Permagrin All Day Long

Ahh, early morning shuttles in the rain!

So, it has become a bit of a tradition to do Friday Morning Shuttles on the pipeline trail. I have to say that I am a big fan of this tradition, as it gets my Friday morning off to a great start! This morning was no exception! I got to TJ's and Jon was already there waiting in his truck (still up without any sleep, no doubt, because Jon's "daytime" schedule doesn't follow the same course as most of ours!!). TJ, however, wasn't quite as ready to roll as he normally is for our early morning riding sessions! He opened the door still "getting ready to go". hahaha David Camp rolled up a few minutes later and we made the call that we were still going to ride even though it was raining out. (We're pretty spoiled with our normal Colorado riding conditions!) We picked up Caroline and Jessica and were on our way. 6 people and 6 bikes was easily doable in Jon's fabulous shuttle vehicle. I think we could have gotten one more. Now we just need to give a 5-speed driving clinic, and we'll be all set with 6 shuttle drivers. Today we only had 4.

TJ's so good at loading the bikes that he
can pretty much do it in his sleep. =)

David's homemade DH bike, The DC Special giving my new Glory a little hug

The trail was a lot of fun with a little bit of rain and snow on it! It was a little bit cold and pretty early for most people, but it was a ton of fun and I think we all had a good time. Even David had a good time on his DC Special (his "homemade" welded DH bike). David and I took the same welding class, at different times, and he came out of the class confident enough to weld a bike. I came out of the class psyched that my recycled bike art welding projects MIGHT hold together!! Kudos to David!!

Two of Boulder's finest Pro DHers, TJ Sharp and David Camp

A little mud love for our bikes. It's almost always dry in CO, so we can't complain too much.

I gave TJ the super Calc II shuttle and then headed to work to make up some excuse about why I was getting there after 10:00. I walked in and nobody was there. Awesome. It's days like this that I'm excited that I didn't get there at 8:00 ("on time") because no one noticed the difference! I promptly left to get some coffee and breakfast, as I was starving and needing a caffeine fix! Einstein's it was. They had my favorite coffee, Cinnamon Hazelnut. Just one more reason to add to my permagrin today.

Work was crazy, as to be expected, so I just took it in stride. Got off at 5ish and joined Eszter, Kevin, Heather, and Miller for happy hour at the Southern Sun. I got there round 5:50 and ordered a Korova Cream Stout on nitro and an Amber. The bartender asked for two i.d.'s. I had to explain to her that both beers were for me! =) Happy Hour was ending in 10 minutes. You can't gamble with timing like that!

So, I sit down at the table and Eszter says, "So, I guess the DHers did shuttle runs this morning?" I say, "Ya. What, did you see TJ parading around campus in his sweet, muddy moto pants?" (Eszter is TJ's Physics TA) Last week she saw him DH- clad, late for class on Friday. This time, however, she didn't see him walking around, she saw our awesome lines down the Pipeline trail, several hours later when she and Heather rode down the trail. She said she could tell from the crazy lines and skid marks that we had been riding there! Awesome! Too bad we can't recruit her to the darkside...I think she would kick ass! She's really good at that uphill riding nonsense, so I guess we wouldn't want to steal all of the raw talent!