On Saturday Dr.P, Mad Mikey-V, and I hit Fountainhead for an early morning ride. The three of us live in the same neighborhood and we've decided that we would make it a point to have at least one regular early morning ride each weekend. This way we can be finished by noon and be home to salvage (from the point of view of our spouses) the bulk of the day for the family. The only problem with the early weekend ride (8:00 am) is that it limits the night time activity the night before or bear the consequences as this group is unforgiving.
On this day, I had been out the night before although I was in bed by 1:00 am. I had a few drinks, but was somewhat reserved as I knew that I would be riding early the next day. The other two had taken it easy the night before. Still I was up and ready and we all met on time to head out for the ride.
I had been to Fountainhead several times before (although, it had been almost a year), however, it was only Dr.P's second time, while MV had never been before. For all intents and purposes, this ride would be like a discovery ride considering the time that had passed since our last time to the park.
Fountainhead's trail starts out nice and fast and you are quickly reminded of how rooty the trail is. As we rode we kept remarking about the flow of the trail and how well designed it is. Each of us took a turn at the lead, but today it was Dr.P that was on his game. Dr.P was leading us at a pretty good clip down some fast downhill sections when suddenly I was launched off of my bike. I have a hard tail and the rear wheel kept bouncing off of the ground causing my seat to ram into my ass. I must have pulled a little too hard on my front brake when I hit some rocks as the front wheel locked up and I came over the bike and landed pretty hard on my right side. I tore up my elbow which had just started to heal from a fall I had on a ride a few days before.
I dusted myself off and we continued at a measured pace while I regained my composure. We turned the bend and stopped at the top of a hill that leads to a small clearing where there is a stretch of two-way traffic. At the bottom of the hill in the clearing was a woman rider on her way out of the park that was waiting for the rest of her group. She was HOT! As the rest of her group caught up there were three more hotties with her. Whew!...this sight was just what I needed to forget about the fall I had only moments before. But wait...there were still three more riders with them. We waited in anticipation of even more hot women, but alas, they were guys. I quickly did the math and told Dr.P and MV they were out of luck and that I was joining the women's group. They reminded me (and themselves) that all three of us are married. That comment snapped us into reality and we started off for the rest of our ride.
We settled into a rhythm for a while and all three of us felt good. After a couple of rooty ascents we started to tire and started to take long breaks at the top as we regrouped. This probably had the opposite effect as we lost our momentum instead of regaining strength. On our way back around the loop MV just lost control of his bike and went down hard...this pretty much wiped him out for the rest of the ride as his wrist and shoulder was hurting badly. Dr.P and I found our 2nd and 3rd winds and he started into daredevil mode as he blasted over some of the larger log piles and attacked shockabilly at full speed. I was still blasting up all of the hills but one or two over the course of the day.
On the way home we awarded the white jersey to MV for his rookie ride at fountainhead, the daredevil jersey was awarded to Dr.P, while I received the polka-dot 'king of the mountains' jersey. We'll definitely be heading out to fountainhead again soon!
