2011 Review from Georgia to Germany and in between

2011 Went Down Like This:
 (minus the normal weekend races)


Jan:  Cold Snow here = escape to Florida and FATS for warm base miles



Feb:  Everett and I spend a long weekend camping and riding the Tanasi trails.



March:   The boys and I fly to NYC for the day.  We take the subway to the Metropolitan Museum, China Town, gaze at the statue of liberty and eat NYC pizza for lunch, yum!
              Banff Film Festival
              Jansen heads to FL to race
              Everett races IHP   Shey does both!
              Jansen builds a trebuchet.

April:  Shey and Jansen head out to CA for Sea Otter

            Cory comes to visit and work at the shop (april fools day has me decorating his car)
            Jansen has a 4 hour birthday ride


May:  Everett Graduates!!
           Mom and Dad come to visit
           We all head to TX and Shey and Jansen race the Mellow Johnny's XC race
           Jansen has a big crash at Tanasi, bruised ribs will keep him off the bike and a branch went through his cheek.
          














June:  Jansen pulls a large piece of wood out of his face.  (post Tanasi crash)
           Everett has orientation at Kennesaw State University
           Jansen heads off on a road trip with friends to a big race in Wisconsin
           Everett and I fly to Europe and visit the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and Switzerland.  We get to visit with my brother and nephews.  Lots of fun!








July:  Everett and I return from Europe, pick up Jansen and some warm weather clothes, then fly on to Texas to visit with family.
          
August:  I have a great road trip to Pisgah, with tons of riding.
               Everett moves into KSU.
               We drive up to spend Everett's birthday with him at KSU
               Jansen and I spend a lot of time riding around KSU with Everett
               We actually enter a road race around Covington!
               Shey has a birthday and is getting closer to 40.....
               Cyclocross practice begins.

September:  Interbike in Las Vegas and Ride for Reading.  Lots of fun, lots of work.

                The boys and I ride into Atl to watch the Dragon Con parade
                Cyclocross practices
                Shey rides part of the TransGA as his vacation, but stops when the rain hits.
                 Georgia Single Speed State Championships are held by Faster Mustache and are a blast!!!

October:  24 hours of GA race.  Shey and Jansen are on teams and I ride solo.  Great course!
               Everett races collegiate at IHP
               Fried Green Tomato 50 mile gravel road ride was amazing!
               Cycle Youth puts on a cyclocross race
 






November:  Everett and I head to Chattanooga for a weekend.
                     Lots of ride time at the Pinhotis.

 

December:  Shey and Jansen win cyclocross state championships
                    We head to Chattanooga again for some long fun rides and stay at the Crash Pad hostel.
                    Everett makes foam swords and we have fun sword fights.
                    Jansen is building rockets.

              

 

 There is no doubt we are extremely fortunate to have these amazing years together and none of us take it for granted.  We wouldn't trade our time together for anything in the world.  Looking forward to 2012 with our awesome family and friends!!!!!!!!!!!!

Florida Sunshine!!!

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It turned quite cold in GA, which means it's time to head to Florida to warm-up a bit.  3 days of riding flat, warm trails.   Croom, Santos, San Felasco.   I even thought I revived my tan-line, but alas, it was only dirt.......

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We had planned to leave on Friday morning, but illness and a death in the family set us back a day and we left early Saturday morning.    There is a ride in Florida that we had wanted to attend, but a smart phone is required and none of us have one of those fancy pants things....yet.....so Shey found an alternate day of riding at the Croom trails in the Withlacoochee State Forest.

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There is a 40+ mile paved path for pedestrians and cyclists, so we rode that for about 5 miles to the trail head of the Croom trail system. 

There was approx. 50 miles of trail and it was flat, but fun. No time to rest, just pedal, pedal, pedal. 

The Pisgah Pits were interesting...... 5 hours of fun and we were ready to eat! We drove on to the Santos campground and pitched the tents in the dark. 

I just got this in from Barnes and Noble.

Shey is blowing through this book, so it must be a good read.

We would not leave home without out staple items.......Progold lube and Stan's NoTubes sealant!

Jansen and I slept in late, while Shey headed out for coffee and breakfast.  Then we started our ride out to the lands bridge.  The temperature was around 75-77 and it was sunny and PERFECT!  The guys came across the Woodalls and rode with them for a while.  We are excited that Reagan has opened a bike shop in Ocala and hope to get a chance to stop by on our next trip down there.  Can't quite get used to Ryan's mustache......

Another good day of riding and a lovely campfire, thanks to our friendly neighbor campers, who left us their left-over firewood.  It was hard to sleep with the full moon, but we managed. 

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Next it was off to San Felasco.

Again, the weather was perfect and there was enough trail to ride for a good while.

I came across this bobcat and nabbed a picture.  At these times, I wish we had a better camera, but when its crappy and raining or I fall on the camera, I'm really glad it's a cheap one.

Our friendly gnome is getting a bit faded.

Good rides, good food and lots of time laughing and catching up with each other.  Love it!!

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Happy New Year Ride!!! Union Point Trails.

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Shey heard there was some new trail at Union Point, GA and we all wanted to head over to check it out.  We needed 4 to 5 hours of ride time, so Shey mapped out a route from Heritage Park over to these new trails.  The road portion would be 30 miles of amazing scenery.

Everett was sick, so he stayed home in bed and it was Shey, Jafer, Jansen, Elizabeth and me.  We got to Heritage and heated up quickly on those trails.  Lots of fun!  Then Elizabeth burped a tire and it was soooo tight I couldn't get the bead back up to add CO2.  We called Jafer and he got it for us, then I rode out to the car to get more CO2 and we were off again.  In the meantime, Shey and Jansen hit the road to the new trail.  J, E and I rode on at Heritage, then jumped in the car to drive the 30 miles to Union Point. 

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Pic at Heritage.  Look, it's a NINER RAINBOW!  Love 'em!

The Union Point trail head is very easy to get to and is like one mile outside of the town of Union Point.  The drive was amazing and I wished I was on a bike.  Rolling green scenery with amazing farm land everywhere.  Plus, we passed some very promising BBQ places.

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We pulled into the parking lot and there was no one there, but smoke was rising from a fire pit.  Shey and Jansen rolled in about 10 minutes behind us.  Perfect!  We explored the trail head a bit and found hot showers, a fridge, BBQ pit, tables for cook-outs, T.V. and more!  WOW!  What a set-up!  Someone really loves to be outside and wants their riders to love it here.

Elizabeth and I took off after the guys and were rolling along having a good time, when there was a horrible sound from her bike.  Man!  Broken derailleur hanger and derailleur hung up in the spokes.  We pulled it out, pulled out the cable and took the quicklink out to remove the chain, so she could roll the bike back to the car.  We were bummed the ride ended early, but happy we wouldn't have  to carry the bike out.  I was going to ride back with Elizabeth, then get the rest of my ride in, but we met the builder of these trails when we got to the car and he told us all about how he built the trails and how much he loves to ride bikes with his friends.  VERY cool guy!

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The trail was well maintained.  Jimmy blows it off once a week with a blower that he has fastened to the front of a Kawasaki dirt bike.  (cool!)  Lots of twists, turns and roots, like Heritage,  with subtle elevation change. I think he had 12 miles of trail and then there is another 8 miles of trail right down the road.  We will certainly be back!

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Elizabeth and our new friend, Jimmy. 

This is the foundation of an old house that was moved to Highlands and reconstructed.  Jimmy said three widows lived together here.

Hot shower, fridge, t.v., fire and Jimmy said to let us know when we were coming back and he would cook for us!!  AWESOME!

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Christmas 2011

We had another super cool Christmas Eve together.  Shey, Jafer, Everett, Jansen and I met at the IHP to go for a ride/run, then we shared a special Christmas Eve meal together at Chic Fil A.  Yep, "It's my pleasure!"  Finally, we headed home for our Christmas Eve drive. 

We loaded up the car with boys, dogs and glogg and set off on our Christmas drive/dog walk to look at the lights.  Lots of cool lights to look at along the way and it was nice to have everyone home for another year on this special holiday.   We took a walk along Floyd street, where all the antebellum homes are, and talked and laughed together like we do every week.  We are so lucky!  Jafer was tired from working crazy hours this past month, but the glogg and hot cocoa pepped him up before it was time to open gifts. 

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So, back at the house Santa had left some pretty cool stuff for all of us and we enjoyed unwrapping each present while watching some weird leprechaun Christmas claymation movie................yep, weird.  Cycling stuff for everyone.  A super awesome hoody for Everett.  Grandpa slippers for Jafer.  Home Depot card for Jansen.  Another Garmin for Shey (we love playing with those things!).  Hincapie fashion for me.  I think the Pez candy dispensers were a favorite for the guys!

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Everett, caught snacking again, Jafer in his new cycling cap, Jansen is a cycling Ninja!

Shey got coal in his stocking.

Serena got a pig, that lasted 3 days before Indy tore the stuffing brains out and turned it into a pig zombie.

Indy the pig hater........

Another wonderful year with our extended family and friends.  We have so much to be thankful for!

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Weekend Two at The Crash Pad!

We planned a long weekend of riding around staying in Chattanooga, TN at the Crash Pad hostel.  The first day we wanted to hit at least 4 hours at Raccoon Mountain, then head down to Dalton on Sunday to ride the Pinhoti trails west toward the border.

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Everett wanted to stay and study for his last final, which was Monday and work at the bike shop, so we dropped him off at the shop on our way out of town.  Then it was a straight shot up the hwy to Raccoon Mt., where Jansen was sure he got the cold side of the car as we were changing.....brrrrrr.

Jansen tried these new Duro tires.  We love the reverse skunk look they have.

The views were spectacular, as always.

Fun rock drop-offs.

I always love the way this little part of the trail looks.  It feels like you are on another planet.

It was getting pretty dark on the trail as I came around a corner and Chattanooga's lights came into view.  It felt like the whole town was decorated for Christmas.

We only have a little cheap camera, so I couldn't get a great picture of moon over the city, but it was pretty cool.

After our ride we hit Greenlife for some yummy dinner.  The pizza was awesome!

Dessert was a snowman.

Chattanooga was having some sort of holiday celebration and as we drove down main street we saw storm troopers, wing fighters and lots of other characters with no less than 10 Santas.  (it was hard to tell which one was the real one)

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We got a good night's sleep at the Crash Pad and in an odd coincidence I found the same group of young climbers, that I had visited with the last time we stayed at the hostel,  were there again this weekend.  We got up semi-early Sunday morning and drove down to Dalton, then out to the boon-docks to park at the lot for the start of our ride.

The three of us rode together for the first section of the trail and shortly came across this water crossing......Shey said  "sh**, I forgot about this.  It's not really a problem in the summer."  Socks and shoes off and a careful crossing over slick, mossy concrete.

It was freezing, but luckily our legs/feet went numb pretty quickly.

So, 27 miles of great trail that looked barely ridden and service roads.  Lots of climbing in the beginning.  Three sets of sofa/love seats. (we have decided to start taking pictures of all the sofas we see unloaded on the side of the road/trail as we ride...we may make a coffee table book, look for it soon on Amazon)   Amazing views.  More seriously amazing views!  Very happy to have Snickers in my pack.  Worried I had lost the trail several times, but never did.  Everyone back before dark.

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Some vegetation attacked Jansen.

All in all it was another great weekend of riding with the family.

Georgia Cyclocross State Championships Masters 35+ 2011

The Georgia Cyclocross State Championship race was held this past Sunday at Yargo State Park.  Everett had to study for his final exams (though he is a former state champion in cross), so Shey, Jansen and I headed out to the race.  Yargo always has a great course with technical turns, fast flats, gravel and a long sand section.

Shey raced first, in the Masters 35+, and went out hard with Eric Neely.  The two of them stayed together through most of the 45 minute race and Nate was always a threat who was close behind.  It was quite nerve-wracking for the spectators!  Shey finally pulled away in the end for the win and the chance to wear another State Championship jersey.  Yeah!

Shey and Eric through the sand.

The guys coming fast into the barriers.

Cyclocross is a great adrenaline rush, but it's also really nice to catch up with old friends and we enjoyed talking to people we don't normally get to see during the mtb season.  Lamar is pretty excited that Everett is leaning toward the field of robotics. Travis is a staple at these races and is looking quite strong this year.  Bruce is back, what more can I say.  Peter looked good dancing around the course on his pink bike.  Farmer G. took Joey on in the SS race, which was hilarious!  Holly crashed spectacularly and won  some huge silver glasses that Andy had found on the side of the road while riding over to Yargo.  Lee made the guys drool with his zip-tie gun....ooooh....aaaaah.....Josh and Amy have the cutest little boy who was dressed up like a bear... Cross is one big happy family!   It was great to see everyone!

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Huge congrats to Shey for a hard-fought title!!

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Georgia Cyclocross State Championships Juniors 15-18 2011

Jansen raced his age category this weekend and was hoping to have some fun.  He has a lot of hours on his legs from weeks of base and we hoped they would 'wake-up' for a sprint!   You could tell he was having a good time on the course as he made his way around each lap and watching him ride through the sand was pretty cool.  He had two Cycle Youth teammates and a Fulton Flyers (road) teammate out there with him and they were all riding strong.

The start of the juniors 15-18 race.

By the second lap he had a 1+minute gap on the field and rode smart for the win.

We were so jazzed to see Mike there!  He came out on his mtb to ride the trails and make Bruce feel good about his crazy red and white kit.  Mike is in Atlanta and just finished his training as a EMT/Firefighter.  That is AWESOME!

Retro pic of Tristan, Mike, Everett and Jansen, hanging out after a race at Tsali.  All four have been state champs and Tristan and Mike made the national team as juniors and competed at the world championships.

I had planned a long ride on the trails at Yargo, but we were all so hungry after the guys finished their races, that we hit the road for burritos, instead.......and Elizabeth is never one to turn down yummy mexican food!  I think she and Jansen are discussing her new chickens in this pic.  We missed Everett and Jafer this weekend, but hope to catch up with those guys shortly for more riding.

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Huge congrats to Shey and Jansen on their new jerseys!!!