Meanwhile, a beautiful back road ride into work Wednesday morning. The back way is much more rigorous than the highway, but prettier.

Took this photo, then 2 minutes later my chain dropped while I was shifting into the little ring and proceeded to get hopelessly stuck. There’s not a lot of room between the carbon and the chainring and nothing was moving. Trek put a metal plate in there, presumably to protect the frame from the chain should it drop, but it takes up space and probably makes it more difficult to unsuck the chain. Anyway, five minutes of careful chain wrestling and I finally got it back under control.

The back way is an extra 15-20 minutes ride. Totally worth it. Dropping into Stowe via a different direction. Shout outs from friends passed along the way. It’s a great way to start the day.

Speaking of things that seem pretty cool. While I was down at VT50 I met the folks that are putting on the CircumBurke Challenge. It’s a 20 something mile ride around Burke Mountain to Victory and back. It’s not the Kingdom Trails that everyone knows, it’s totally different rough and rugged terrain. The event honors Dave Blumenthal, a customer of the shop, who was killed while riding the Tour Divide last year. It’s likely to be classic late fall VT weather – grey, gloomy, and damp. The route is likely to be muddy and gross. But it sounds like a cool adventure into the backwoods.

I’ll be there. Riding it if I get the green light from my doc or just volunteering with registration if I’m not cleared for mountaing biking yet. Yep, the groin is still messed up. Getting better, less pain this week. We’ll see what Dr. Steelthumbs thinks tomorrow afternoon.

Big sigh.