It's amazing what a new piece of hardware can do sometimes. Last night I installed my new fork
and went for the obligitory bouncy bouncy test ride. I knew the fork was good and it started a
little itch.
Woke up this morning and the itch was developing into a rash, had to pass the bike 3 times while
getting ready. Oh man did i want to ride.
Work was pretty much a cycle of a few minutes of work followed by an equal amount of mtb related
surfing, hit every site I knew and found a few new ones. At this point I'm pretty much dying, hives
everywhere, must scratch.
Rush home and the better half doesn't even ask, she knows and just gives the curfew as I stumble out
the door carrying all the gear, bike, and a snack hanging from my mouth. We have things to do so I
only an hour or so of ride time to work with.
Fiddling with all the new annodized knobs on the fork was fun for the first few minutes but quikly I
forgot about the new toy and just had a blast riding. Everything bowed to my wheel and let me pass,
the riding was smooth and, well, just a hell of a lot of fun. I was having a blast.
Once the itch was soothed a bit I found myself at the bmxish center area of our trail and started
goofing off. There is this one area that is almost like a dirt halfpipe, about 10 ft high on each
side, one steep and the other a bit more gentle, perfect for working up speed for the other half.
Most of us get a kick out of watching the local heroes doing 180's at the top of the steeper half
and backpedaling a bit, while us mortals entertain ourselves just zooming back and forth and maybe
getting a tiny bit of awkward air. I have aspirations of pulling the 180 some day but I have no
skillz once the knobbies leave the dirt (I really just want them back on the dirt as quickly as
possible), so in the interim I am working on a 90deg rotation and diving back to the other side. So
far I've made it maybe 15 deg. yay.
I don't know what came over me but I kinda "figured it out" and made a 90deg. It turns out that once
a certian threshold is crossed, seemed to be about 60 deg or so, the rest is easy. To shorten a bit,
after a giddy half hour of frantic tries I was pullin the full 180!! Granted it looked like a scared
cat flailing around to see what spooked it, but dammit I was landing em.
pant pant giggle pant, ok, curfew, head home. Got back on the driveway, still glowing at this point,
and couldn't resist riding around a bit.
...an hour later was back in the driveway again. The groove was so groovy that all sorts of things
in the hood were just begging to be ridden, nothing big, but lots of fun. Discoverd a bunch of new
toys to calm me down when I get a little itch in the future. Bonus.
Back in the house I was relieved to learn that she'd calculated in an hour or so of buffer time (she
knows me well and we have a very functional relationship) so I wasn't even in trouble.
still giddy and I only have to work a half day tomorrow. Scratch scratch...