DEBRIS

I haven't had the mtn bike over to Warriors in a while so when AKS kept hammering me about joining them for a ride yesterday I opted to get the knobbies out of the house instead of the road ride on the skinnies at Piney. I have lots of free time since school is out and I've been relaxing and enjoying it. Only thing on my plate is the Pedalfest on May 28th this month and the NightOwl Race in June on the 11th.

I decided to get out to Warriors early and get a lap in before the "group" ride arrived at 6. There was a ton of debris down and my gettin' in some extra mileage turned into dragging branches and debris off the trail for the most part. At one place I debated on re-routing a section of trail since a mutha of a tree fell into/on the trail for over 50ft. Then I thought what the hell, I know what I'm doing if they don't like it they can change it, reclaim it or whatever. Heck it will save probably 5+ hours of sawing up that tree that's down and the amount of riders that go through there will ride who knows where if ignored/left alone. Decision made, trail re-routed - we'll see what happens....

After returning to the parking lot I was disappointed that the "King of Ice Cream" (Travis) didn't make it. I was even more disappointed that AKS wasn't talking smack on how he was going to wipe us off the trail, he's gettin' old. I hung back with Dirty to see if anyone was running late before we left, I don't know what the rush was (well I do but I'm not sayin'). We managed to regroup on the trail and near the end we ran into Mr.Stidham rocking a brand new carbon Scott Scale 29er, that thing was "pimp" to say the least! I finished my ride out with Stidham and we met C.O.B, Capt. Dingo, AKS and Dirty back in the lot to do some "after trail ride chattin" before everyone left - well except for Capt. Dingo his leash has a timer on it and had to get home. I think Stidham and I sat in the parking lot til nearly 10 O'clock catching up on what's been going on, good times.

If the rain holds out it's Thursday night fun at the TNR then some brews at Knights afterwards. I have missed the get togethers after the TNR and I'm glad we have got them started up again after the ride. Friday morning ETSU orientation is at 11am and I'm hoping to grow the club since we are losing about 5 guys. I already have two replacements I've been told but they are for the road. After Orientation I have to load up the exploder and head to Mocksville for the BMX National this weekend. Two days of being a teenager on little hoops! Looking forward to it!

I'm hoping to get started on the trails at ETSU next week. Applebeast has flagged a nice re-route over on the water-tower side of the trails and should make for some sweet additions to our trail system there. I don't plan to make any great progress I'm hoping to just chip away at it little by little to have it ready for the Fall race. I hate to see Ben leave this summer moving back to Ohio. He's not only a good friend but one of, if not, the BEST trail manager I have ever seen in this part of the woods. He's got his ducks in a row for sure! Time to go drop some flyers for Pedalfest, cya.

LAter G.....................