PLAYING "cough cough" TRAINING

With the most beautiful May 2-4 weekend that I can remember there was only one more way to add to the perfection. Going for a ride in my big backyard. A mass email was sent out to everyone who was not racing in that other country to the east. This included some of those city folk who have all heard the rumours and the legends of Copeland forest.

A few members from the Lap Dogs came out north for what would be another epic day in mid- Ontario. I was happy to have my buddy Rob coming, he makes a much better tour guide than I do. I know Copeland well but it's still one of those places that I ride with no random direction, stay lost most of the time, recognize a few places just enough to not become a statistic and then when need be find the exit that I may have been looking for for the last 3 plus hours. Rob on the other hand was the course designer for the Marathon race held here last year. If a new tree falls he knows about it.

Now my only concern for the ride was that nobody had really warned Larry about how big the hills were here as he would be rolling on his Misfit 29er singlespeed. There was a chance that he may need to use that 3rd gear today, the walking gear. Rob lead us around and got us to all of my requested "you got take them to this trail" which included the now becoming famous berms. There were a few rubbery arms after each amazing downhill section.

The comment of the day came from Robin "Every climb here is worth it" Yes there is lots of climbing but the smiles and laughter after every awesome long downhill section kept everyone wanting to continue.

Jeremy skipped his first thoughts of going and peeing on a rock that killed his race season last year to come ride with us. That rock will be there for a while. 3 hours of climbing and descending with only one overlap of the same trail which just happened to be a climb kept everyone in awe including myself. I keep forgetting how big and how many trails there are in this place. We only touched about a 1/4 of what was out there.


We hit the parking lot with everyone in great moods and also slightly famished, 10 minutes later we were chilling on the patio at Horseshoe resort with beer and not healthy menu choice food.

I did get the training in I was supposed to do. No beer drinking was not training, well I am on holidays, so maybe it is. It's a bit of a chill day today, at this point. There will be a repeat of this ride in the future. The next non race weekend is when???? It's a solid month now of laps.