Riding Bikes, Having Fun, and Proving things ACTUALLY HAPPENED

It does my heart a lot of good to see two of my goobers mixing it up out there with other cyclists. Both Hanna and Eli have frequented the fast ride on the Thursday GNO rides.  Of course, that's my selfie queen herself, giving us an amazing shot of their ride downtown tonight.

This might be the coolest shot of these two that I have.  I love seeing them enjoy cycling together.

And who can argue that this enormous Hound Dog isn't the cutest hunk of clumsy canine around??

With all of the good going on lately, there are bound to be sharp, pokey things that try to crush my groove. Pokey thing removed, tire repaired, ride completed anyway.  I didn't get screwed!

And all of this (except for the Hound Dog) gets recorded on Strava.  Because Hanna knows, if t's not on Strava, it didn't happen.
 

Father's Day and Stuff

The Beautiful Mrs. K always makes a big deal out of Father's day.  She knows I don't like gifts, so she just told me to do whatever I wanted.  Like, really?  That's a pretty awesome gift! We did go to dinner with Eli and Hanna, and Tyson was our server at Aya Sophia. The food there is so so good and Tyson treats us like...well...family! Then Eli gave me a $50 gift card to Dairy Queen, so how amazing is that??

What did I want to do for Father's day, you ask? I wanted to ride my mountain bike. I drove to St. James to ride Forest City.  I had the whole place to myself.  I put in almost 25 miles on the killer single-track trails, redemption from the awful race that I had there two weeks ago. I was faster for the same amount of mileage with zero cramps. I call that a win. Father's day: managed!

Speaking of riding, the Girls Night Out ride from the shop on Thursday nights has been incredible. Even in the heat, so many people have been showing up.  I've made certain to have water and alcohol available for them when they return.  If it keeps being so hot, I may have to provide popsicles. 

So you say you haven't been seeing many spray painted bike frames on this notoriously bizarre blog lately? Well I'm glad you've stopped by because you get a sneak peek at my oldest shit bike frame, resplendent in Rustoleum Cobalt Blue Metallic. See all those sparkles?? You don't get sparkles from just any old rattle can. This baby is going to be lapping the cyclocross courses in just a few short months!

I mentioned heat earlier. Since I don't like riding in the crazy hot temps we've had lately, I've taken to riding my bike at night.  I've been getting all of my stuff ready to rock at 9pm.  I've had some great rides, too. Knowing full well that iPhone's take awful photos of the moon (I'll blame the phone), I took this one the other night as I embarked upon a raid of South City.

 I don't know why I found this so funny, but when the Beautiful Mrs. K and I stopped by to eat at Super Smokers the other night I had to get a picture.  And oh hell yes...that door is HARD to open.

Mountain Bike Racing can be HARD

Today we made the trip to St. James to race one of my favorite courses.  Forest City Trail is a gem.  There are so many kick-ass aspects to it, from rock gardens to drop-offs and pine sections. Eli opted to do the Juniors race, which I kind of figured was below his potential but he's still not convinced that he's capable of doing the category classes.  He won his class, and his time suggests that he should have been in the Category 2 race, which is not only filled with great riders but it's a longer race by a factor of two.  I think he will do that from now on.  Proud of him!!

I also may have raced in the wrong race. I've been racing mountain bikes since the Spring of 1988, overwhelmingly in the XC Expert/Cat 1 category.  Lately we've done a couple of races with different formats, like the St. Joe Last Miner and Wolf Creek in Poplar Bluff.  I had a blast at both.  So I decided to do the Marathon race at Forest City instead of Cat 1. It was the biggest class of the day, with 24 people. I felt things were going really well for the first 10 miles or so, but then not so much.  The photo above is a pic of my Strava file, which showed that my body thought it was extremely hard. (I have only scored higher one time, in the off-road half-marathon that I ran in 2018.) I started cramping very early, which is odd since I felt like I was going at a moderate pace. It went downhill from there. The object of the Marathon class is to do as many laps as possible in 3 hours.  I pulled the plug at the end of my 3rd lap, having gone just a few minutes under 3 hours. I think I got 6th or 7th place? I'll chalk it up to a bad day.  I've had so much hip pain over the last couple weeks that I'm getting very little sleep, which can make for a bad race day, but your guess is as good as mine.

The beautiful Mrs. K was nowhere to be found this weekend.  At least not around here.  She went to a NICA thing in Steelville for the weekend.  Don't worry about me, though.  I still had plenty of company.