First ride on my Crux!

The dam at Lake Accotink Park

After a course of heavy-duty antibiotics and Vicodin, I'm completely over my root canal from a week and a half ago. I go back to the dentist tomorrow to close my crown up. Since the pain wore off, though, I was finally able to get out on my new bicycle!

One of the best parts of living in Northern Virginia is the terrain. Even in the developed, suburban area where I live, there are still parks full of greenery and quiet trails. I headed to one on Wednesday to remind myself how to ride off-road.

I took a few little spills, got mud and sand (and a little blood) all over my legs, and completely ruined a white jersey. It was a successful outing! You can see the highlights, which is mostly footage of me falling or nearly falling, below. I still haven't figured out how to record good footage with my action cam, so I didn't include the whole ride. If you'd like the full 45 minutes of footage (and I don't know why you would), please send me an e-mail; I'll gladly share it.
On Friday, I tried a trail that's closer to my home--the Pimmit Run Trail. I did many miles of run training there last year and the year before. The trail is too technical for me to ride, though; I only went a few miles before aborting the mission and coming home on surface streets. After that, I set up cones in my backyard and practiced flying mounts and dismounts. I'll post that video this weekend.

Until next time, spin & smile!

Trihardist Vlog Preview: A Short Ride on the W&OD

I bought myself an (inexpensive) action camera! I have some ideas of ways to incorporate it into the blog: I'd like to make some free video cycling workouts; I feel like my audio workouts are a little behind-the-times, now that there are so many cool tools like Zwift and Trainer Road and even GCN's training videos! It's time for me to innovate. I also have ambitions of doing a vlog like Cycling Maven and Vegan Cyclist do. And of course I want to take footage of my races like all the cool kids!

This is my first experiment with the new camera. Let me know what you think, and if there are specific things that you would like to see now that I can do more video!