Snapped this pic riding to work this morning.
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Same. Just had a blast on the local trails. Those Ritchey Beacons are the best offroad drops Ive ever used. I’ll be bringing another bike over to The Central Coast at xmas Jono. Will leave as a loaner bike in daughters shed. Not sure what bike. Maybe the 26er fully.
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Still punching out those tarck centuries to try and get back into shape:
(this one was another Bob’s trip for bread flour; since I’ve started baking bread the house bread consumption has increased by a factor of 5.)
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double kid day. their parents were there too but are very slow despite one of them borrowing sup’s e-bike. hard to get them all in shot either way, but even harder when dropping them while carrying 120+ lbs of kid, trailer, and sushi while on the slowest bike i own.
jk i only dropped them on the downhills to give the kids some thrills
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Rode a great trail system near @jeffro today with sup. It was great. Jeff, let’s ride Birdsboro sometime! So much more to explore there than what we did today.
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Yeah, there’s a lot there. I did a Double Mountain ride today, myself, hit up both Neversink and Mt Penn.
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I have been trying to put myself out there and find more people to ride with, especially on longer rides. 6-8 hours in the saddle solo is sometimes not fun - especially when there are “variables”.
There was a very casual social media post on a local MTB group’s page saying they were meeting up for an end of the season tour of the best MTB/Class 4/Etc.
I got there to find 5 close friends who ride way faster than me. After realizing the reality of the situation, we all agreed I would be riding alone. So I said farewell about 5 miles in (that photo is the last I saw of them as they climbed up into the fog) and did the rest of the ride myself. It was fun. I should probably just accept that I will likely be on my own for most of my rides and embrace the solitude. Oh, and we found snow!
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You’re gonna break more dropouts!
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There’s 2 answers
- Find friends who are your speed. They exist!
- Find friends who aren’t using every ride as a training ride who will adjust for your pace.
This is one way that it’s actually gotten a lot easier in my area as mtbing blew up, the women’s group rides also got very popular, and it became easier to find people who like similar riding. It’s taken me years, but now I know quite a few women of a similar skill level to plan rides with.
In fact, some men comment that they wish they had a group like ours to ride with because it seems like groups of men are more often too competitive to just have social and fun rides together.
All that to say is there’s gotta be other dudes out there who aren’t overly competitive and would make your rides more pleasant/go by faster?
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You’re absolutely right. Putting myself out there is probably the hardest part for me, and something I am working on.
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As much as I hate Meetup (pricing), it can be useful for finding likeminded weirdos (of similar pace/ability).
Also facebook… it’s the worst place, but in certain areas it can be helpful to find a group who plans regular events and puts out invites there.
I also never went on a ride with them, but found a strava group local to me that did rides every wednesday through the summer, just never made it out to them this summer as i was kinda packing in all my riding into coaching days.
My dad is in a “senior living facility” about 10 miles from Birdsboro. I’ve been meaning to hit up @jeffro for a ride for years now but it’s hard to schedule anything when you’re visiting a relative with dementia.
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Face is looking to sell his bullet
@Jacobell @Paris let’s do this! I’m in Exeter Township, east of Reading. From my place we could roll out of the driveway and be on mtb trails or river path in about five minutes. Easy enough to loop in bike friendly breweries and restaurants, too.
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Last year I was in Reading for Thanksgiving and managed to get out for a ride on Neversink. I guess you can’t access the trails from the SRT anymore? I parked at the Forest Hill cemetery (where I think my grandmother is buried…no one in my family can remember 
). It was weirdly nostalgic riding trails I remember from mountain biking in the 80’s.