a new Bianchi San Jose (single speed), which I believe is based on the Volpe frame. Have you had it out on any trails yet?

Unknown said...

No trails yet due to the Spring Fling, but it's going to make it out tomorrow for sure. At a minimum I'm going to get out on the canals. Volpe and San Jose are the same frame and I really wanted the single but couldn't bring myself to do it.