On the trails again!

Yessiree, this morning was my first ride back on the trails and I am pumped! What a great ride this morning, oh how I’ve missed you dirt, rocks and sticks!!!
Last week was a pretty good week of riding all told. As I mentioned on my last post, I removed my studded tires and in doing so I think I was to blame for the two days of SNOW we ended up getting last week… Oops! The good news was that it was so warm, the snow was gone very shortly after it arrived.
With the regular tires back on, I quickly hit a good stride with consistently good times and average speeds all week. I felt good, and I really believed I was getting back into shape again… And then I rode my trails this morning, and boy was I wrong!!!
Yes, as surprising as it was to me, riding all the way downtown and climbing all the way up to work is actually easier than the couple of nasty climbs I have on the trails. The first climb up between the upper and lower roads on Frolek’s land about killed me. I stopped at the top, not only to remove my outer layer of gloves, but also just to catch my breath and to try not to puke… Yes, I was that beat! I couldn’t believe it, this hill had always been tough (usually where my heart rate tended to spike), but I had never been this rough afterwards… Yikes! I guess I still have some work to do to get into shape yet…
But, seriously, the trails were sweet, I just can’t say that enough! Very little mud, a bit soft and sandy in spots, and no snow whatsoever. A few trees, but someone did a bit of work in trying to clean them off the trail somewhat, so only one tree still requires me to ride quite a ways around it, but, hey, whatever! I’m on the dirt again, so I couldn’t care less…
This weekend, however, I was not in such good spirits. As I cleaned the bike and got to the back wheel, once again I found yet another broken spoke! After only 2-1/2 weeks of riding this season, and all streets at this point, once again I found myself back in this predicament. Last year, Taboo eventually replaced all the spokes on the drive side of my rear wheel with thicker gauge spokes (and the forth visit they finally did for free after I spent about $80 on my previous 3 visits). This spoke was now on the other side of the wheel.Again, still the stock spokes. I am NOT going through another season of this frustration. So, yesterday morning I left work at 11am and drove down to Spoke ‘N Motion. I’ve been very impressed with the salesman there, Greg, every time and rather unimpressed with Taboo so I figured I’d check there first. Thankfully, I did, and they suited me up with a new rear wheel! Sun Rims Single Track mated with a Shimano Deore freehub for only $86 after discount! Not only that, but they swapped over my freewheel and disc brake while I was there, sweet! With that price, I also picked up a new Maxxis Aspen front tire. I wanted something as fast rolling and grippy as the Rocket Ron I had on the back, but didn’t want to spend the $90 for another one of those! So far, so good with this set up of the Rocket Ron on the rear and Aspen on the front, very happy! I also picked up a new pair of liners to wear under my baggies. My ones from last year are still decent, but I wanted two so I could actually wash them a few times a week and they'd have time to dry between rides! Pretty nice Sugoi RC Pro liners, again, bought from Greg at Spoke 'N Motion!

The new front tire, a low tread, low rolling resistance, fast but grippy tire.

The new Sun Rims rear wheel. Not much better than the stock rim, but a great price and a strong wheel that should last me a riding season I would hope!