Training Rides

SEI has been busy putting hours in the saddle! Over the course of the winter and spring, we've been able to ride non-stop, putting in several great rides at our favourite trails in Pisgah National Forest, outside of Brevard, NC. It's great having some of the best trails in the world out your back door. Not only do the downhills provide us with the kind of terrain we need to keep our A-Game on year round, but in order to do those downhills, you have to build the fitness to climb them! The Appalachian State contengent of SEI has been hard at work scratching out their own trails into the steep, rugged, rocky, snow-covered wilderness that lies just outside the city limits of Boone NC. Here in Greenville SC, we've been blessed with an incredible network trails that actually lie within the city limits at Paris Mountain State park. Several miles of brand new trails have been added within the last 6 months and they are sweet! After a ride we all did a few days ago, we got to thinking about the ridiculus amount of decending we did in one cross country ride and how awesome it is to have that to ride year round. Hopefully, being able to ride consistantly with each other and push each other during every ride is going to pay off this season! Speaking for the South Carolina dwellers, every ride we've done lately has felt like a ride on a high-speed freight train with no brakes. Not only have I been hitting the XC trails hard, I've also been spending a good bit of time on the local pump track. It seems like a great way to work out and it gives me a little more time on a bike and is a lot more fun that going to a gym. Six or seven fast laps around that track is enough to make me want to puke. (Maybe that's bad?) As May is approaching, my training rides are feeling better and better. I was worried earlier in the year as I was going through the "I hate bikes phase" but I'm pretty sure I'm over that by now. I've been thrashing on the hardtail, but we've all got our new DH bikes built up and ready to race!