Some days you feel it, and some days you don’t. I’ve had a lot of “don’t” days in the last 2-3 weeks on the bike.

But yesterday. . . Yesterday I felt it.

I busted up rocky ridge, up the road, up onion, down little bear, up little elden, down schultz, and back home. The first time my foot touched the ground after I left the house was 3/4 the way up little elden. Total round trip time (door-to-door) was right around 2 hours.

I was feeling strong, I was feeling fast, and everything was clicking into place technically. It was a good ride.

Sometimes I wonder if the thing that would vault me to be a more consistent racer is just knowing what it takes for me to be ‘on’ or ‘off’ day-to-day. I swear, I haven’t figured it out yet. Maybe that’s what separates the casual racer from the full-time racer, knowing how to turn it on, and how to properly prepare so it’s on when you want it.

Maybe not.

The final icing on yesterday’s ride was coming down schultz, right near the end. At this point schultz widens out into a doubletrack, and there are a bunch of little side burms off the edge of the trail; some rollers and some with jumps.

I was cruising down the trail when up ahead I saw a lady on a mountain bike with a tag-a-long and so I pulled over a bit and slowed down. As I was about to pass them, I saw another kid on his own mountain bike coming up behind them. So, I pulled off onto one of the larger side trails with a small jump on the end to give them some room. As I did this, the kid on the mountain bike noticed my change of course, stopped pedaling, and turned to watch me.

I had enough time at this point to yell as I passed him “Are you ready!?”. “Yeah!”, he replied. So, I proceeded to crank a few hard pedal stokes and get about a foot of height and about 5 feet of distance off the jump, just in time to hear “COOOOOOOOOOOOOL! ! ! !” as I landed. As I was riding away, I head the kid turn to his mom and start to say “MOM, DID YOU SEE THAT!?”.

At that point, it wouldn’t have mattered if I was getting back from the worst ride ever, I was grinning ear-to-ear the whole way home. The enthusiasm of that kid made my day.

Like I said, icing on the cake.