Saturday May 24 |
 | Mountain Biking 2:00:00 [3] 21.0 mi (5:42 / mi) | |
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| Took Matt to Shawnee Mission Park to ride the paved trails since we received some rain overnight and the single track would have been a slop fest. We went North to the Kaw and back. I gave Matt my Anthem with the clipless pedals while I rode my singlespeed DB on platform pedals. The hills were killing me but I didn't have to step off. We stopped on a bridge to watch a kid do a massive backflip into the creek and when Matt stopped, he leaned right after unclipping left and fell over on the bridge in front of God and everybody. We all had a good laugh. He is looking forward to his first adventure race in July but he doubts he will ride clipless now. |
Friday May 23 |
| Skating 2:30:00 [3] | |
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| Took the girls skating Friday. A sure way to turn even the worst week around. It's amazing what a good skate will do. I took the old blue quads and bought some new wheels, my first upgrade in about 17 years for these skates. Made a huge difference. I'd shaved my old wheels down for hockey years back so these speed skating wheels were full width and I fell at least four times while getting used to the grip and width. Ouch. Still had a blast and got a whole bunch more traction so I was cruising around the rink like a mad man. Fun. |
Wednesday May 21 |
| Mountain Biking 2:00:00 [3] 12.0 mi (10:00 / mi) | |
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| Road Landahl. I had a flat on my van at work and I was late in arriving to the park so I was searching for friends on the trail. I chose to ride in the opposite direction of what I thought they would usually ride. Did the Rim backwards and then Tasty Goodness. I hit pay dirt as I was trucking along the creek down in the bottoms and ran across my friend Kirk walking his bike back to the parking lot. Seems he had a flat and he didn't have a tube or any other gear with him. He said he flatted at the farthest point away from the parking lot on the new Tasty trail. They added about a mile right in the middle of the loop. I didn't have anything to offer so he continued his trek back to the parking lot. I continued down and picked up Chris Still on his way back in.
After riding up the jeep trail with Chris, I decided to ride Family Trail out to the new downhill trail that they are building. I rode to the Sled Hill section on the technical offshoot where I thought it started but found nothing. Now this section is so steep and nasty that I have never had the guts to ride it, much less ride it alone. For some reason it didn't look so challenging this day so I gave it a try. I snaked through the rocks and gravel at extreme angles, at one point avoiding disaster as I balanced on my front wheel as I slid through some scree. I finally secured my rear wheel back to terra firma by almost touching my arse to my rear wheel and then coasted throught the rest of the short run down to the Boulavard. Is it still called success if there are no witnesses?
I found the downhill trail on the lower side of the hill from the boulevard and was surprised to find that it includes about 25% uphill. It did have a couple of jumps built but nothing that would require a downhill bike as of yet. There were some that looked like you could really launch from but I kept it pretty tame since I was riding solo......and I'm old. Good stuff for sure. I rode back up the jeep trail in the middle ring. Still breathing hard today. |