Mud and Manolos: Spinning my tires

I have officially thawed out, hidden the trainer, pumped up the road tires, and signed on to something completely and utterly terrifying. If you'd asked me last year about any future goals and plans for my biking life, I would have said, "racing mountain bikes." Suddenly I'm tooling around on skinny tires, counting grams, and following Lance Armstrong on Twitter. But before my knobby tired friends stage an intervention, I promise I haven't hung up the full suspension for good.

And this leads me to the scary part.

I just signed up for the 100 mile, 8,000 feet of climbing, Livestrong ride in August. Perhaps it was the fact that a few spring rides on new roads tempted me with some sweet climbing and screaming fast descents, or that since I started riding seriously, I knew when the time was right, I wanted to honor my father (who died of cancer) by doing a cancer charity ride. No the time is right.

The outside world may be filled with doom and gloom, but that gives me more reason to pedal in a new direction and have an amazing goal to slowly work toward. Over the winter, I nabbed a few "recession specials" on eBay, outfitted my bike with the proper gearing, and found a nice new carbon fork.

Before I start putting in hours of road miles, I think it's time to take the mountain bike out for a spin. It's hard to take life too seriously when you're barreling down a hill, stomach aflutter, grinning like an idiot.

That sounds like a good place to start.