Allegrippis Crash

Before I went to the trails in PA the bike shop feller told me of a sweet video from the trails. So, check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N76X5HN_z1c

Well, I made it. Safe and sound. Thank goodness I decided to stop and ride along the way. Amazing trails and I may have just gone crazy without it. If you ever roll through PA you MUST stop at the recently opened Allegrippis trails.

View from the trail.

At the trail head. 

I plan on riding at Windham this weekend and plenty others in the near future. I'll try to keep the pics coming!

Misery

Yes indeed. But, only while riding bikes is that a term of endearment. This year's RIM dished out more punishment as expected and I wouldn't have it any other way. After Bobby shortened our trio to a duo Anton and I decided we would destroy ourselves in the 12 hr race anyways. Just the two of us. I felt a little bad since this was only Anton's second race. Didn't matter, the man went out there like a champ and had himself a good ol' time. We held our own for a while fightin' for a podium spot, but severe rain left the course a bit slick and dangerous. We ended up with a superb 4th place finish. 

The rest of the Emporia crew was present and in full force. The formidable triple threat of Jim, Tim, and Mike contested the supafast class. And supa' fast it was. Mucho competition in this field. The always good lookin' Burghardt motored his crew of Great Bender's to a solid fourth place finish. Huge props to those fella's that were out in the light shower! Matt, Steph, and Garret successfully defended their coed title. It was a close call though. Rodney and Randy showed they had a lot of fight and kept up good spirits even with all the bad luck. It was great to see a lot of the newer riders come out and not only ride strong, but have a good time. Even with the rain I couldn't think of a better way to spend my weekend. Eating amazing camp food (Thanks Jim!), riding bikes with great friends, and camping in the great outdoors. Huge thanks to the Heartland crew for making these things happen. 

p.s. Who knows if we'll ever have a DK video. I'm trying, but it is giving me quite the troubles. I even recruited the ever computer savvy Garret to help and we still can't make it happen. Maybe it'll be up before next year's event!

Cramp Alexander mtb race video

Here you go. A sweet little recap of the racing action at Camp Alexander. Nothing like watching mtb videos to get you pumped for more racing. Enjoy and see you at Rapture!

Cramp Alexander MTB Race from LeLan Dains on Vimeo.

p.s. DK video to come later today!

Night Riding

My it has been a long time since I went out for some riding after the sun went down. And boy did I forget what I was missing. It definitely helps that I got a couple of new lights as well. After tonight I'm feeling even better about RIM. It will be a grand ol' time for sure. Mike and I started out tonight wanting to see just how long our lights would last. Needed to test the guarantee on the box. Tim and Garret joined us on lap number two and put in a couple laps. I went out for lap 4 on my own and took quite a spill. Not entirely sure what even happened. Just lost the front tire in a loose downhill corner and was kissing dirt before I new what was going on. After finishing that lap I learned that Tim and Garret had already left and Mike was packing it in. He had gone down as well and had a knot on his calf the size of a softball. Hopefully that is better before next weekend. It had only been two hours so I decided I would forge on alone. The box claimed 3 1/2 hrs on high beam so I needed to be sure. After finishing lap number 5 of the trails my back was getting a bit tender, so I jetted out for 10 miles of gravel. Some pretty gnarly thunder forced me to head back slightly early, but got a total ride time of 3 hours and the lights were still going strong.