Gooney Riders: It's like Match.com

When I first started up this blog, it was for the sole sake of posting pictures for my parents. Had someone told me way back when that I'd find some of the best riding partners in the world through it, I would have laughed in disbelief. But, as a fairly direct result of having this blog, and the people who I've met through it, I spent the weekend riding with two different completely amazing women, on completely different trails, over completely different terrain, with the common feature of not being able to stop smiling the whole way home.

And getting to down somewhere on the order of 3000 calories for dinner each night.

On Saturday, my partner in crime had a 5 hour window while her two kids went to the Ned skate park grand opening. I counted the hours on my fingers: If I take the bus to Ned, it would be a 30 minute ride to her house, then an extra hour home, bringing the total to 6.5 hours. Not bad...so I decided to skip the bus and ride up instead. Logical, right?

The ride, as usual, was nothing short of amazing. Giggles all around. We saw birds, hikers, lightning strikes and a bear in the woods. I reached town, many hours after leaving it, feeling pretty good about myself, until a teenaged-looking girl passed me on a cruiser with balloon tires going up the 4th street hill. Doh!

On Sunday, it was riding with a friend from cyber-space. Blog-land. The infamous SpaceCowgirl. The email exchange essentially consisted of:

JJ: Hey, I read your blog, would you like to go ride?
Me: I read your blog too! How about this weekend?
JJ: Sounds good, I have a 50 mile loop planned in the middle of nowhere.
Me: COOL! My type of girl.

And so we rode. Both completely exhausted from a long week of playing already. Both completely STOKED to be out riding in such amazing, wide open terrain. Neither the 30 minute hail storm that pummeled us, nor getting chased by four horses deterred us. We kept our eyes on the prize: Mexican food on the way home. It was an absolutely perfect ride.

There was some fantastic single track on the way. As well as wet roots and rocks. Mad skillz practice.