HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Guess what! The DB blogsite is one year old!! Yes twelve whole months of tedious and pointless wittering on about biking/running and generally arsing about! And what a twelve months it has been, ushered in with me stuffing my shoulder falling off my fixie on the way home from work and encompassing both (Irish biker) Sean and Doug following my lead (shoulder wise), Sean on "Mission Impossible" and Doug snowboarding - jeese we're clumsey buggers! I've raced against both Chris Eutough and Floyd Landis, beat CE (by virtue of his bike breaking) but Landis I have to admit was a bit too strong for me on the day.

Blog-wise it's been a crazy old time! Over 50 entries (out-numbering the people who have actually read any of the entries by at least 10 fold I suspect) and even 6 comments - yes 6 comments on only 50+ entries!! (I'm trying not to let the fame and popularity go to my head). O.K. so two of the comments were from the same Brasilian (I think) guy who I suspect runs a porn site and wanted me to add a link from my blog - cos that was going to increase traffic to his site SO MUCH!! The other four were from people who I had made comments to on their blogs - FANTASTIC!

Well enough of the self congratulation!

Week started with great potential - night ride from Park'N'Ride for a change! George and Brian as able companions - lights, bikes, action! Brian leads us on a "Magical Mystery Tour" down an alternative run to the bottom of Soapstone/Mile Smile then retracks steps up Bull Run - well he rides and George and I push! No trail for SSer's this way. Once elevation gained - have fun on trail that is new (at least in this direction) for me and bloody hard to follow! Just as we are hitting trails I know the "Faithful-ish" monocog starts playing up again!!! Starting to feel like this bike is built like a replicant in Blade Runner with an "incept-date" which has now been reached. I assume the chain is loose and skipping cogs, inspection suggests otherwise, then two minutes later I am merrily spinning my pedals and my back wheel is ignoring my efforts completely! felt a bit of a burke really - bloody freehub is shagged! So having ridden my trusty bike in rain, sun, snow and over countless trouble free miles (oh the maintenance free joy of the SSer life style) in the past 6 weeks I've (i) cracked the frame (ii) snapped the seatpost and (iii) broken the freehub!! Ooooo I can't wait to see what breaks next!

I suggested the guys just leave me (I am really turning into the guy who should just stay at bloody home) and continue with their ride but being the consumate Gentlemen they are they refuse - Brian gets the freehub working enough to get me back to the car (along the road) by squirting the contents of his water bottle into the hub to shift some of the gunge clogging it and we head back to the cars and beer after only 40 min riding. We make up for our lack of riding with a longer than usual chat and beer session which results in me getting home no earlier than normal - but in me being less tired and sore the next day at work.

So Monocog back out of action and the old Yellow Rockhopper is called up from the Bullpen! I decide against the dropped bars for "proper" riding so reinstall the flat bars. MLW is in a big panic about the upcoming "6Hrs Patapsco" - now that our entries have been confirmed - so Sunday is the day to check out the route - Sean joins in as usual and it would have been great except for the rain on Saturday. I had hoped that the sun before and after the rain may have meant the trails would be in good shape. The reality was they were really too slick to be riding - so although we did the entire 10 mile loop in 1 hr 20 min it was not the most fun riding, the slippy roots and impossibly slick climbs taking most of the fun out of the ride (especially with the nagging guilt in the back of my mind that we shouldn't really be out on the trails when they are like this).

Here's hoping the sun will come out and allow the race to take place next Saturday - hopefully if the mtb fairy is in good humor we might even get another ride on the course before then.

Let you know how the race goes - if it does!

Till next time

DB