I started the year with great intentions. I really do enjoy writing down a lot of the things I post here so it’s been a little frustrating.  However, that’s just how it goes sometimes. The beginning of the year has absolutely flown by. Time is always tight but my responsibilities at work have been eating my lunch lately. Which is always better than the alternative (and honestly, I love my job so it’s really hard to complain). On top of all that we’ve had some major family health concerns (Katie’s Brother) and Katie and I really do noticeably better when we have a little bit of alone time together, so it’s pretty critical to make that happen.

Anyhow, the plan to contribute consistently has obviously gone out the window. So, I’m going to just try and be a little less formal maybe? I really want to recount a little bit of last year and hopefully I’ll get to that. But…this weekend was my first event of 2021. XC Southeast had a race over at Ride Kanuga. A private bike park not far from here that has really been popular and had a lot of buzz around it, oddly I’ve not actually been there. With that said I was really excited to get out there and check it out and push myself a little bit. True XC races are really outside my comfort zone, I’ve never really had much luck at that fast twitch racing.

I made the decision to ride the SS, it really is one of my all-time favorite bikes and I really just want to get out there and empty the tank. We had a few folks from the Sycamore crew out there (and a Birthday Girl) and it was fun just to sort of get together (in a responsible socially distanced manner of course). I had a pretty tight schedule with Lizzie’s first Swim lessons shortly after the expect finish time so I knew I wasn’t going to be able stick around for any sort of post-race fun.

Not really knowing exactly how to prepare for a race that has laps and only lasts about an hour and a half I did my best to at least look over my bike the day before (Tightened the chain, lubed, looked at brake pads, wiped it down, bolt checked, etc.) Rode it over to the park with the kids. All was good. I prepped my clothes, water, all the other things I’d need since we were going to go over to the race as a family and I know how it is trying to get out the door with everyone. So honestly, I felt pretty prepared.

We got over to Kanuga, found parking, although nowhere near a registration tent. I went looking, ran across some friendly faces, started to figure out what was where, finally got my number plate and timing chip. As I started riding back towards the car, I realized I had to pump my rear brake to get any grab. Then the next time even more…. the next time…couldn’t get anything…. Maybe it’s just air in the line. I rode some bounced it around, pumped, found some folks to ask, nothing. Finally, I found a ton of fluid on the bottom side of the brake lever. Well, that’s not so good. Probably not fixing that one in less than 20 minutes. I was all dressed up so I decided to go ahead and go with it. I still had the front brake so I wasn’t totally SOL.

Not really being able to concentrate I ended up making a half-hearted attempt at getting some sort of warm up in. I didn’t drop the things from my pockets that I wanted to with Katie, still had 2 water bottles on my bike, Like I was going for a 3-hour unsupported ride. Things were starting out really well BUT! the weather had largely been wrong so far and the day was shaping up to be really nice so there’s that.

I’ll have a full report later this week. Hopefully the weather is as wrong as it was today, because it’s starting to feel like spring around here and it’s exciting. While I don’t mind the cold, I live in the southeast for a reason. Winter’s pretty short.