Sunny and 60

For the past 6 weeks, the southeast United States has seen nothing but gray skies and rain. As you can imagine, this…combined with cold weather…makes for less than ideal mountain biking conditions. Like any avid cyclist…you make due. You ride at night when you can and throw a leg over the road bike when things get too messy. In Georgia, we are also fortunate enough to have loads of red clay EVERYWHERE! What does this mean? You can’t ride trails when they are wet because they become a rutted out mess.

This past weekend, we saw a very rare occurrence for this time of year. To our surprise, all weekend long it was sunny and 60 degrees outside. So what did I do? I rode and rode my ass off all weekend long. When a sunny and 60 day comes, you take advantage of it as best you can. When 2 sunny and 60 days come back to back…you really start to smile and ride as much as you can. When those 2 days come at a time that you almost completely forgot what the sun even looks like…you damn near want to camp out at the trailhead so you don’t miss a single minute of the action!

A group of us got together at a local trail yesterday to help celebrate a friend’s birthday. There was riding, laughing, riding and more riding. While we were out enjoying a trail that we have all ridden more times than we care to count, a thought occurred to me. A lot of times, we can get caught up in the retail end of mountain biking…discussing parts, bikes and our next purchases. When we get out on days like I had over the weekend, it reminds us what it is really all about…

• It is about the ride.
• It is about getting out into nature and enjoying being outdoors.
• It is about sharing these precious moments with friends and making memories along the way.
• It is about the solitude and quietness of nature.
• It is about hearing your tires grip the dirt as you clear that impossible climb.
• It is about encouraging others to complete what they thought to be impossible in their heads, only to find out they are actually stronger than they originally thought.
• It is about simplifying life and enjoying the time we have.
• It is about getting away from the stresses and enjoying being with ourselves.

Cycling is all of those above things to me, but most of all…it is still fun. It is still fun to get out on the trail and push it until my heart feels like it is going to explode. No matter where I go in life…I really hope that I never lose site of that.

It is on the trail that I really remember how great we have it. Not everyone gets to experience these sensations and they go throughout their lives miserable with everything around them.

If only more people would just get outside and enjoy the world around them…we would have a much happier world. Remember…no matter what life throws at you…you can always survive…you can always push through…and always…enjoy the ride.

So here is to more sunny and 60 days in 2009.