Sunday Trail Day
It’s the week before Christmas . . . er, Fat Tire, and I have the anticipation that a child would have for presents. I have a great week planned, and it has started off properly, considering the climactic event.
Yesterday was the weekly Copper Harbor trail day. I showed up early to assist Rachel with providing breakfast for the trail crew, then I headed out with Sam, Sam, and Ann for some pre-race trail cleanup.
Last year, this highly motivated kid and his mom showed up for trail day. We all remember them because the kid’s name is Sam, just like Keweenaw Adventure Sam, and they were working together building new trail. I was surprised to see Sam and his mother join us, again. Apparently, they are from Minnesota and they have a cottage just outside the Harbor. Trail day is one of the parts of their Keweenaw vacation that they look forward to. We’re not only surprised, but grateful to them.
My yearly goal for trail work is twenty hours. Yesterday, I reached that goal. Why twenty? Well, there was a discussion in the MMBA forum quite a while back about bikers putting in trail time. Someone gave the 20/20/20 guideline: $20 to MMBA, $20 to IMBA, and 20 hours of trail work. Last year, I did just over twenty hours of trail work. This year, I’m at twenty on the dot. I plan to get more this weekend.
Monday Night Ride
Today, I hosted the Trekker’s Monday night ride. My house is beautiful! It’s clean! I even did away with the dust bunnies under the couches. Six of us broke off the main riding group because we wanted just to take it easy and simply enjoy the way our bikes roll over the terrain. The other group, I’m sure, was quite a bit faster.
You see, Keweenaw riders are very good and quite fast. Sure, we have riders of all abilities but, unlike other areas, our faster riders definitely outnumber the inexperienced riders. We have a steep learning curve. The terrain is so demanding that the new riders who are willing to put themselves out there and learn from other riders will progress rather quickly. While we’re not all lightning fast, most of us are certainly faster simply because of the local terrain and our bike skills aren’t too bad, either.
Most of the group rides I’ve done this year were fast. The fastest few would lead and the rest of us would pedal for dear life to keep up with them. I was happy to find out that a few riders just wanted to hang out and ride at an enjoyable pace. It was simple fun. Hey! It’s my taper week! 
This next bit of information is probably useless to you, but I need to document it so I have something to refer to next time I host the ride and can’t figure out what to serve: four boxes of the Betty Crocker Complete Meals Three Cheese Chicken is perfect. Two boxes may suffice for snowshoe season.
Beer
My “no beer” vow has been broken, but only for a good reason. I attended the Fat Tire meeting last night, which was held at the Keweenaw Brewing Company. Well, beer is kind of on the menu there. Also, I was informed that beer during the meeting did not count since it was a part of official business.
Ok, I’m back on the wagon and will not have any more beer until Thursday night.
