So..Hot.. Santos Shangri La Ride.

In preparation for next week's Hammerhead 100 race in Ocala, I headed to the Land Bridge trail head on Saturday.  I haven't been to Santos in a while and wanted to get back into the groove out there, and hopefully get all of my crashes out of the way this weekend instead of race weekend.

Oh, I crashed a couple of times.  Mostly it was just not managing my damn speed well enough.  My fitness has gotten better since I have been out there last, but apparently my bike handling has not gotten much better. My bike was feeling very squirrelly for most of the day, and if I even breathed on the rear brake it would lock, and the front wheel wasnt hooking up well at all.  I ran off the trail - I would say 3 times with the bike going straight even with me leaning over to turn.  Bummer.  My fitness is alot better from even a month ago, and I am going quite a bit faster on the bike, and trying to take turns at a quicker clip mostly resulted in the tires losing grip.  Maybe I just need to slow the hell down better for turns.. but I just feel I should be able to take the turns alot faster.  Ive read alot about a nevegal front tire with the SB8 on the rear.  I think I will try that, but probably not before the race.

Anyway, even with some off-trail adventures, I managed to finish the 25mile lap in two hours and 26 minutes..  That does not count the time that I was sitting on the trail grabbing my eyeball in pain.  Yes, I was STUNG IN THE EYE by a wasp.  Let me repeat.  STUNG IN THE EYE by a wasp.  I was just tooling along at a decent clip when zap! Some black thing is on my eye, and I am screaming like a girl and falling off the bike.  My eye was really hurting, but luckily I am not allergic at all to stings.  It didnt swell up at all, but my eye was in pain for the 11 miles back to the car.  Like a real trooper I finished up the ride.  So, with the 'lounge break' laying on the side of the trail - it took me close to two hours to finish the ride.  I didnt bother to go out for a second lap, since my eye was twitching like a crack addict.  Today its all better, except for being a little itchy.