Fools in the Rain

Our friends Laurie & Roger got a big group of 15 or so to pre-ride the 50 mile version of the Fools Gold race yesterday. Eddie and I had a previous engagement which required us to be models for Andrew Kornylak's outdoor photo shop so we couldn't make their ride. The forecast for Sunday would be wetter than Saturday so no one really took us up on our offer to ride it on Sunday. Chris was the only one that was into riding with us (he doesn't like to ride in the early AM either), so the three of us set out on our merry way this morning with hopes that the rain would just stick around Atlanta, and not head up north towards the mountains.

We started at the Game Check station on FS 77, since it would be a good midway point to refuel without going too far off the race course. Except...Eddie forgot the map and even though he is the Race Director, he wasn't the race course designer and doesn't have the course memorized..oops. We decided we'd do the best we could by memory since all three of us know the area pretty well. As we were getting ready to ride, Eddie realized he forgot his riding shorts..big OOPS. He would have to ride in his cargo shorts and boxers all day...with no chamois butter and his minimalist saddle..ouch.

We finally hit the road and soon the trail. Looking back on it, we did a lot of the singletrack backwards from the way it will run in the race (the more fun direction). Today's direction had us climbing lots more and I wasn't too thrilled about it since I had my flatlander gearing set up. 10 minutes into the first trail I banged my knee on my stem trying to clear a steep pitch of rutted out trail littered with deadfall. That hurt like hell and still hurts as I'm typing this. Eddie and Chris were keeping a reasonably easy pace though, I guess they were being nice to me. My view was still of their butts the whole day, though.

Midway through FS 141 on our way to Montgomery Creek Falls trail, it started to rain...then it started to pour. That trail was still in good shape, but we knew the Bull/Jake singletrack would be icky because it's a lot of red clay. When we got to the FS road, we opted to do the climb up to Cooper Gap, over to Winding Stair Gap and come back down 77 to the car. It would be quite an abbreviated ride, but it was seriously pouring and not letting up.

I'm not sure how many miles we covered, but we kept a pretty easy but consistent pace. We got 3 hours in...3 hours shy of our goal of 6. I would have taken more pics, but I didn't have an underwater camera. Oh well, it's just been that kind of week.

Damage assessment:

I'm looking pretty clean..at least with the camera 5 feet away.

Chris isn't too dirty, though his Wingnut is.

...and then there's Eddie. Yeeeeaaaahhhh....no comment.




Poor Eddie, he didn't have any other shorts to wear home so he had to drive home in a towel, which meant we couldn't stop for Mexican food!



More pics of Conyers yesterday:

Waiting to start riding for the cameras

Vassago baby!

The Granite "Wall". Trust me, it's much steeper than it looks. So steep I had to get off and push at the top.
The catwalk. Eddie and I rode this about 16 times yesterday while people took pictures of our super smooth trail moves.
Twin Six love
I was trying the "self-portrait while riding" move and almost crashed on the granite...so this is the best I could do.
Eddie snapped this one of my boy and me crashed out on the couch after a long day on the trail.