Fall's Re-Sprung

Last night Alex was playing 20-questions of sort with his daughter, and he asked, "Would you rather have a car or a motorcycle?" and she said, "I'd rather just ride my bike."  We, and Alex in particular, temporarily melted into a sappy sac of uselessness.  So much wisdom and insight for a five year old.  Rock on.  And a few questions later, he asked, "If you were to write a book, what would you write it about?" and she said, "Dinosaurs. No, wait! Math.  Math and dinosaurs."  Gosh dang, I love that little girl.

Anyway, besides reconfirming that bikes, math, and dinosaurs really are about the coolest things ever...today was great because it was the best ride for me in awhile.  It was all getting a little stale lately, with too much work and other commitments and fading daylight and whine-whine-whine that all my rides were micro-rides for the past few weeks.  My definitions are that a micro-ride is less than 1.5 hours, a ride is 1.5 to 3 hours, a good ride is 4-5 hours, and a big ride is anything over 5 hours.   And so, by these definitions, not only had I not been on a good ride in quite some time, I also hadn't really been on a ride.  Once you take out the hour of commuting I do daily, I was really only riding for about another hour. Not enough at all.  Granted, those two or so hours were great for what they were, and I've been riding the hell out of the hour I have, which might wind up helping my speed, but I needed a day of just riding, getting to go until I got bored or, not feeling like I had to be back for anything.  

 So I left to go to the sneak attack trails over to Mills, then up Trace, which for some reason I'd never bother riding up before--I've been down it countless times.  It wasn't quite the tough grunt I thought it would be, more like a prolonged whimper. And the sourwoods are all bright red, and the Betulacea all bright yellow, and everything looked like fall--yet the temperature was warm and perfect.  Two hours in, I realized I had only drank a quarter of one of my water bottles, so I decided to keep adding to the loop I had in mind, and got back in just under 4.5 hours.  It would have been nice to go longer if I didn't get off to such a late start and the lesson I keep relearning would have changed my habits (i.e. that water and big red gum aren't enough for rides over four hours.) But oh well. I got home from this ride much more content than I had in awhile, so that was good.

Monday I'm doing the ol' Rainbow Ridge-Kitsuma-Rainbow Ridge oreo ride, which is one of my favorites, and on Tuesday, all the seasonal trails re-open in Pisgah, and then....watch out!!

Collegiate Nationals are happening in two weeks from this weekend. At Lees-McRae college in Banner Elk, NC.  You should go and watch the fastest schoolkids in the nation go around in circles. And there's always a bajillion good parties going on that Saturday.  

Lose your car keys.