Left da Beach 3AM during the early wrath of Ernesto. Got blown sideways a few times across the HRBT.

The rain never stopped the whole way up to 7Springs, but it did slow to a steady drizzle. Set up a pit area w/ JM in preparation for his solo ride in the 24 hr. It got colder and colder as the day went on. Temps barely above 50 with a brisk mountaintop "breeze" of 20-30mph. If it wasn't bolted down it wasn't stayin' put.

I knew it would be cold here at night, it was last year. I thought I'd packed appropriately, but realized that 3 pairs of shorts and one pair of jeans just aint gonna cut it through the midnight hours tomorrow. Somerset, the closest town, has no clothing stores...............BUT... they DO have a Harley Shop. Soooooo I picked up a nice warm hoodie.

At the check out, this nice looking biker babe rings me up and says:

"So what kind of bike do you have?" She obviously didn't look at the ones on my roof rack when I pulled into the lot.

"A Specialiazed" I answered.

"Hmmm. is that a custom?" she asked.

"Well, I've done some things to it, like change the bars, the seat and grips."

"Wow, cool."

The 7Springs course is a bit different this year. The last climb has been changed, "in an effort to make it easier!?". But no matter how you dress it up 1000 feet of vertical in 3/4 mile is just that ...... 1000 feet of vertical. At least you don't have to slide sideways on a traverse through waist deep grass like last year.

Been trying to get the Audio Blogger thing working but for some reason my posts aren't going up. I'd like to do some live updates if the thing gets to working right.

Oh yeah, had the pleasure and honor of meeting Tinker and Rose Juarez today. A couple of truly special people. Tinker is flying on the new all Carbon Rush magic carpet. He makes it look so easy.

RideOn

JB