10 years of full moons

Muuuuunday here at the Rancho Relaxo after a glorious start to the week. The Real Marco Pantani, Erico Moortani, the recently dubbed Mark McVoeckler, and I got out for a gravel/pavement mix on Sunday at 11. It's been a while since a 5 hour training ride on a Sunday was that much fun.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/69361662?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4d61ce044f0611a4%2C0
data courtesy of Erico Moortani. and by courtesy, I mean I stole it from his facebook page. and yes, a 4:07 ride time DOES indeed round up to 5 hours.

It's 72 degrees again today, and it's staying light until 7 PM. Someone holler brownie crit this week and pick a place and a day. I'll bring the brownies.

And a few words about night riding. Because it occurred to me a few nights ago while out on a full-moon night ride with my dad that this year is my 10th year seriously riding mountain bikes. I rallied around these same trails as a kid some, I guess - but back then we just called it "riding in the woods" instead of mountain biking. And we were pretty bad at it. So I can't really count those years, but after a hiatus from cycling between the ages of, say, 15 and 22, I got back in the saddle and haven't stopped.

I mention this because, at times, we sort of forget as cyclists that what we do - when we dress up in lycra and pedal $5000 carbon-aluminum hunks around the local skinny track in the dark - is a tad unusual.

When you do something for long enough, however unusual it may be, you stop asking yourself why you do it - you just do it because it makes you happy. In that departure from self-analysis, you also lose track of your ability to justify what you're doing to other people. And so you're a little surprised when the guy out spotlighting deer at almost midnight stops and asks you just what the hell you're doing because he thinks you're the weird one. In the grand scheme of things, you are.

I take pride in that. So the following night I linked up with CHAM, and despite the perfect conditions, I extended my streak of night rides at BRS that include a good crash to 4. Happy times.

Don't forget to celebrate your weirdness a little. Although I don't know if we'll have any better full moonage that what we've had already this year.

Full Moon dates 2011
Year	Month	Day	Time	Day of week
2011	Jan	19	21:21	Wed
2011	Feb	18	8:36	Fri
2011	Mar	19	18:10	Sat
2011	Apr	18	02:44	Mon
2011	May	17	11:09	Tue
2011	Jun	15	20:14	Wed
2011	Jul	15	06:40	Fri
2011	Aug	13	18:57	Sat
2011	Sep	12	09:27	Mon
2011	Oct	12	02:06	Wed
2011	Nov	10	20:16	Thu
2011	Dec	10	14:36	Sat

Will test more.
up, up, and out.