Loooooong Mountain Bike Ride

8:50, Sunday morning I headed out on my trusty steed to meet up with Mr. Big Ringer, and join him as he trains for his suffer-fest. (His words, not mine, I swear!!!!) The plan was to meet at Gamelin parking lot, and do a big ass loop of the park, heading up 15 to Kingsmere, trail 1 to 4, down into Fortune, over to O'Brien, trail 36 to 50 towards Wakefield, Lac Phillipe, Lac Taylor...well, you get the picture.

When I met Craig, he was talking about how his stomach was giving him grief and overall felt like crap; luckily we were riding side by side, 'cause if I was behind him and down wind, who knows what kind of surprise he'd have for me. (For the record, he didn't actually say anything about gas, but I need to get my shots in one way or another!) But really, it was a perfect day, forecast high of 21 and the sun was out, we were holding hands....whoops, that was a *different* perfect day when the sun was out and....well, never mind!

I was looking forward to this ride because we were heading out on some trails that I've never actually been on before, in particular the stuff beyond 36 heading out to Wakefield and Lac Phillipe. The nice thing about these trails is that you can get in some good tempo and endurance mileage while on the mountain bike...a nice change from long miles on the road bike. This was also "just a ride" for me, no training agenda, no races in the near future, just riding. As we chugged along, Craig said he must have been "overtraining" this past week 'cause his legs felt like crap. (Note to reader: overtraining is in quotes. I've discovered that Craig makes excuses, like it's his "wife's" Pink on his Ipod, and so on..... There it is! Shot #2, a little below the belt, though, I might add). It was nice, though, having a tour guide, so to speak, showing me around on the trails.

When we made it back around to O'Brien parking lot, Criag headed up 40 and then 1 to the Firetower, and I made my way to Fortune, up 4 to 1 and the long steady downhill home. That's one thing I love about this ride...you spend a good chunk in the beginning climbing, climbing and climbing, and then you're rewarded a fun, long, and at times flowy downhill.

Well, now thatI have one of these bloggy thingies, I figured that I have to include some of the pre-requisite-cool-angle-self-portrait-while-riding pics. Here are my feeble attempts:

Man I suck at this, let's try another:


OK, I REALLY suck at this. Never said I was a photographer!

Well, by the time I got home, I had put in a little over 6 hours of riding, and I'm not sure about mileage, but it was difinitely over 100km. Not bad for a Sunday ride.