A new trailhead

This morning I did my first ride from the new house.

We're officially moving next Friday, but I had a bunch of boxes to drop off before riding.
I picked up a bagel on the way and fired up our new super-automatic Gaggia espresso machine to fuel up.
Holy shit, that thing is amazing. Push one button and you've got a cup of caffeinated goodness.
Call me lazy, but this machine rocks.

Out the door with the new C3/ADG/Joe's gear on I was at the trailhead in about 3 minutes. No loading up the car and driving to ride the bike. Hot damn!

It was cold out so the trails were frozen and had a lot of traction. It was also quiet and peaceful with only the wind making any other sound. Half a loop around Rockburn and I was across Landing Rd. and into Patapsco. It was a nice change starting a ride from this side of the Park.

I had fun on some big log piles and launched off a few nice drops feeling pretty happy that I haven't forgotten how to ride a bike. One of the skills I really try to work on for 'cross is carrying speed through technical turns...loose, off-camber, whatever. This is a skill that pays off in the races. The rear tire on my full suspension mtb is a balding piece of crap so I had a couple of sketchy power-slides as the rubber broke free in turns.

The climbs hurt today. My riding has been down the last 2 weeks due to moving and I suffered on the steep power climbs at Avalon. Actually, it felt good to hurt a little bit. The legs felt pretty good, they just needed a little longer to recover. Two and a half hours on the mtb probably doubled my hours for the week. Yeeee ha!

I was just having fun riding my bike. A couple of times I thought about the poor bastards riding circles in the wind at Trade Zone this morning. It'll make them strong so they can race around more office park crits. I'm taking a pass on that crap this year.

It's all about the mtb, HAVING FUN, and 'cross season.