single-speeder's dream & my dreamy single-speeder

soooooooooooooooooo, the enduro weekend:

Friday
Michelle and i set out from my house for a nice 3 hour ride. perfect way to start a friday and a long weekend, if you ask me ;-) we rode the Year of the Ox, over to Candy Land and up and down Chutes and Ladders. It was sunny. It was sweet. We were not at work. And we were feeling good.

After the ride I packed up the car, packed my racer-boi in the car, and headed to Laramie, WY to get him all set up and ready for the start early saturday morning. unfortunately, ed's work had him tied to his cell the entire way, plus a few hours. so i maneuvered around him and got everything i could set up and ready.

Saturday -- race day
5am: from Laramie, looking south east, i could see that the tops of the hills were covered in thick clouds. 'promising' i thought. we hit the coffee shop at 515am (much to our surprise, it was completely empty), and blasted off to the start line area, rightly caffeinated and excited for the scene.



we parked the car in a pile of sage and heavy clouds, and i enjoyed the muted space it brought with it. people were quiet -- almost as if they were whispering. i thought to myself: they're nervous! i'm NOT! I'm NOT racing!! ;-) i attended to ed's caffeine needs and race accouterments and we headed towards the start/finish area.

in a flash of fate and universal collusion, there before us stood the one, the only: dave byers. we've e-met, we've blog-met -- and on this fine morning in the thick fog, we smiled and hugged and all felt right with the universe. ;-) it was a JOY to finally meet dave ... he was pointedly gearing up for his ride and his race! we wished him luck and fun and rolled down to the start.

ed lined up off to the side, but at the front. the clouds brushed through the excitable crowd and kept everyone to the ground. it was earthy. everything above 10 feet was still and thick and quiet. below ten feet, people were one fire and ready to race.

i watched ed rip off the front and disappear into the gray and white oblivion. he waved, and then he was gone!

so i disappeared into the car for a deep, deep nap ;-)

i awoke to an extremely clear blue sky. who knew ;-) i saddled up the pony and took off for a 2 hour spinn around the beginning of the course, and found my way to the much-racer-dreaded Head Quarters climb. i tell you, that climb is lovely when it's only part of a 20 mile loop ;-) FUN STUFF. riding the whoops and swoops and rolls of the first part of the course found me wide-eyed and a bit on the manic side! anyone who would have seen me would have surely committed me ;-) the grin was too big for words... and i thought: damn, this could be a fun race course. and then i thought: why would i want to share this with 350 other people? ;-)

i'm selfish that way ... hehehe. i see now why so many single-speeders line up for this race. the trails are perfect for single speeding... i mean perfect-perfect....

anyway.

the synchronicity of the day led me to the finish area just in time to clean up and snap a picture of ed flying across the finish line in record-pace! he was focused, he was driven, he was flying and i'm surprised his brakes worked well enough to slow him down before he blasted off further west into the sunset ;-) my single-speeder did awesome, and the smile he beamed when he finished was more than i needed to know how he felt about his day.

we lounged around the finish area and chatted up the local race crew;-) Tommy broke his bike, john saved a friend, the friend broke her collar bone .... dan finished well, but felt like ewwwwww... and then....... and then there was EBEN. fine, fine Eben, off drinking beer, having finished hours ahead of where we thought he was. we thought something happened, but NO. the only thing that happened was that he finished while we weren't looking -- and he did a FINE job of finishing that race in STYLE! GOOD JOB EBSTER!

and THEN... (yes more)... we finally re-bumped into Dave and man --- luck would have it that the prairie sirens lured him away from the course not ONCE, but TWICE ... thus thwarting his attempt at his Golden Time. that said, and sirens aside, he still kicked major ass ... and we expect colorful things from him next year ;-)

so we sat, we ate, we drank with eben, dan, dave, dave, tom, travis ... all the people.

saturday night messican food + margaritas didn't suck at all. THANK YOU, DAVE. we owe you. let's go skiing, yo.

okok... anyone bored yet? ;-) i'm getting to Sunday:
we awoke late. the sun was high. the air was warm. coffee was awaiting, and so was eben. after a leisurely and overwhelmingly pleasant coffee and breakfast break, ed and i headed over to the curt gowdy state park to roll the ponies around a bit and get in a little riding before we headed back home to evergreen.

curt gowdy did not disappoint. i was off my game and as clumsy as could possibly be, and ed was just, you know, post-race pace. it was a fun start -- and once we warmed up to the super-trickay rock play ground, we had a rockin' good time railing the smoove mooves all over the Indian Lands. it is BEAUTIFUL. you should go there. no, really. go see ed's pix for pix. we had a delightfully playful day rippin' the short ride ....

I have to say that laramie trails seem to be a single-speeders dream. they are FUN, they are NOT too steep, and the climbing isn't only-up, like a lot of the other areas we go to (i'm not complaining, just comparing). the trails roll and corner and dart -- the rocks make it interesting and playful, the trees make it pleasant and shaded, and the terrain is potentially H U G E.

me and my dreamy single-speeder...


then we hauled our butts back to evergreen and slept like rocks.

la!la!la!

that was the enduro-weekend for me. ;-)

jj