Mountain Mondays and the TNWCs!

Lead by Brian Duffy, Mountain Mondays was kicked off to a great start with perfect weather, perfect trail conditions and perfect company! Kristin Reese, Kim, and Dee were joined by Rhonda from Norwalk as well as some boys - Kyle Sedor, Taylor Webb, Dave Mable and Ron (?).

We all met at the Ashworth Pool for a kind of 'intro to mountain biking' evening on the local trails. Straight to the J-11 connector trail - and we were winding through the woods. All was smooth until the log/twisy-turny section near the end. This was a great opportunity for a teachable moment - and we all dismounted and then took turns getting over that nasty log in the middle of an off-camber 'S' turn! The folks who would be less experienced on mountain bikes were treated to 4 guys acting as spotters - giving them the confidence they needed to tackle anything.

Off to Denmans - and the only casualty at the entrance log was Dave - good thing he was behind everyone so they didn't see his endo... he'll make it someday.... Anyway - soon into the woods the first large log was encountered - and with spotters, the new kids all took it on - and made it! "WooHoo's' echoed through the woods as, one by one, they tackled the log crossing. - on to the biggy - and again- with the spotters - everyone took it on - and with only a couple of crashes - everyone eventually made it!

There was joy in the ride - in just winding through the woods - all 9 of us - enjoying a perfect evening on the trails with good friends - Thanks to Bike World for supporting this ride - we look forward to a summer long festival of all things dirt. Thanks to Duffy for leading and orgainizing - and to Tylor, Kyle, Dave and Ron for spotting us - On to Leadville! :)

TNWCs (Tuesday Night World Championships)
Well it was a slim overall turnout for the TNWC tonight. For the girls, it looked like it was just me, Jenny Weber, her husband Craig Hanken representing the Pink tonight. Both Jenny and I were running late due to traffic so we rolled in, just as they group was rolling out of Bike World. Another gentleman, named Mike, was also late and headed out of town to catch the group on his own right ahead of us. After checking our tires and preparing for our feat we set out determined to catch the group even though they had about a 5 minute lead and more than likely traveling about 5 mph faster than us. Of course, on the way out we caught a couple of those lights on Euclid and also just before Ankeny by Casey’s, which we were hoping the group hit a few of them as well to help with our efforts. We decided to take a short cut and turned east right before the left turn going up the BIG HILL toward Saylorville to try and catch the group in Ankeny. As we cross over Oralabor Road we hear a BEEP BEEP and I believe it was Kim West on his scooter cheering us on! We must have missed the group by a couple of minutes, but did run into the guy who left right ahead of us that was still hanging on to the hope of catching the pack as well. We picked him up and now it was four of us on the mission.

Overall, we had a great ride logging 33.8 miles, averaging 20.5 mph and had 4X15 hard efforts. We all helped pulling and helping to cut through the swirling wind which we couldn’t quite figure out which direction it was coming from and weather getting cold and rainy.

By the way - Jenny's avg heart rate on that ride last night was 129 and mine
was 170. ha ha ha - Dalena
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