unecessarily lengthy

Saturday was pretty good. I got a chance to get out on the mtb because Johnny Huston said the trails were a go. So he and I rode at Waverly. It was a beautiful day (by Jan. standards) when I went to my car to drive out there but by the time I got to waverly (15 minutes later) the sun was gone. It was a little chilly but I didn't have any problems keeping warm on the trails, I even pulled my arm warmers down at one point.

As John and I were getting ready to hit the trail-head an unsuspected pack of roadies showed up on mountain bikes. It was about 4 or 5 guys from the Papa John's team including Papa John Schnotter himself. Joe and Rusty Sohm were with them. I guess they were riding the roads on their mtb's and hitting a little bit of trail action too. It was a full on BMC explosion in that parking lot with roadies letting air out of their tires all around. It made me so self-concious I had to let a little out of my own. I knew the trails were going to be a little slick so I didn't want to be riding behind all of them (many are notorious for not being very good bike handlers when it comes to slippery stuff, although I'm sure they could kill me in a crit).

Mandrola took off into the woods first, I think he wanted a head start and his buddies kept making fun of him the whole time. There was a picture that circulated recently of him wrecking during a cross race so I guess he gets ribbed about his riding skills quite a bit. So, while riding behind him for the first part he wasn't too bad. I did notice that he was harder to keep up with in the non-technical sections though. I was supposed to ride pretty agressively so when he spun out on a slick climb (montana's mountain) I took the opportunity to go around him and then attack on the climb. I guess the rest of the guys were having trouble getting up and they must of held up Rusty and John because I got a good gap on them so I kept going to see if I could hold it. I got further and futher away until I eventually stopped and waited for them to catch back up. I then let rusty and john around cause they gots more skillz than me. When we stopped to wait up for someone Mandrola took off again. Rusty passed him on a tricky descent and you could tell it kind of scared him. Then in one section with a few roots he just kind of fell over, I don't know exactly why so John and I went around. Then I got a stick in my chainring and had to stop to get it out. John waited for me at the top of the next climb and we ended up just riding by ourselves the rest of the time.

We did come up on the big Papa John at one point and he asked us how to get out of the woods. So we told him to follow us. He asked if we thought it was slick. I said, "it's kinda slick in some spots." It was. I watched him come down one little hill that was kind of sketchy and saw him run off the side of a little bridge and go down. I tried to act like I didn't see it because I didn't want him to be embarrased. I was impressed with how nice he was to us since he is on t.v. and shit. haha.

So John and I did another lap. At one point he let me ride his 29'er. Man, I felt like I was on a steam roller, ready to flatten anyone or anything that got in my path. He was running it single speed and that gearing was putting a hurtin on my legs on some of those little ups. I was impressed at some of the hills he was climbing out there with that gearing. Takes some muscle that's for sure. Everytime I would stop paying attention he would get away from me and I'd have to get on it to catch back up to him. It would be fun if I could hang with him no race day but that seems doubtful especially since he has the "calves of justice" working for him. It'll be interesting come Younger's creek day to see if I've made any improvments so far.