It was a pretty damn sweet weekend! Friday left work early and took the mountain bike out for 10k. Not super far, but far enough to get a better feeling for it. It wasn’t quite long enough, but was still a fun ride, and I was still tired from climbing 🙂
Saturday morning was the beach… took the kayak out with a friend for about an hour, and then saw Eric (another adventure race volunteer that I might race with at some point) and also got to swim with dolphins!! There were 4 of them playing just past where the waves were breaking, and I swam out and was right by them… they didn’t leave, just kept playing. Gosh they are beautiful! Saturday even had a nice closing, as I got to see one of my favorite bands (Rilo Kiley) in LA.
Sunday was again just a great day… started with sleeping in til 8:30 (way late for me) and then taking the mountain bike out with my friend Andy and his bike (which is conveniently kept at my apartment). We had a blast! Spent about 2 hours out riding, and did about 15 miles. Some technical climbing and descending, and some easy fireroad type parts. It was just awesome. HOT!!! But awesome. He is a much better mountain biker than I am, having done it for years. But right now I’m in better shape. So it made for a pretty good pairing, and I learned lots.
One thought I had while riding was another reason why doing an on-road tri on a mountain bike is such a disadvantage — on a mountain bike, the gears are set up to make climbing easy, but you really never expect to be pedaling down any significant hills. So although you climb well, you just max out your gears on the road. Another thought: gotta change some of my road mentality of attacking hills to crusing up them, as on the mtn bike I have easy gears that make that possible.
Sunday afternoon and evening was spent relaxing in the nice air conditioning of home… after In-n-Out burger, that is… mmmm 🙂
And now for some eye candy… my new mtn bike! It’s a Specialized Epic and I LOVE IT!!
