Tired of Blankets?

Yup, I sure am. I've been putting in more hours than usual on the bike lately, and to do that I've had to do a lot of riding in the dark. So where do I go?? Ugh..Blankets...ugh! Yes, its safe, conducive to base rides, and within riding distance, but I swear I'm going to go crazy very soon. I don't know how those 4-5 times a week Blankets "regulars" haven't given up riding all together. Don't they know there's a bright, big world outside of Blankets? I'm counting the days until I can get my heartrate high enough to get back out to Pine Log and Pinhoti. Oh ridiculously steep, rocky pitches, how I miss thee...

Instead of dealing with the masses on the usual trails, I rode the new not-officially-open-yet North Loop, which took me over to the Goldmine Area where I did some nice powerslides down the steep pitches, thanks to six inches of leaf cover. I saw some dirt bike guys out there so I'm hoping they roughed in some new lines. I then headed out into the lake bed where I rode for several miles along the shore. It was actually a pretty good workout since there are plenty of rocks to work the balance. If you're tired of the usual trails, the lakebed is a great option...there is plenty of real estate and no worries about getting shot for trespassing either.

For the evening's workout, Neal and I jogged from my house over to Tony Berwald's place for a little night navigation practice. The jog involved crossing Lake Allatoona, which was no big deal, since all that remains is a small trickle from the Lake's tributaries. When we started the Night-O, we couldn't find the first checkpoint. Either it had been stolen or we were just completely incompetent. No one else we talked to found it either, so perhaps we're just all incompetent. The verdict will come tomorrow when Tony goes out to pick up the checkpoints. The rest of the course involved a lot of muddy lake crossings and a maze of 4-wheeler trails that I generally tried to avoid, since taking random trails is the best way to get off course quickly. We found the rest of the checkpoints and finished up the course in a little over 2 hours. Tony had a cooler of beer waiting at the end, but all I wanted was a coke.

I'm now mulling over where to ride tomorrow. Its most likely going to be road as all my usual mtb ride buddies are either out of town or broken. One more day and then I'm onto a recovery week..hooray!