Fast Lap

Well, I just got home from a ride to set up the Fish for the race this weekend. The Bike is a Gary Fisher HiFi Carbon that Cahaba let me borrow while mine is being fixed. I seriously doubt I will have mine back by Friday, and I wanted to at least get a rough tune on the suspension before I end up in a pack of people trying to descend a technical section. I roughly set up the rear at 150psi and the front at 90 psi. I took off into the trail heading counter clockwise and don't know exactly what got into me, but I set off on a pretty good pace. The front was bouncing everywhere so I kept decreasing the rebound. I was relatively happy with the rear (a bit stiff but ok) with the rebound in the middle. I saw Omar and a few other serious racer types getting ready for Bump N Grind as they were all making good time going the opposite direction from me. I got to Blood rock a little before 30 minutes, so I knew this could be a decent lap, so I pushed myself a bit. I finally realized that the rebound became better by tuning the dial more toward the +. I still was not particularly fond of the shock as I headed down the Jeep trail. I just let the Titus go and point where i want to go. This bike would bounce around a lot and not absorb as much. I decided I needed less air in the shock, but I was not going to stop. I could have probably run this section at least 1-2 minutes faster on my bike as I was going pretty slow. I ended up slightly shouldering a tree between Chimney ad the BMX track as I was trying to go a little faster. I pushed myself and got back to the parking lot and I was amazed at the time. I had run a 1:27:12!! This is a good minute faster than my fastest recorded time so I a quite happy. Also my average heart rate was 177 with a max of 196. I tried to keep the max down a bit (i have seen as high as 202 when I was pushing really hard) and was surprised the average was so high. I think this is close to my max time as far as pedaling, so I have a ways to go to get in the hour teens. I am pretty happy but I just got through weighing this bike and it is ballpark 26 lbs even (on the bathroom scale) which is a little less than 2 lbs lighter than mine (27.8). I could feel a slight difference during the ride and it makes me want to lose a bit of weight off of mine.

Biking on the road?

After going to bed at 7 last night (I really do need my 8 hours of sleep and I was lacking after the trip to Mobile and Atlanta) I was feeling much better. I carried the Crown Jewel (Road Bike) to work today in hopes I would be able to get away in time to make the Watermelon ride at Oak Mountain. I was able to leave and got there a bit early. I got ready and decided against wearing the camelback as I knew we had to be back before 7 and that limited the ride to about an hour or so. I really didn’t know what to expect but Barbara suggested I ride with Cal so I took off with them. I have never riddent his bike on the road before (other than the test ride that was just up an alley and back). It felt really good and I was a lot more comfortable than I thought. We were moving at a pretty comfortable pace and with the weather very nice, the ride was very comfortable and relaxing. I noticed I was very comfortable and had no trouble with any of the climbs (yes I was actually a bit worried as the bike is geared differently.

A couple of things I noticed on this ride:
For some reason I seemed to fall behind on the descents. Even if I was tucked down and Cal was sitting up, I would not gain on him at all.
I also was getting a bit sore in the arms and shoulders. This may just be because I am not used to the riding hand position. I tried to keep my shoulders and elbows loose, but I think I may be stretched out just a bit too far. I will have to ride more to see.
Lastly, I think I could stand to have a larger gear. This is not something I will be changing at any time in the near future, but I may check to see what my options are. I was wishing for one more gear a few times, but I may just need to get use to spinning at a slightly higher RPM.

I had an excellent time and will definitely go for a few more rides. I can definitely see how it would be easier to train on a road bike. My average HR for this ride was 140 for an average speed of slightly over 15 mph. This is significantly less than a normal Mountain Bike ride. I think I have a bit more, but I don’t know how much, so I will have to go on a few more rides to see.

Sending back the bike

Ran the bike by Cahaba Cycles tonight and dropped it off. Chris told me Titus had thought they would have it done in 2 weeks or less. He also tried to loan me a Fish Hi-Fi, but I didn’t want to take it as I am about to go out of town and I see no reason for it to just sit at my house since I will not be able to ride it. I think I will wait till I get back and see what the status is. If I will not have the Titus back before the race, I will probably take the Hi-Fi to Oak for at least one lap to get it set up right and get a feel for it. I was thinking about riding the Botanical gardens ride, but I ma so tired I think I am going to just go home and go to sleep.

Showing Crack

Just a quick update. Here are a few pictures of the crack. I called Chris Leven at Cahaba Cycles and he assured me they would take care of it. He said I could take it to any store, so I e-mailed Chris Storie at the Pelham store letting him know I was planning on bringing it back to him Tuesday Night.

Nice Double but a bit of trouble

Well, I did end up missing the first lap at 8:00 as there was no way I was getting up at 6:45. I would have made it to Oak around 9:40 however after I had to turn around and drive back because I forgot my jersey I ended up getting there about 5 after 10. Linda and Mitch were getting back from their first lap just as I was getting there. I got ready and we took off heading Counter-Clockwise. Linda had never ridden this direction and was willing to give it a try. We cruised around the loop and I was feeling better than I thought for riding yesterday and not getting my regular 8+ hours of sleep. I also had to tape and bandage up my wound from yesterday’s wreck and I was afraid it would slow me down as I could feel it whenever I bent my leg, but after I got going I did not notice it anymore. We finished up the lap and I ate a bit today. After yesterday’s cramps, I knew I needed to eat between laps. After a quick snack Mal rode up. Monty and I decided to ride our second lap with him. We headed out for a clockwise lap. Mal set the pace pretty quick and it was about perfect for pushing me a bit, but still keeping me from wearing myself out. We made it to the North trailhead in about 41 minutes. This is just a few minutes behind one of my best times. We headed up the jeep trail and I could tell Mal was taking it a bit easy as he was turning a bigger gear than me (and the fact I was huffing and puffing at a few points when he was barely breaking a sweat). We cruised on down to blood rock and down to the base of Johnson’s mountain. Monty decided to head on back at this point and I was surprised that I was feeling pretty good and had no signs of cramping. We cruised on through this last section and for some reason I usually feel really good and like to push myself from here to the end. Mal continued to set a nice pace and we finished in the high 1:30’s riding time. I think we stopped for about 10 minutes, but I felt really good about such a quick second lap. I drank a beer in the parking lot while we relaxed. Monty was going to go to Chipotle to eat and I decided to try it instead of my usual McAlisters. It remided me of Moe’s when I first saw it, but the food was really good.

I got home and washed my bike as I finally had a little time and it was filthy since Saturday’s ride. As I was drying it off I found a crack in the frame. It is in the titanium part where the rear pivot connects right above the bottom bracket. I snapped a few pictures, but I have to go to Atlanta tonight and will not be back till Tuesday, so I will have to handle it then. I am a bit worried as I wanted to do the DSG race on the 3rd, but I am afraid it will take them a while to get it fixed and I may not have it back in time.

Saturday ride

Today, I met Ted at 8:30 for a “quick” lap. We have both been wanting to ride with someone faster because I want to get my lap time down a bit. Ted started off and said we were warming up slow, however I thought we were moving pretty good. After camp road he said we were going to pick up the pace. I tried to keep up, but I was slipping and sliding around on the roots and muddy turns. Ted seemed to not even notice them as he slowly pulled further and further away. I finally started trying to close the distance on the straight aways. Well, I shouldn’t have, because I hit one of the bridges and next thing I knew I was on the ground. Most of the time, I can feel the bike starting to slide and easily recover, or at least have time to put a foot down for balance. This time I went from riding to a pile on the ground instantly. I knew I hit pretty hard and must have yelled because Ted stopped. I had to recover myself for a minute because it was a little disoriented. I really didn’t check myself but just jumped on the bike and started riding again. We got to the North trailhead and somehow we were about 3 minutes slower than I wanted to be. ( I think it was because we rode the road pretty slowly because I felt like we were moving through the first part pretty fast).
I slowly recovered on the climb and was able to hit the steep sections with a bit of energy. We rode on and descended blood rock. I was a little cautious because of the wreck, but we scooted on down and reached Johnson’s Mountain. I pushed it pretty good but every time I looked back Ted was right there. We finished on out and I saw Joe, Lee, Joel, and Brennon on the parking lot about to ride. I decided I would try to keep up and turned to ask Ted if he wanted to do another. At this point I realize he had not come out of the woods yet. I knew he was behind me at the beginning of Toads so I started back to check on him. He came out of the woods right as I got there and his chain had broken on him. He decided not to do the second lap so I refilled the camelback and ate a pack of sport beans. I had not really planned on riding two because I had a wedding to go to tonight in Mobile so I knew I had to be back. Since it was 10:15 and I had to leave the park at 12: 30 I figured I had time. I did not bring anything to eat between laps like I usually do. This ended up getting me later.

We headed Counter Clockwise and rode Mr. Toads before Lee’s friend realized he dropped his phone. We rode back and Lee found it near the entrance to the trail. We headed out again and amazingly I was able to keep up. At the end of Johnson’s, Lee and his friend decided they were going to head back and get in some rock climbing. The remainder of us headed on up to blood rock. I had to put the front in granny for this climb, but I managed to stay on the bike. Joe managed to make it almost all the way up the Blood rock section even with all the water. He only got caught on one of the top rock steps past the toughest part. I have never seen anyone ride up it before, so I was pretty impressed.

We stopped to play on the log at the top of the BUMP trail for a while and talked to a couple of riders from Tuscaloosa. Cruising on up to the top of the mountain (where the sign is) I realized I was running short on time. It was almost 12:00 so I headed on by myself. The trail was in much better shape than this morning and had dried out a good bit. I was still being cautious on the bridges but for some strange reason my brain did not register the log as being slick. I tried to ride across it, but apparently got too far to one side and the front tire slid off. Generally this is no big deal as you ride right off, but when the front slid off, the back followed suit and I ended up on the ground again. I jumped back on the bike and finished out the trail. I cleaned myself up and went down to the BUMP pavilion since today was the day of the Spring Social. I grabbed one of the homade cookies, but as I was late (it was about 1:00 and I was supposed to be home at 1) I didn’t grab anything else to eat.

When I got home I finally assessed the damage from the wreck. I knew my hip was bruised pretty bad because it was hurting, but when I looked at it I have a huge section that looked like road rash. I managed to scratch the bottom of my arm as well as my right leg has tire marks all down my inner thigh. I really found out how bad it was when I got in the shower. I have not felt pain that bad in a while.
I am on my way home and it looks like it will be 1 before I get home. I may not make it to Oak at 7:45 for the ride tomorrow. I think I may just join Monty at 10 and see if he wants to ride 2 laps then.

Thursday Ride

Now that the time has changed, I am able to ride after work. I met Moran toady out on the trail and he was going to check his baseline time to see where he stood. We headed clockwise and Brian started off with pretty good pace. The trail was a bit dusty and I was sliding in the turns a bit, but otherwise the weather was perfect. It is nice to ride in the afternoons again. For some reason I always feel more relaxed on these afternoon rides. (could be because I am limited to one lap and don’t have to feel guilty for not riding more). We rode around with not much issue. We turned a 1:52:30 lap with a small wreck where Brian’s handlebars caught a tree. We got back before the park police need to hassle us for being in the park after 7. I can’t wait till they change it to 8 so I don’t have to worry about it.

Giving the people what they want: Pictures of the trip

It will be a bit before I can recap the weekend. I probably shouldn't have gone on the trip due to work, but I can work anytime. Weekends like that don't come around very often and I didn't want to miss it.

I know everyine is waiting in anticipation of the pictures, so here they are. I haven't had time to touch up any or take out the blurry ones, so you will have to make do.

Day 1:
http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/EllijayGA2008_04_11

Day 2:
http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/ThunderRockTN2008_4_12

Day 3:
http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/Pinhoti32008_4_13

Mulberry Gap Bunkhouse:
http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/MulberryGapBunkhouse2008_4_13

Final Day of Montys Trip

The last morning I was going to rinse my bike off (because it was so filthy and muddy) and possibly change my rear tire (I brought a spare and wanted to get the tube back out of it because it makes the back feel sloppy). Bruce had some bike wash he wanted me to try, so I decided to use it and see how it would do. He told me to spray the whole bike lightly and then wait for 10 minutes. Well I was already behind, so I decided against changing the tire. I rinsed the bike off, dried it and lubed the chain. The wash did a pretty good job, however I don’t know if it was much different than simple green.
I was running a bit late for breakfast at this point so I ran in and ate a waffle and some fruit.

We decided we were going to ride the Pinhoti 3. Originally we were going to start at the bottom and ride up to the top, turn around, and head back down. A couple of the people wanted to get back relatively early so it was suggested we shuttle up to the top and ride down. I have never been shuttled to the top of a hill and somehow felt like we were cheating. I threw my bike in the back of Mitch’s truck (This was hard for me to do, but I tried not to think about it rubbing and scratching against the other bikes on the rough gravel road we had to drive down). At the top, a couple of us went up to the overlook and took a few pictures before heading to the trailhead.

We finally headed to the trailhead and got on the trail. I was lead to believe it was all downhill, but we climbed for a good mile before getting to the downhill section. This trail has a lot of switchbacks and was the most technical we had ridden. I had to put a foot down on a couple of the switchbacks that snuck up on me. The ladies at the MGB told us there was a trail that would bring us right back to camp from the Pinhoti and that they would put a sign out for us to find the turn. Somehow we blew right by it and rode all the way to the bottom. The last section of the trail was relatively steep, so we had a discussion on what we were going to do. About half of us decided to ride back up and take this trail and the others just rode back on the road. The climb back up felt really good and made me feel a little better about the shuttle ride. After about a mile we found the sign. It was an open house sign pointing down into the woods. I looked down the trail and it was a little rough, so I decided to lower my seat for safety. It was covered with leaves and was a steep descent down the mountain. I remember congratulating someone (I think it was Ted) because he had the bike sideways around one of the turns and the next thing I knew I was doing the same thing. This was a very enjoyable little section of trail and I am glad I chose to go back and ride it.

When we got back the ladies graciously offered to warm back up some of the spaghetti for lunch. I took a quick shower first and joined everyone. Shortly after we all packed up and headed home. This was a great trip and I believe they are planning a return trip in the fall. I would definitely recommend that if you missed this one to make the next.

Monty's trip: Day 2

First off: If I relayed any info incorrectly or misspelled any names (I am usually pretty bad with names), feel free to correct me.

The second day of the trip, we headed up to ride thunder rock near the Ocoee River. We all piled in our vehicles and headed to the trail. It was about an hour away, but was a nice drive. I was a little worried because it had stormed the night before and I was afraid the trail would be very sloppy and muddy. On arriving we got ready and Brennon and Sara had driven up to meet us to ride for the day. Brennon was the crazy guy riding the single speed.

This trail started out much like the other one with a climb up some gravel road, but was a much shorter climb to get to the single track trail this time. At the top of the road, there was a bulldozer that I couldn’t resist getting on.

We jumped on quartz loop trail and did a quick lap. This was a pretty fun little loop with a bit of everything. It had some climbing, some good fun downhills and some nice views off the side of the mountain. We jumped on the bypass and rode down to Chestnut mountain trail. This section had some really nice flowing singletrack with banked turns. Other than a few wet spots that would cause the bike to slide a bit, the trail was in pretty good shape. I generally don’t get many good pictures of the downhills as I hate to stop, but I did get a small hole in my tire and stopped to see if it would seal itself. After a few minutes, it sealed up and I headed on down the trail.
The good luck did not last for long and after a few more miles I ended up with 2 or 3 small holes in the rear tire. I had lost so much air at this point I decided it would be better if I just threw a tube in it. I thought I changed it relatively quickly, but Brian had grabbed my camera and somehow managed to snap quite a few pictures. There were a lot of bored looking people so it must have taken too long. We headed on our way and finally came to thunder rock express. Monty had been talking about this trail as the main reason for coming so I was pretty excited.

I fell in line behind a few other people, as this usually keeps me out of trouble by slowing me down a little. We were all moving down the trail pretty quickly and really enjoying the small jumps that were everywhere. Of course, I decided to get big at the wrong time. I saw a larger jump coming up so I got ready and jumped off the top pretty hard. About this time I noticed the person in front of me turning sharply. As time slowed down I could see there was an immediate drop off in front of me. As soon as I landed I had the brakes locked and skidded up to the very edge. I had the bike sideways and put a foot down right as my back tire was on the very edge. The brakes were definitely worth every penny I paid for them. I could feel my heart pounding and I headed on down the trail and finished it out. As a few of the people behind me came out they were asking if everyone had made it ok and no one had fallen off because they saw where the tire had slid to the edge.

We cruised on back to the parking lot and Joe, Brennon, Jay, and I played on some of the rocks around the parking lot for a few minutes before getting off the bikes. At this point we certainly did not drink anything alcoholic because that was illegal (and anyone who reads MTBR knows I have a problem with my reading comprehension of warning signs). As we were standing around someone brought out a hacky sack and I attempted to play. I have never played before, but it was pretty fun. We hung out a few minutes before heading back to Mulberry gap.

That night for dinner we had BBQ, sweet potato casserole, and pecan pie for dessert. Pau and her Crew joined us for dinner and we got to talk with them a bit. I got my picture taken with her, but it is on someone elses camera, so whoever took it, please e-mail me the picture.

It was getting late and we had to get up relatively early, so I skipped the hot tub and went to bed.

Here is the map of our route:

Linky to the rest of the pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/ThunderRockTN2008_4_12

Monty's North Geogia Trip

We left Birmingham relatively early in hopes of being able to swing by Green's in Atlanta on our way. We were going to meet up with Mitch and Ted on the way to Atlanta so they could follow us. They got ahead of us as we got stuck in traffic trying to get out of town. We eventually met up right on the outskirts of Atlanta. We were running behind, but decided to swing by Green's anyway. We headed on to Ellijay and I had to stop for gas. Mitch and Ted headed on and I called Monty to tell him we would be late. We were originally going to meet at the BK in Ellijay, but he gave us directions to Mulberry Gap. I was afraid we would not make it in time for the ride, but I believe a few others were slightly delayed, so we got there just in time to jump on the bike and head out with everyone.

This ride started off with a nice little climb up the gravel road. We climbed, and climbed and climbed a little more. After about 5 miles we were greeted by this beautiful sight:

We finally jumped on some singletrack (Bear Creek trail I think) and enjoyed some much appreciated downhill (Approximately 4 miles or so). I took the lead so I could snap a few pictures of everyone coming down the hill. There were a couple people putting in water berms on the trail and they were piled quite high. This slowed me down a bit, which is usually a good thing as I tend to go faster than I should on trail I am unfamiliar with. I found a switchback with some roots and a small drop and snapped a few shots. Joe with his "skillz" shows us how to get behind the seat:

Michael however mush have be distracted by some crazy looking guy in the woods and took a slightly less conventional approach to negotiating the turn. I hope he ended up being all right, the only casualty he allowed was a slightly bent rear derailleur.

We stopped to look at the Gennett poplar. It is an extremely old tree that was growing beside the trail. After this the trail had some climbs and downhills and we got on Pinhoti 1. There were some nice climbs followed by great twisting downhills.

We jumped on Pinhoti 2 somewhere along the way and continued on. Near the very end was some great fast flowing singletrack with lots of nice little whoopties great for jumping. I had my bike off the ground so many times there was a huge smile on my face. We came out on the road a little ways from the camp and rode back the remainder of the way. We got back to Mulberry gap in plenty of time and had a few beers while we were waiting on dinner. We rode close to 20 miles (the Garmin said I burned over 3600 calories) and I was feeling quite hungry. I took a shower right before dinner and showed up a little after everyone else.

The ladies at MG cooked us an excellent meal of Spaghetti and Meatballs. I ate two plates (including about 7 of the meatballs) and a salad before she told us to save room for desert. I generally don't care for chocolate, but they had some homemade brownies and ice cream and I decided to try it and it was delicious also. After dinner and sitting around chatting for a while I decided to go sit in one of the hot tubs to relax.

There were 2 and the other one was completely full, so I went to the other one and had it all to myself. After a while I started stretching my legs and they started to cramp up on me. I decided it was time to get out and go to bed. After all I knew I was going to need some rest for the following day.

Here is an overview of our ride for the day:

I need to work on my layout of the pictures. It lays out nice when I type it up, but when I publish it, things get moved around and I am too lazy to fix it.

The pictures from this ride are here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/EllijayGA2008_04_11

Build a Bridge or 2 and ride in the mud

Saturday was rainy all day so I decided to only ride on Sunday. I spent a good part of the day cleaning the house starting because I couldn't find the second bike mount that came with the Garmin and I wanted to put it on the road bike. I never found the mount, but the house looks much more respectable and I filled the trashcan outside with junk.

Sunday I met up with BUMP for the monthly workday. Our primary goal was to rebuild a couple of the bridges. The first one we tackled was the small bridge that is next to the gravel dead end between foreplay and Johnson's Mtn. Jim and I went to remove the old bridge while the others stayed to build the new one by the shed. Once we removed the old one, I could not help noticing how perfect the spot would be for a gap jump over the little stream. I am always going extremely fast when riding through here counter clockwise. I may suggest adding an alternate route immediately beside the bridge with a little "air". I don't know how well this would go over, but if we marked it well no one would try it unless they wanted to.

I like this picture because the women are working and all the guys are just standing around.

Back on topic: We got the new bridge in and shifted it more toward the road which really helps with the flow down the trail. I would usually only barely catch the side of the bridge after swerving around the tree leading up to it.

After finishing this one we went to the mysterious bridge #6. There was a big discussion as to what the true number of this bridge was, but it is in the 7 bridges section of trail a little before the log cross (when travelling clockwise). I shall call this bridge KEVIN so there is no mix up in the future. We also replaced this one and had to raise it up a bit due to the main supports being 2x8s and not wanting to get the stream dammed up with leaves if the water level rose a bit. We managed to get this one done also. The moist ground really helped us as it was pretty easy to dig in where we needed to.

The last thing that was done was a reroute of the trail between Kevin and the log crossing. The trail was moved about 6 feet to the right to slightly higher ground in a spot where water collects. Hopefully this will help with the draining and not be such a muddy mess in the future.

After all the fun of working, Micky brought hot dogs for lunch. We grilled them up and I ate 2 before getting ready to ride. I was a bit worried I might see these hot dogs again, but I really had a good ride.

Mal wanted to go counter clockwise; so Me, Moran, Tommy, Mal, and Mitch took off that direction while Micky and Jim went Clockwise. Mal set a good pace and had us huffing by the time we got to the end of Johnson's mountain. He had to be back by a certain time so him and Mitch took off and Moran, Tommy and I took a slightly slower pace. Tommy decided he was going to ride up the road and meet us at the top of the BUMP trail. Me and Moran headed up and the trail was pretty sloppy. Most of quarry road was an inch deep in water. I am pretty glad we decided to go this way because this would have ruined the downhill for me as I was trying to keep my bike relatively clean.
We reached the top and waited at least 10 minutes for Tommy. I was expecting him to beat us there as I thought he was going to skip the first climb up the Bump, but come out and go up quarry road. He had ridden all the way to the top of the gravel road and came down the jeep trail. We learned this is definitely not a shorter ride.
Heading up to the top of the mountain I was still trying to keep the bike clean and kept slowing down for the muddy spots and riding through slow. When we finally reached the downhill the trail was still a bit muddy, but I just gave up. I was trying to pop my front wheel up over the water in the first few ditches, but still got wet, so I just ended up splashing my way through. I did stop and snap a few pictures of the water near scout bridge as it was really flowing today. Still a great downhill we stopped at the bottom and Moran wrung the water out of his socks. Even though I was getting low on water in my camelback, I decided to pass on filling back up. I did get to break in my front fender. It did an excellent job of keeping the mud out of my face and for the $10 I paid was definitely worth it. (an added bonus was that it looked like I was riding a dirt bike every time I looked at the front wheel. I kept wanting to make motorcycle sounds)

We rode the rest of the loop having a nice time. The weather was really nice and I was just enjoying being back on the bike. There were a few more sections of the trail that was really wet and muddy, but everyone made it back fine with no crashes. I am definitely going to have to clean the bike, but I think I am going to try to go again Tuesday, so I may just clean it after that ride.

Here all the pictures I took:

http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/OakMountain2008_4_6

Riding, What is that?

Well, I didn't ride this past weekend. I thought it was going to rain on Saturday so I made plans for the day. It ended up that I was feeling a bit sick Saturday anyway so I didn't mind. Sunday came around and I was feeling even worse. I decided to just stay home and sleep most of the day. I am also a bit hesitant to ride the bike in the mud now. I just got it cleaned up and with the N. Georgia weekend coming up (April 10-13), I really want it running smoothly for the trip and have been so covered up at work that I just don't want to take the time to clean it.

Speaking of work, we are finally moved into our new building. Having to deal with the changing over the phone and our network/server was a major pain. It took at&t a couple of days to get both of our phone lines working properly and 5 days to get the internet working. (This little vent is for Tommy since he works for at&t, although he is a master interweb surfer and doesn't deal with piddley phone service). My office is now bigger than my bedroom closet and there is no one sharing offices anymore.

I don't think I will have time to ride after work this week, but am going to try and make the BUMP meeting Wed. Hopefully next week, I will start getting in some afternoon rides when things slow down a little.

I am looking forward to my first road ride and Mickey is reccomending the Botanical gardens ride on Tues Nights. I am still in need of a Headlight, but think I have it narrowed down to the one I want. More on that later.