Oops

First off, just as a quick update, there’s more bad juju going on with the EVO. I’m just waiting to work things out with C’Dale before I give a full report, because I want my next report to be my last one.

Now that’s out of the way, I can talk about my own screw-up that kept me from riding in a group MTB ride in Oxford on Saturday. As a little change of pace, Poolboy Matt and I decided that we’d go down to Oxford for the “Tuff Guy” ride- a group ride starting at one trail system, taking a road/bike path route to trails on the other side of town, then coming back to the starting trail system. The weather was pretty dismal- temps hung in the low 30’s, cloud cover was thick, and the humidity was so high that the moisture in the air was turning into snow-ish ice pellets that’d pelt you in the face and collect in your collar. We figured it’d be more fun to suffer bad weather with a group on new trails instead of suffering alone in Memphis.

So, Saturday morning, we got into a breakfast time-vacuum of some sort, and ended up rushing a little to leave. I backed the car out of the garage to pack and realized that the roads were slimy, so I decided to stick the bikes inside the Element rather than on the rear rack. I removed the front wheels, and they fit in perfectly with our bags & other riding stuff. We were off & running, and made the drive down with 20 minutes to spare before the ride start.

As soon as we arrived, Matt took his bike out & rode off to look for a bathroom. I got my bike out and it immediately hit me- I had no thru axle for my front wheel. I didn’t even have to look around in the car to make sure. I clearly remembered wrestling with it a little to get it out of the front wheel, then tossing it on the ground in the driveway before installing the bike and front wheel into the back of the Element without retrieving the thru axle. I flagged down Matt. We made a few hail-mary efforts to look for someone with a spare bike that may have one, but it wasn’t happening. I knew Matt was really looking forward to the ride, so I offered to be a crew person for the group then do my workout on the trainer once we were home. However, he decided he’d rather go back and ride in Memphis.

The ride back home was very quiet.

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Back home, we hit the reset button- eating lunch, prepping bikes, and deciding on a route. Given the rain we’ve been having, we chose on an out & back route that included the driest of the nearby trails as well as some of the Memphis Greenline. Pace would range from spirited to “hammertime.”

We ended up having a great, exhausting ride. Matt installed a rigid fork on his bike a few days ago and decided to celebrate by riding cross-country pace+ on the inbound portion of our route. The combination of pace and lack of trail traffic (due to weather than was better suited to staying inside with a hot toddy) made for some serious Strava terrorism. We may not have done the planned group ride, but we got in one helluva workout.

Day = salvaged

2 thoughts on “Oops

  1. Andrea,
    Are you okay after yesterday? We finished about 8mins off the other women and heard about someone being hit by a car -was that you? I am so sorry if it was and I hope you are alright. Thanks for coming out to Louisiana to race, we get excited when “big names” show up :)

    Louise, Stacey and Allie from s3!

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