Rolling in NC

What's up with you planet earth? This is your boy Pacer checking with you after the relocation to NC. I'm officially living in Raleigh, which puts me right dab smack in the middle of single-track heaven.

As soon as I got everything in our place, we crashed. But the next morning I was checking the Raleigh Area website to see which trails were open. Yes, up here they close the trail when it rains. Harris Lake was open, so I packed up the Jetta and Titus and hit the road. This course is about 15 miles South West of Raleigh and the only reason I wanted to ride this course was because I raced there 2 years ago, and I kinda remembered the route so I could make it a training loop. Well, I got in the course and out of the 7 miles I could only remember the 45 ft. of dirt jumps. I was able to find a decent route that allow me to make it a training loop. The second and third lap were perfect as I found a flow. The weather was in the 60's, but by the time I finished it was in the 50's.

The next day I went to Lake Crabtree on the Cary/Raleigh border. I really like this course, but I had only rode it twice when I lived here before. I was very impressed and surprised to find that the course was loaded with riders of all levels. Families, downhillers, walkers, runners, and mountain bike groups flooded the singletrack. It was a welcome to see so many people out and active. The trails had oncoming traffic, and what was great was you could see the person coming 200 meters away.

I ended up hooking up with some locals that were very familiar with the course, and they took me to show me everything. We were in and out of trails, and I was completely lost in a matter of minutes. After that lap I asked if there was possible to do one loop like an out and back. I was advised to take all left turns until I got to the lake, and a parking lot, which I had to make right turns and that would put me at 5 miles. So I got another water bottle, and went out. It's tough to ride on a course that takes you up and climbing in the first 15 seconds as it puts a nasty burn in the legs, but it went away after about 1 minute of lactic acid buffering. I found a flow, and really had to pay attention to my shifting as the terrain changed constantly. One minute I would be out of the saddle climbing up jagged rocks and roots, then I would be on a false flat only for it to turn into flat single track that would take me into some really fast switchbacks. At end of the lap I had found my training HR. I went back in and did 2 more laps to make it 22 miles for the day.

I'm going to frequent this course for right now, because it is the only place that is close to my house that has a nice loop that has all kind of terrain. There is a race here up here on the 20th of April, so I'm going to put in a training block and see how things go.

Until then, I'll see you out on the trails

Pacer