Another good weekend

I got a pleasant surprise Friday afternoon. Mark gave me a call and wanted to know if I was up for a couple of laps around Springbrook. I gladly obliged. I jetted home from work and rode over to the MUP on the Rob Roy. We enjoyed a nice conversation and some fun riding. I brought my lights but didn't need them until I hit some asphalt. Nice.

Saturday started with a drive up Rt. 59 into Barrington so I could hit Beverly Lake with the rest of Team Slack. We rode a mix of grass trails, singletrack, a little asphalt, and more grass. The ride was actually the hardest 10 miles I've done all year, but it was good to ride with almost all of the original DG crew at one time again. We finished the day with talks of grand dreams for DG, BBQ, a swag giveaway, and we watched RR and GHGH catching air off of a ramp. Good times. I finally ended up putting on my 18t freewheel after the Beverly Lake ride.

Sunday was good too. Cgreg, YC, and I hit Palos. My front rotor was rubbing on the caliper and I wasn't sure what was going on. I ended up riding one of the noisiest bikes in the forest preserve that day. We started up Bullwhip/ML East up to the road where we rode Cemetery Hill, Post Hole, Stonehenge and the Yellow trail back to the Out & Back. It's strange to see that giant log pile gone. Anyway, we rolled on and Chris bailed in order to get home in time. YC and I rode on to Gravity Cavity and stopped at the bridge. We decided to head back up and go grab a bite to eat. On the way back we chatted it up with Steve, Ryan, and a few others in the Staging area. It was a short drive to this little hot dog stand that I hadn't been to before. We ended up seeing Steve there again just as we were about to head our separate ways.

I worked on my bike a little after I was done. It turns out that there was nothing wrong with the bike other than a slow leak and a front wheel that was improperly placed in the fork dropouts. User error. :( It was still a good mtn biking weekend overall.

Lunch rides and Beverly Lake

One of the nice things about working with folks who are conscious of their health is that everyone there likes to be active. That means things like lunch time bike rides are appealing to some of us. I had the pleasure of participating in a couple of them last year, but we've had a long drought of them ever since. That ended today when I led a couple of folks on a nearly four mile loop around the neighborhood near the office. It was fun to be out riding the Monocog on my lunch hour. I'm looking forward to many more lunchtime and after-work rides this year.

After work I was able to join a bunch of friends up at Beverly Lake for an exploratory ride of the trails out there. This forest preserve looks like it'll be an awesome win for CAMBr Northwest once we can begin some trailwork out there. The place has a lot of singletrack that hasn't been maintained for a long time, but with a bit of work the trail system out there could have more mileage that Palos and it'd have mile after mile of the sweet twisty singletrack that we all love so well.