Finally, It Is Here…

For those of us in the United States, our favorite time of the year has finally hit…daylight savings time. That glorious time of year where we get that extra hour of daylight and emerge from the darkness of winter. Where riding into the night without the aid of lights is reality. It is time for weekly rides and after this killer of a winter, I don’t think I have ever been as happy to see it finally hit. For some odd reason, the drought decided to end this summer and we got flooded (literally) with rain, snow and ice in the southeastern United States. For this reason, Saturday night’s daylight savings time hour loss was celebrated as a national holiday. So…what are we going to do with this extra hour of sunlight as the days continue to get longer and warmer?

Dirt and Wings

Our crew of cycling obsessed fanatics get together every Tuesday at a local trail at about 6 pm to ride. What started off as a small group of 4 has grown to well over 30 on some sunny spring nights. Armed with several hours of riding under our belts, we hit up the local Wild Wing for their 2 for Tuesday special where you get 16 wings for the price of 8.

Luckily, this local trail system has a variety of different ride options from easy XC to a light FR section. I normally jet back to the FR section and session that area over and over again until my legs can’t take anymore of the climbing or abuse. This trail system allows riders of all skill levels and styles to come on a regular basis and get their dirt fix in during the week with friends. It becomes are weekly way of keeping in touch with how everyone is doing at the same time.

Sometimes You Don’t Realize…

…how much riding actually brings you together with your friends. Over the course of this terrible winter, it became readily apparent how much riding really affects how much we hang out. Without that common need to hit dirt or the road, we had to find more excuses to get together when…in the past…that was not necessary.

All of that is in the past now as we head into prime riding season. For this mountain biker…it couldn’t come soon enough. Time to strap on the helmet and get to work.