Wow, so much has happened since the last time I posted.
Friday - Go to Hilltop, drop off road bikes, buy mtb shoes (I left the former ones in Austin because they were shot), work half a day, work on bikes, get things ready for the 3-day weekend, then shower and wrap up the "home" part of the day before 5:00. Then D came home from work, Alex (@2Julianas) & Mark showed up, they made us dinner, we loaded the car with stuff, and we hit the road towards Harrisonburg for the weekend. Ride was pretty much uneventful which is a good thing. Conversation was excellent so we just talked the ride away and before long we were 320 miles away from home and checking into to the hotel. The only real thing of note was that we got blistered by rain about 45 minutes before we arrived.
Saturday
We are up at 6:30 after 5.5 hours of sleep. We meet up with Gordon (@thedoner) at a bagel shop maybe 5 minutes from the hotel and we grab some food and discuss the plan for the day. Turns out it did not rain at all that night and the trails would be perfectly fine. Gordon suggested an early start time because of the potential for t-storms in the late morning. By the time we rolled, they were pushed out to after noon.
We started the ride and it was brutally humid out. The ride was a double loop with a stop at the bottom at the car. It basically went like this: Climb a shit ton, hang out at overlook, do an incredible descent. We did that, stopped at the car, then basically did the same thing but on other trails. Up a lot, overlook (pic below), then an amazing 3.5 long descent. Wow this was an unreal downhill. Just awesome flow from top to bottom and makes me happy that summer is here and makes me so look forward to some DH parks and some Kingdom and Raystown fun. This ride ending just cemented an awesome day.
Then we went to a bike shop where we grabbed some lunch (acai bowls), then took off to another bike shop to have both my & Mark's bikes looked at. Mine was fine but his needed some work. While we waited, Gordon showed us around his studio which is across the street. This was amazing, really cool shit. I felt like I was in a movie set or something.
Then we took a run to grab some coffee at Black Sheep Coffee shop while they worked on Mark's bike more, went back, collected him & the bike, then went back to the hotel to shower. For dinner we hit up this place that Alex found which was a farm-to-table-ish place that ended up having really good food. After dinner we went to where Gordon was working the night, doing the sound for some band that he had produced an album for recently. He comped us the tickets so we were able to go check it out no-risk.
In all, a great day.
Sunday
So it turns out that Alex and Mark (maybe Alex more so) are coffee addicts like I am. So we had made the decision to hit up Black Sheep for breakfast and we met Gordon there at 8:30. The rain never materialized so we were mostly good to go for the day. We could see from the hotel it was raining in pockets here & there but nothing where we were and the guy at the bike shop was pretty much of the opinion that unless it is thundering, you can ride. So we hit up the Stokesville side today and did some of the loop that @pearl had suggested.
This one was similar to the day before in that it was 2 loops, but this was a figure 8 that never went back to the car. So up, then down, then up and up a bit more, then down in a pretty majorly awesome way. Come to think of it, Gordon nailed these 2 rides as he left both days off with the total jewel of the day. The downhill was an almost 2 mile stretch of very Raystown-like descent. Awesome, excellent, whatever words you want to use. Just excellent.
Grabbed some lighter lunch after the ride then went to a different coffee shop that wasn't as good. Got back in the car and as we drove back the skies opened up like nobody's business and it absolutely poured for a few hours. We swung by Target and got some detergent and playing cards, then went back to the hotel and cleaned up. Went to the lobby to play some cards for a bit while the bikes got washed and we waited for dinner to roll around. We took the bikes off then headed out for some Thai food which was pretty good. Back to the hotel to play more cards then up to the rooms around 11 to sleep.
Another great day. And I am not really doing it all justice by blazing through it this fast. It's the end of the weekend as I write this and I am tired. So I'm sort of churning this out quickly before I crash. But the weekend to this point has been excellent, and we seem to have a great personality fit with Alex & Mark. We all seem to be very similar with a lot of things and nobody gets uptight about anything. It makes having a good time really easy.
Monday
Since it dumped the day before we decided to drive a bit to ride, then drive the rest of the way home. Breakfast was Black Sheep again, and I grabbed some more coffee beans before we left. Hit the road and drove about 3 hours to York where an old teammate Will (@glancingaft) lives. I asked about a random park (Rocky Ridge) and he said it would be fine for what we were looking for. We got in about 9 miles and after talking to a local he said we pretty much hit everything. So we packed up and grabbed some lunch at a local place before heading home for the weekend.
Earlier in the weekend Alex had told us about once when she was driving that a car wheel had come off a car in front of her and it bounced down the road. Well, as we are past Reading, the car in front of us loses its front driver-side wheel and it starts bouncing down the road. According to Mark, I then said, "Here we go" as I slowed down the car and watched. The tire rolled in front of us, hit the barrier on the left, then bounced out across the 2 lanes again and hit the guardrail on the right, then back to the median and ended up in the grass. Other than the car sliding off the road, it wasn't of any major consequence. But it was quite something to witness.
Drove the rest of the way without incident and made more good conversation. We had a great dynamic with them and we've already made plans for another trip later in the summer. We are pretty similar couples in a lot of ways but at the core, we all like to ride, to eat good food, to drink coffee (ok well 3 of us, D likes tea), to make jokes, and in general just to do things in life. Plus, I am not sure how many times you will be in a car with 4 people and can get away with jokes about Avocado's Number as well as CRISPR Kreme in about a 3 minute span.
Great times, great people, great weekend.
Friday - Go to Hilltop, drop off road bikes, buy mtb shoes (I left the former ones in Austin because they were shot), work half a day, work on bikes, get things ready for the 3-day weekend, then shower and wrap up the "home" part of the day before 5:00. Then D came home from work, Alex (@2Julianas) & Mark showed up, they made us dinner, we loaded the car with stuff, and we hit the road towards Harrisonburg for the weekend. Ride was pretty much uneventful which is a good thing. Conversation was excellent so we just talked the ride away and before long we were 320 miles away from home and checking into to the hotel. The only real thing of note was that we got blistered by rain about 45 minutes before we arrived.
Saturday
We are up at 6:30 after 5.5 hours of sleep. We meet up with Gordon (@thedoner) at a bagel shop maybe 5 minutes from the hotel and we grab some food and discuss the plan for the day. Turns out it did not rain at all that night and the trails would be perfectly fine. Gordon suggested an early start time because of the potential for t-storms in the late morning. By the time we rolled, they were pushed out to after noon.
We started the ride and it was brutally humid out. The ride was a double loop with a stop at the bottom at the car. It basically went like this: Climb a shit ton, hang out at overlook, do an incredible descent. We did that, stopped at the car, then basically did the same thing but on other trails. Up a lot, overlook (pic below), then an amazing 3.5 long descent. Wow this was an unreal downhill. Just awesome flow from top to bottom and makes me happy that summer is here and makes me so look forward to some DH parks and some Kingdom and Raystown fun. This ride ending just cemented an awesome day.
Then we went to a bike shop where we grabbed some lunch (acai bowls), then took off to another bike shop to have both my & Mark's bikes looked at. Mine was fine but his needed some work. While we waited, Gordon showed us around his studio which is across the street. This was amazing, really cool shit. I felt like I was in a movie set or something.
Then we took a run to grab some coffee at Black Sheep Coffee shop while they worked on Mark's bike more, went back, collected him & the bike, then went back to the hotel to shower. For dinner we hit up this place that Alex found which was a farm-to-table-ish place that ended up having really good food. After dinner we went to where Gordon was working the night, doing the sound for some band that he had produced an album for recently. He comped us the tickets so we were able to go check it out no-risk.
In all, a great day.
Sunday
So it turns out that Alex and Mark (maybe Alex more so) are coffee addicts like I am. So we had made the decision to hit up Black Sheep for breakfast and we met Gordon there at 8:30. The rain never materialized so we were mostly good to go for the day. We could see from the hotel it was raining in pockets here & there but nothing where we were and the guy at the bike shop was pretty much of the opinion that unless it is thundering, you can ride. So we hit up the Stokesville side today and did some of the loop that @pearl had suggested.
This one was similar to the day before in that it was 2 loops, but this was a figure 8 that never went back to the car. So up, then down, then up and up a bit more, then down in a pretty majorly awesome way. Come to think of it, Gordon nailed these 2 rides as he left both days off with the total jewel of the day. The downhill was an almost 2 mile stretch of very Raystown-like descent. Awesome, excellent, whatever words you want to use. Just excellent.
Grabbed some lighter lunch after the ride then went to a different coffee shop that wasn't as good. Got back in the car and as we drove back the skies opened up like nobody's business and it absolutely poured for a few hours. We swung by Target and got some detergent and playing cards, then went back to the hotel and cleaned up. Went to the lobby to play some cards for a bit while the bikes got washed and we waited for dinner to roll around. We took the bikes off then headed out for some Thai food which was pretty good. Back to the hotel to play more cards then up to the rooms around 11 to sleep.
Another great day. And I am not really doing it all justice by blazing through it this fast. It's the end of the weekend as I write this and I am tired. So I'm sort of churning this out quickly before I crash. But the weekend to this point has been excellent, and we seem to have a great personality fit with Alex & Mark. We all seem to be very similar with a lot of things and nobody gets uptight about anything. It makes having a good time really easy.
Monday
Since it dumped the day before we decided to drive a bit to ride, then drive the rest of the way home. Breakfast was Black Sheep again, and I grabbed some more coffee beans before we left. Hit the road and drove about 3 hours to York where an old teammate Will (@glancingaft) lives. I asked about a random park (Rocky Ridge) and he said it would be fine for what we were looking for. We got in about 9 miles and after talking to a local he said we pretty much hit everything. So we packed up and grabbed some lunch at a local place before heading home for the weekend.
Earlier in the weekend Alex had told us about once when she was driving that a car wheel had come off a car in front of her and it bounced down the road. Well, as we are past Reading, the car in front of us loses its front driver-side wheel and it starts bouncing down the road. According to Mark, I then said, "Here we go" as I slowed down the car and watched. The tire rolled in front of us, hit the barrier on the left, then bounced out across the 2 lanes again and hit the guardrail on the right, then back to the median and ended up in the grass. Other than the car sliding off the road, it wasn't of any major consequence. But it was quite something to witness.
Drove the rest of the way without incident and made more good conversation. We had a great dynamic with them and we've already made plans for another trip later in the summer. We are pretty similar couples in a lot of ways but at the core, we all like to ride, to eat good food, to drink coffee (ok well 3 of us, D likes tea), to make jokes, and in general just to do things in life. Plus, I am not sure how many times you will be in a car with 4 people and can get away with jokes about Avocado's Number as well as CRISPR Kreme in about a 3 minute span.
Great times, great people, great weekend.
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