There is not much I can say about last weekend that you don't already know. Perfect weather. Pretty dry in the forest. What could possibly go wrong? And for once I made it through a weekend without breaking any parts on me or my MTB. On Saturday I did the rest of that Kåsjön runt trail and I have to say it was pretty useless for training on afterall. I define a 'good trail' as one where I can spend most of my time actually on the bike and moving. The section towards the western edge of the lake was just a repeated mess of rocky cliffs so about all I could do was run with the MTB. Not easy. Some parts were so crazy that they had installed ropes next to the trail for you to hang on to and pull yourself up. So again I had more upper body training than I would have liked.

There were some sections that were fantastic and others which would have worked if I were in better technical shape. But these parts were surrounded by too many walking bits so I unfortunately can't give this a top score for långlopp training. I need to be moving. But for those of you out in the forest for pure pleasure, this might be a fun one for you.

However, the first part from the beach over to where everyone has their canoes parked is heaven so that will soon form a nice part of my usual hill training route.

I am sure most of you have already felt it. There is someting magical about the first few rides of the MTB year. And since everything is quite dry I can jump right into the singletracks. This feeling is especially strong since I was sick last weekend and generally annoyed with most things.

The other day I had another of those express rides up to Kåsjön because I only had a limited amount of time. I found that I could spice things up a bit by heading directly down to the lake on a bumpy little grusväg and then join the end part of that Kåsjön runt trail I mentioned before. There are quite a few of those wood plank sections which are okay but not my favourite. And that became obvious when I fell through the gap between one with my front tire and took 2012's first vurpa. Very mild though...no injuries. My 2.2 Conti XKing super super race tires are not meant to ride on these boards so I will just have to get some running practice here and there. But it feels lovely to float along a nice trail letting Sid take care of the rough parts.

I should be getting my new brakes today but I think I will take another ride first before dismantling anything.

Ja ja, not much has been going on here in the life of Chris Cross. But I can report that the uniform for CK Chris looks a lot like the one for Mölndals CK except with more mud. So it matches my MTB right now.

Last week I was in Boston on a meeting and also to carb/fat load before, well, nothing. But since coming back I have made one trip to Jonsered and one wall-of-wind pass back from there. I had a nice feeling in my biceps while I was bent over in tempo position trying to be aerodynamic in the wind. It was quite effective compared to others out that had given up and were walking.

And tonight I took a sunset ride up the running trail to Kåsjön and even started on what will be my new favourite trail this year...Kåsjön runt. This trail starts out as a narrow grusväg walkway with enough tight turns to make anyone smile. But then it became a proper singletrack of the långlopp type. Given the size of the lake and the lack of sunlight I will have to explore the rest of this another day.

In other news I guess everyone has seen that GCK will have the first MTB pass of the year sön 18 mars. Sounds like a good start to the year.