Kids Boyne Marathon

Brent turned the kid's race into a mini marathon. They did a timed 30 minute race. They all did awesome!!!

Boyne Marathon Weekend

After a week of silly stressing over the bike the weekend turned out awesome!!!

Joe Lee and I rolled up in my Charger Friday morning... A fun pre-ride lap of Boyne with Favata and then we were off to the Red Mesa Grill in Boyne City. Seems like there's always something going on in that little city. They had the streets blocked off with some off shore boats on display, a few bands set up jamming, and gymnasts in the park.

Race morning looked nice till it started sprinkling. Forecasts for thunderstorms had a few people pass on the race. Well it only sprinkled long enough to make the pavement shiny and then about 20 min before our race it stopped and by mid race we were bakeing in the sun. It was a bit of a bummer there was such a poor turnout. I thought with the Michigan road scene having nothing on it's calendar this month we might get a bunch of those guys. Guess the price at the pump is really having an impact. So 5 guys started my race. Hmmm... Just finish and I'm in the money. :-) The race was fun. It's hard to beat Boyne with it's fast flowing downhill runs. One interesting course change was the final loose gravel downhill from the past couple years was replace by a golf cart path downhill. That was pretty cool.

Brent even did a marathon for the kids race.. They rode a timed 30 min race...

And after the awards Joe and I were off to the LumberJack.. Yummm...

Stressing the little stuff

Uhg!!! I would like a "do over" on last 4 days.... It all started on Monday when I finally broke down and took a night off the bike to build my new 2008 fuel ex... I have been putting this off for several months.. I did the work up at the bike shop so I could get a few tips on some things I didn't know how to do... I don't like working on bikes... I just like riding them... Probably why there are so many in my basement.. Just grab a second bike if something doesn't work on the first... Anyway, Monday night was spent ripping down the 2007 fuel.. The bike shop would build up the 2008 on Tuesday.. I get to the shop on Tuesday at closing time and they were swamped all day with business and well, Wednesday will be fine... I go to the shop after work on Wednesday and there's a problem. The 2007 Fox Float shock does not fit in the 2008 frame. I contacted Fox and they confirmed the air valve assembly was redesigned and the 2007 shock and wont work in the 2008 frame... OK I'll just grab another bike... My 2006 top fuel should work perfect... But it's been a year since it's been on a trail... I zip home and give the bike a little TLC and take it for a short ride and I start to feel kinda anxious about racing it in a couple days... The setup, components, geometry, etc.. is all just different enough that I don't feel comfortable... Wednesday night and Thursday morning are spent considering rebuilding the old bike... And so on Thursday I spend about 5 hours on the old bike and I'm back where I was on Monday... And my bike miles for the 4 days??? A measly 66... Bah! I feel like I wasted 3 days of my life and accomplished nothing... Still it was worth getting the old fuel ex going again... I love that bike... Thanks to the guys at the shop for putting up with me for the week... Oh and the gash in my forehead from the bike stand is healing up fine... I should never be allowed to work on bikes...

Today I met up with the Dolppinator and Joe Lee for another perfect day of riding... A little bit of Bloomer trails and then the Stony Trails... We also finally checked out the "skills" stuff at Stony... I say we.. Well... the Dolppinator was doing some of the stuff.. We also found lil pony doing multiple laps of the stunts on his road bike??? Some kinda cross training thing I guess... I was willing to stop at 92 miles today as that gave me exactly 400 miles for the week.. :-)