the vicious is dead

to me. Got out for a several hour night ride the other night, with the majority of it being over 12,000'. Out under the stars, messing around with my light set up. All for a little ride that is coming up pretty soon. Am I ready? Sure, I suppose. Quick tour mode is the plan for that, fast, not at all. Well, maybe slightly.

Headed to salida for the don ride on the 4th. Had been wanting to do this ride since I first moved to CO, but it never worked out. I shut down the clinic and headed that way on Sunday night. Woke up and rolled over with Joey, Kevin, John and Doug for the 4:20 meet up at don's house. Joey, Doug and John were fresh off the durango dirty century which Joey and Doug happened to win, so Badass. 50-60 other folks met up and we were rolling by 4:30.

60 deep rolling in the dark is pretty sweet. What roads we hit I dunno, but we meandered through this and that for a few hours, rarely on pvmt once out of town, to the top of the pass for the beginning of the monarch crest trail. Pretty chill pace, but the group still split apart leaving us with about 15 in our group.

Hit the crest trail and yeah, it was sweet. High country riding with minimal snow. A beautiful section of trail for sure. Hit some high speed double track where the flat monster attacked, double flatted and got spit off the tail end of the group. Since I didn't really know the route I took off and luckily passed a few riders and rolled into the regroup area at the top of silver creek. Dropped off the mountain just rolling along when, what happens, another flat. Fix it and roll on, only to have my tensioner break. Since I run a quick release, my wheel was all over the place. Disconnected the rear brake and rolled on. Did 9 miles on the rainbow trail with just a front brake and ginger pedal strokes to the lunch spot. Since there was still quite a bit of single track and descending left, I opted out and rolled back to town via pavement. So lame. Still got in around 8 hours of riding with good folks.

So everything on the vicious is clapped out and/or broken and I don't want to fix anything associated with it. We have ridden many spectacular miles together over the last 8 years, however, I do not believe I will ever take her for another pedal, ever. I thought I would make her back into a fixie, but that would mean I would have to ride fixed again, doubtful. So I believe a cross bike is gonna take her place fairly soon.









On a side note, the wolfie may be here next friday, the day before the Breck 100, but I am assuming she will actually show up the following Monday. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but the reality is I am probably going to have to use a borrowed bike for the race. If I would have known I may not have a bike, I definitely would not have signed up for it.

Spike fest in the am, borrowing spike's winter bike for the short loop 50-ish miles. Hopefully it rides well and I can keep it as a reserve for the 100.

I'm out.


GO RIDE!!!