3 stage

That was the best way to describe the weekend and also the final destination for today. stage one was Friday. Just another day. Stage two started at about 7:43 Saturday morning. I was awake but taking my sweet ass time to move. When I did is when it happened. Not a pop, just a sharp pain. Shit i can't turn my neck to the right. Nice move bone head.

This lead to a day on the couch with A535 and hot packs. I forget how much I turn my head until I can't do it. Lot's of stretching and rest and things started to soften. Obviously the bikes stayed on the wall. The altered training schedule was altered again.

Today is where the 3rd stage and 3 stage came together. I know I should have been taking it easy but I had this ride planned a week ago. 3 Stage in Collingwood is one of my favorite places to ride but I have yet to get there this season. I'd been mentioning this to Dr. Bill and a few others. Road trip!!

The crew for the day. Dr. Bill, Mark, Lee, John and the Molly Monster. After a day of me sitting and dong nothing she needed a good run. As for the neck. Well, I did have my doctor/physio riding with me. If it was bad he would not let me ride right?

8 am on a Sunday means everyone shows up with coffee for the 45 minute drive out. Now the one thing with 3 stage is draining and clay. It has little of one and lots of the other. It didn't rain alot yesterday but enough to make things interesting for the first hour.

The first 45 minutes were all about going up. We also seemed to have more crashes going uphill and slow. Dirty mud puddles are horrible for showing how deep they really are.

Everyone but Dr. Bill found an endo causing holes disguised as little puddles.

With all the climbing to came a perk. The view from the top of the bluff is amazing.



The lower parts of 3 stage were really muddy and slick first thing in the morning but as we got closer to the top things were dry and fast. Of course dry and fast means more crashes. Lee recovering after a rock reached out and grabbed his wheel.

This guy is crazy fast but is a self admitted crasher. I followed him for a while on some of the downhills and can see why. Some of the areas he would speed up were places I was starting to brake.

A couple hours later we started to make our way back down. There is something to be said about having all the big climbing at the start of the ride. We spent at least 45 minutes descending some amazing singletrack. We took the long way down.

Now this is where the neck became a factor. Things felt better but I still had a hard time turning my head to the right and of course ripping in tight turny singletrack was far from easy. I was cruising pretty good when wouldn't you know it another rock jumped out in front of me and stopped my bike dead. Ya just the bike stopped dead. things in motion stay in motion. I wasn't going crazy fast but I hit things hard enough to push air out of my tires and put a little tweak in my pretty wheels. Of course with all the mud I was running a lower than normal air pressure.

The bike will be off to Georgian Cycle this week for a tune up. After such an amazing ride what else can you do but hit up a place for some food and a beer.

The Village at Blue Mountain is a cool place and Skool Bar and Grill are great. They had no problem with having Molly on the patio. The girls all took their turn petting her and I think Molly got the best meal. Mine was awesome though.

A beer or two later mixed in with some stories of past races etc. What is a better way to finish a weekend.


The neck is feeling not to bad, the rest of the body is still feeling a little tired. The next two weeks are going to be pretty calm for training. Lots of stretching and recovery/base rides. 2 weeks till the 8 hour. Hoping to win this event. Hopefully the legs will agree with me on race day.

Thanks for a great day boys. It was one of those days that reminds you why you ride!! Because it's fun!!!!!!!!!!!!

Later.