My take on 24 HOGG

Overall it was a good weekend at the 24 HOGG. Good weather, good food (Moat Mtn. Smokehouse and Brewery) and good people. I haven't been out on my bike a whole lot this summer so it was good to get out on a nice long ride. I had no game plan or goals going in since as I mentioned I really haven't had a chance to ride. At the start Sven and I let the field get way ahead as we new it gets clogged up on the first climb. First few laps were good and ended up riding 8 laps before calling it a night at 10:30. Course was getting slippery and I was fading. Went to the camper to rest with the thought of meeting up with Sven around 5:00 am. At 5:00 I rolled past his tent with no signs of life so off I went. Felt really good in the morning and ended up riding another 6 laps. Probably would have done less except I timed the laps wrong and with having to be on course at noon would have had to sit for a considerable amount of time. I also had Nikki pitting for me telling me to keep going. When I had 10 laps in at 7:00 am she was telling me I could get 4 more. It was good having her push me though as I'm pretty lazy and was already happy with 10 laps.

As always the people there were great, and there were only 3 of us on rigid singlespeeds. (Charles, DEA and I).
My favorite was the guy on the last steep descent (the chute) who yelled "Go crazy solo-singlespeed-rigid-guy" every time we'd ride by. Next year I might just drink beers and sit with him, cheering everybody on.

It was good to get out and ride, and I got to ride 6 laps with DEA on Saturday which was good company as always. We got to ride with Dave from Hooksett who follows the blog, and Sunday morning I rode some laps with Tom from VT. who was a fellow SSer, although not rigid. At one point he mentioned he was 49, and he ended up with 15 laps.

Next year JJ will be back but it was good to see him up there pitting for DEA. Not sure about riding it again on a rigid, but since I'm to cheap to buy a fork I probably will. My wrists are certainly sore.

A1