College and Spring Break

While it's been a while since I have been a college student, in a shade under five months I will have re-entered this world. Came a across some reading material this morning that got me thinking about the whole college thing, the role bikes played for my first go around, and the role they will play in the second shot. The background goes a little something like this: I graduated from Lafayette College in Easton, PA in May 2006 with a B.S. in Geology. While in college I primarily played rugby, lived in a fraternity house for two years with some of the greatest people I know, and mountain biking (still stupidly riding with gears) was something I did by myself to get away from school stuff. I mountain biked in places like Jacobsburg Park, Chimney Rock, and Round Valley, where roots and rocks were wet and kept you on yer toes. I was on a 2001 Kona Pahoehoe (perfect for a geo major), with tiny wheels, and baggy shorts were the norm.

Smash cut to August 2010, where I will start working on my masters in Geology at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO. I will not be playing rugby, living in a fraternity house, and will probably be riding a lot more for different reasons. I also doubt I will be side tracked from going on a bike ride by my buddy Little John tempting me with a cooler of cold Nat Light, and a viewing of Baseketball. Bike choice will be the big wheeled rigid singlespeed Niner that has become like a third leg for me over the years. Still haven't done enough riding in Fort Collins to know what the trails will be like, but folks like Kerkove, Fuzzy, and Jake have assured me that MTB in the Front Range is as good as you have heard.

Fittingly, over at the VeloSnooze this am, there was a nice little article about collegiate racing (written by someone on the CSU team none the less). Lafayette never had a cycling team (or club for that matter), and as a result, the other Lafayette person I wound up riding the most with was one of my geology professors. Senior year I thought about starting up the club to try and get money to race, but in the end enough of the motivation just wasnt there. Well I've been kicked around the idea of maybe giving the whole collegiate racing thing a go at CSU. Holmes has been pushing me to do it, telling me to just go out and race the geared class on the SS, and see what happens. Over the past couple of years catching glimpses of the UM team prep for their season, head out on training rides, and do the whole race weekend thing, has got me feeling like I may just give it a try down at CSU.

The second bit of reading material came from the fine folks over at Dirt Rag, detailing their escape from the PA cold to get some dirt miles in down in Georgia. Those folks are much smarter than I had ever given them credit. I had heard of the Mulberry Gap area in Georgia as a great MTB spot from Dejay and Miss Wicki, who spent some time there in 2008 or sometime in the past three years, and Ohio Rob has written and spoken a bunch about how good the riding is down there. North Georgia is one of the spots on the list of spots I want to just go to and spend a week exploring and riding a bike (also Western NC, Arkansas, NH/VT/ME combo). Looks like they got plenty of riding and good times in. In retrospect I wonder if a Spring Break like this in college might have been a little better than my choice senior year when we headed to Myrle Beach, SC for the week. Sure drinking cheap hooch in a hot tub, while laughing with friend six weeks before graduating from college is a right of passage, but a week of sweet singletrack might have given that a run for its money. Looks like I might have two more Spring Breaks to put that theory to the test.