September Kind Of Sucked

And good bye to September. With only 22 hours of riding, this past month has had the least amount of riding so far this year.  Why? Work.  In addition to deciding to assist with an appellate brief which monopolized my time, I was also preparing for my first jury trial during the week of the 22^nd. While I was not lead counsel (I was what is termed the “second chair”) the trial prep demanded huge amounts of my time all month, especially during the last two weeks.  The trial week itself was 14-16 hour days. I was able to ride during the month, but more often than not, the rides were short bike lane trips to and from work. 15-20 minutes and that was it.

The trial concluded late on the 25^th. The next few days I did some riding, but the reduced amount of saddle time, and four days with no riding, stress, and generally crappy food had definitely taken their toll.

How to rectify this? Well the most natural thing in my mind was to head down to Hoosier National Forest for the first of my planned series of Gravel Grovel prep rides.  I had hoped some other people I race with would be interested in going, but it ended up being Aaron and I. He was fresh off a week long business trip, and considering my prior two weeks, we figured there wouldn’t be many  speed records being set.  We started out at the Midwest Trail Riders camp, and followed portions of last year’s GG route, while tossing in some rough, new to us HNF singletrack. We eventually hit Combs Road and then cut over to Nebo Ridge, which we then took to its southern trail head before riding back to the camp.

Overall it was a great ride. A bit over 30 miles and the scenery was beautiful. Typically I just see HNF during the GG or the Death March, in November and March respectfully, when the predominant color is gray, and there are no leaves. This time, the leaves were beautiful, and the trails dry as a bone.  Makes me wish I owned a bit of land down in that area. It would be great to have a small cabin to head to on the weekends.

We saw a perfectly white horse on the way up Combs Road.

This weekend is a cyclocross race in Zionsville, part of the IndyCross Series.  As I mentioned, I am also going to try to include longer rides as prep for the Gravel Grovel. I entered into the new mountain bike class this year, so I’m hoping I can tag along with some faster cross bikes and hang on tight for most of the race.