Lake Fork Trials…
This is such a great place to hold a trials event. I’m really glad the fire restriction were lifted in time for us to hold both event there. (July & Aug)
I know that weather is often a cheap filler, but both weekends there was very notable weather events. This has to me one of the best (read-wettest) monsoon seasons NM has seen in a very long time. It makes me very happy, well most of the time.
The July event came on the heels of a really bad work week for me. I ended up having to work the entire 4th of July weekend, I would have rather been up in Lake Fork getting some practice in. I really need all the practice I can get too. As soon as I walked out the door on Thursday, I was more than ready to head up to the Jemez, just in case anyone from work tried to call me.
I somehow managed to have the trailer ready to go by 5pm that eve. I figured rather than wait until the morning, I had plenty of day light to get up there and get the trailer parked. So why not!!! I got one of the nice spots back in the trees, since it was a nice fairly private spot, I decided to use the screen wall on the trailer. I don’t get to do that very often. I really makes me happy when I can sleep with the ramp down. It even rained that night, I didn’t care, nothing in the trailer was getting wet. It was nice to lay there watching it rain.
It was great to sleep in the next day too. I took Sable out for a short walk, made breakfast, and took the trials bike out to look at the sections. It also gave me some time to practice a bit.
Once Geneva showed up I took her out to look at the sections, we did a bit more practice too. I was feeling okay about Saturday’s sections, but a bit concerned for Sunday’s, they look a good deal harder to me.
Back at the trailer I cooked up a batch of breakfast burritos for Geneva and myself to eat over the weekend. These things make me hungry, I’m sure being around 10K feet doesn’t hurt either. There is a LOT of walking, riding, and fun at these events.
The sections worked out to be a bit harder for me than I thought they would be. It didn’t help that the bike had another of of those… No! I won’t start! Moments. It wore me out trying to get it to start, as well as two other scorers. So I was just going to give up, and help Geneva, but Wendel showed up and was able to get it to start. Fickle, thing. Then I had to go ride two sections to catch back up to Wendel and Geneva.
After riding in the morning we headed out to score for the upper sections. It’s really cool to watch them ride this stuff and make it look easy.
This was the first instance of the weather having an huge impact. It was nice, sunny, and temps were perfect. Then, in typical NM fashion, It wasn’t so nice. The rain started, with a bit of lightening, than the rain really came down!!! We were soaked! One of the riders took pitty on me and brought me a jacket, other brought Geneva an umbrella. It carried on like that for 2 hours. Of course, once the riders were done, it was perfect out.
The next day, I got the pleasure of having Curtis to be my minder. That poor guy. It turned out that there was only 7 sections for the Novice group to ride. Kind of a bummer. There was supposed to be 9 but there wasn’t enough scorers and the other section was deemed to hazardous for Beg or Novice to get to. Geneva decided that morning, she just wasn’t going to ride. She wasn’t in the right frame of mind for it. Good for her to be able to recognize it and make the call.
I’m not that bright.
I do joke a good deal with self-deprecating humor, but in reality I have a pretty good grasp on where my strengths and weakness are. In most everything, but trials. I still can’t figure out why I can ride much harder things when I’m out riding the single track, but once there is a gate or ribbon. I just can’t ride. It’s a bit frustrating. I am bringing this up, as it was this day that I somehow turned a corner with my trials riding. I finally made some good decisions, things are starting to click for me and I actually rode well. So much so that Curtis was thrilled. Damn, it was about time too. I was really pleased with how the day went, even if there wasn’t a podium.