Camp Report

What a trip, Camp Lynda 2.0 is in the books. First I have to say a huge, gigantic thinks to Dave and Lynda of 2-Epic for hosting another great training camp, not to mention Dave letting a bunch of crazy kids take over his casa for a few days. You guys are the best for doing all the hard work to put us all out on such fun trails. Thanks, thanks and thanks again, I can't wait for version 3.0 next year.

If there was a single theme for CL2, I'd have a hard time choosing between friends and weather, with both dominating my memories of the past few days. New friends and old, I felt like I never was riding alone. Marni and I hit up Starbucks a day early for our weekly breakfast date. A high pressure system had been parked over the front range for days and these were pretty much the first clouds we'd seen. They were electric over the city and I wished views like this never had to go away.
With Dan and Kurt on their way over to my place from Boulder, we kept the coffee stop short but nonetheless got a fitting quote on my java cup. The way I see it #76 is quite true, commit yourself to something...anything...and be set free.

"The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating – in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life."
- Anne Morriss

Not a bad way to start a trip supposedly encompassing almost 200 miles of mountain biking.
The weather loomed large on our minds with a prior stellar forecast disintegrating into clouds and rain but the drive progressed quickly and was capped off by an evening spin up the bike path to Snow Canyon. Casa Harris was to be filled with Dan, Kurt and I plus DaveC and his lovely wife Meredith plus the ever spectacular Mr.Nice. In reality Casa Harris also became blogger and Facebook central but even that was a blast :) Those not on the computer had ample sports journals to read to boot.
More than a half a dozen moist bikes lay in wait in the garage every night.
Water flowed from the skies (and the campers) yet we found rideable trails anyway. How come we had to take peeing pictures this year...ahem Kerkove? ;) Days one and two I left my camera behind lest I kill our one remaining semi portable digital camera. Nevertheless there are pictures abound on Facebook as well as dozens of blogs like Adam's, Jeff's, Sonya's, Dave1, Dave2, Dave3, Kurt, Brad and so many others. We probably had 40 or more distinct participants this year and I feel like I got to chat with almost all of them at one time or another.
Even through the rains, the views were spectacular. Clouds shrouded the cliffs and the water made some colors even better.
Washing your bike every evening was a small price to pay for the occasional mud bog and traction in all the sand and dirt was amazing more than it was terrible.
By day three I had already had so much fun riding great trails with a ton of awesome folks, not all of who I can name here, that I didn't even care if mud spoiled the queen stage and my first dirty century of the year. But again we got lucky and the big bad loop was totally rideable. After the early climb to Starvation Point, small groups shook themselves out and settled into their saddles.
I ended up with Dan and Kurt and we powered around the course together, even in the face of a wrong direction big loop and pending "long" hike-a-bike to the high point. Fueled by Pringles, salami, candy and sports food and nearly endless chatter we spent a long and perfect day out. Headwinds were matched with tailwinds, climbs with great descents and my legs felt great. We caught Dave Byers and Kerkove on the final powerline section and eventually all 5 of us rode into town together. Once DaveC and Sonya rolled in we all hit the Hibachi place for dinner.
Stuffed and tired physically but oh so happy we slept off another food hangover and woke up to snow just above St.George.
I've really taken to ignoring the weather forecast lately. When it says the weather will be bad and I stay in, more often than not I just regret it. Don't let those clouds scare you away, just pack rain gear and go for it.
After a sketchy drive home (snow) I'm back to life in the real world. Even without a job there are bills to pay, things to sell, taxes to compute and studying to do in between the riding and blogging. This past weekend was quite the diversion though and it helped fill the life patience bank right back up.

What else can I say, if you weren't there you missed out big time.