Whose idea was this???

It's 36 degrees, pitch dark and there's not another car in the parking lot.....what am I doing at Lake Chabot at 6:15 on a Saturday morning.....
Oh, that's right, I wanted to try out the new Contour helmet camera and get some sunrise shots from the top of Brandon....I'm literally shivering as I put on my helmet, turn on my handlebar light, clip and begin pedaling towards ten-hills...maybe I should have skipped the sunrise idea....

I make a point of reaching up and turning on the camera at the beginning of every downhill section. Satisfied to hear the beep indicating I actually did turn it on through my thick full fingered gloves....then turn it off as I begin the uphill portions.  No sense in letting everyone see just how slow I climb.

I'm huffing and puffing pretty quickly and after the first couple of short climbs I'm no longer worried about the cold.  Although my toes are still freezing, my baselayer, long sleeve jersey, shorts and knee-warmers have me pretty comfortable as I negotiate the trail in the darkness with my handlebar light illuminating the frost along the trails edge.

As I cut through the golf course parking lot, I receive some pretty weird looks from the golfers who, in my opinion are even more nuts for being out here in the cold to chase a little white ball around the frozen course. I mean, they won't even expend enough energy to get warm....I begin the climb up Brandon and I'm racing daylight......the barely discernible glow over the eastern hills pushing me beyond my comfort zone as I upshift and stand in an effort to make sure I'm at the turnout before the colors start to show in the sky.

I make it to the top just as the sky starts to catch fire from the coming sunrise....the colors exploding across the horizon as wisps of fog cling to the lower valleys.  I try to pull of my gloves, unzip the camera case and slow my breathing enough to get a stable shot all at the same time as I claim my victory in the race for daylight.....and am rewarded with maybe two nice shots and several that are blurry from my shaking hands and ragged breathing.

The sunrise warms things slightly although my toes have still failed to thaw as I begin pedaling up Redtail narrating in my head, the video I'll put together at the end of the ride and thinking of suitable soundtracks to capture the energy and the enthusiasm of this morning's ride.  I'm pretty slow going up so I make sure to stop the video before every climb and reach up to turn it back on at the beginning of the descents.

I push the envelope a bit on the downhills, knowing the video will be seen by people that ride these same trails both faster and better than I do, but hoping the blur of the scenery is enough to at least fool the viewers into thinking I have some semblence of skill.  At one point I come around a corner on Soaring Hawk mostly in control and scatter a rafter of turkeys.....(yes, a rafter, I looked it up, a group of turkeys is really called a rafter) I make a point of turning my head to watch them fly up into the trees knowing that this will be a very cool part of the video.

As I cut down through Bort Meadow and back to the stone bridge, I'm getting tired.  I stop, take the required "Bike Shot" and wolf down a clif bar. Its funny just how hard these things get when they're frozen.....

As I wind back around the lake and up the hill to the parking lot, I see that it's much busier now, almost half full and with several riders gearing up to head out. Its only as I take off my helmet and grab the video camera that I notice.....oh crap....you gotta be kidding me....yep...it's true....I just did the whole entire loop with the lense cap still on the video camera.....

Oh well, it gives me an excuse to do it again and at least I had the other camera with me for some still shots...