Pickin' and a grinnin'

Last night saw the whole band back together for a fine "after-work" ride. I use the term after-work loosely because I had to roll out at 3:30 in order to secure "wee one #2" from daycare before heading home and getting all my gear together. #1 was home sick with the flu or some other nasty bug under Mommies ever watchful eye. Once home I had to rush to accumulate all my stuff and grabbed an extra set of lights for DaveG. Apparently he left his lights at home and our ride was to maximize all "legal" riding time in the Frederick Watershed. That means 1 hour AFTER official sunset. This is a good thing because it's hard to complete a decent lap there in less than 2.5 hours. Our normal ride times are around 3-3.5 hours in "the shed".

Upon arrival DKEG's only request (other than slowing down :-) was that we hit Super Sweet. A very easy request to accommodate as that is one of the finest sections of trail up there. With the addition of Brown Sugar last year the sweetness got even sweeter. I've been packing the dinky camera on most rides these days and got a couple good shots of the crew on Brown Sugar, specifically the log bridge prior to a nice drop turn. Of course SweetCheeks had to comment on my shots being a tad Full Keg heavy. "Man Crush" were his actual words, what can I say, David's beard is just too sexy.

DaveG was sporting his new Fox F29 fork on the Sultan and Jason busted out his seldom used Truth. There were lots of discussions comparing the various 29er forks on the market and well as the whole Fox versus Rock Shox debate. Until Dave realized his headset wasn't 100% tight he had doubts about the F29. He and Jason talked about the Fox "clunk", not sure what that is, but, it's doesn't sound normal.....or good. A couple adjustments later and he was quite happy with the over-all performance of his new fork. Jason had a similar positive experience on his Truth, which apparently has been a "troublesome" bike in the past. You know, one of those bikes that never quite works the way you'd hope. I almost forgot, even Dr. Longtravel was sporting a new Mary bar on his single gear steed. David and I have been touting the comfort of these bars for a while and Frank finally drank the koolaid.

As expected we had to power up the lights for the final push back to sand-flats. It's an odd thing to go from natural to artificial light during a ride. Your eyes take some time to adjust and the shadows are quite different around dusk. Two more hills and a couple rock gardens left and we soon found ourselves back on the road for a quick spin back to the cars. Our first official after work, non night ride of 2008 and it was sweet. That's a good thing because the weekend looks to be a rain out.