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Looking over the directions I am posed now to make a quick exit and find the fastest way to the trails. With liquid starter running through my veins every second that I am not moving is an eternity in waiting. My wife compares it to a ten year old waiting at the doors of Disney World, with a foul attitude. I take deep breaths as I try and keep my posture while my sweet wife gets her things together. She is embarking on a shopping spree while I ride my epic adventure. Normally she accompanies me on rides but this time I have sent the messages that, there is no turning back, there is no stopping halfway and there is no waiting to catch up. This will be nothing short of an epic ride up steep hills followed by steep tight down hills along technical single track. (a mountain bikers dream of sorts.) She had agreed that I was going to try and do to many miles for her to feel comfortable riding. Awe-yea! Let the ride begin.
Horses, I don’t see why the horse community gets so upset about mountain bikers. I can’t remember the last time my bike took a @hit on the trail or threatened to stomp someone to death. I like the fact that we can share trails but dam these horses sure can drop a load. Hey all you horse people, what about you talking to my bike when I pass? It likes it when you talk to it. It makes it feel better. Now I am not getting on a rant hear or anything. I just like a dual use trail system that rotates days for bikes and horses. I think it is much safer for all involved. I guess I really can’t give them crap about it. I wouldn’t want to be strapped to the back of a walking catapult either. Anyway , I think if an owner feels that his horse or bike is a danger to himself or others when coming into contact with riders of any type they should not be in a dual use trail system. I only write this because I am headed in to a dual use system and the last time I was there, we encountered some rude horse people who could not understand that sometimes when riding up steep hills we tend to take breaks along the way. Hell it’s not like they were working hard to get up on top of the mountain. I will give credit to the horses. They were hauling some big asses. Anyway back to my adventure.
Threw everything in the car and mounted my bike on the rake and checked it twice. Rock and roll we were off. As I drive ever so faster I begin feeling the need to speed like maybe we aren’t moving fast enough or the mountains are not going to be there when I get there. But after some time I remember that I don’t have to hurry like everyone else is; that this isn’t a race but an adventure, so I pull back on the gas and got into cruising mode. I went through the normal husband wife conversation. Wife say s to please be careful and that she didn’t want me to kill myself. I say don’t worry I am not going to do anything stupid and I will be careful. As we both know that doesn’t mean anything, earlier in the summer I had a close call while riding by myself. I was riding fast down a logging road up on a mountain top and came to a huge mud bog in the trail. I made the mistake of heading towards the down hill side and some how hydroplaned right off the mountain and took a 25 foot vertical drop while going round and round. (ground – sky, ground-sky) It was luck that I missed a large tree by less then an inch or two. Wow. Only bad thing is that when I stopped tumbling I was neck deep in poison ivy. Ahhhhh !
The ride started off like most rides do trying to stretch out the legs real good after a 2 hr car drive, but of course the excitement of the ride soon takes hold and I am a little to acetous get going. So off I go headed out, I stop by the fee station and place my two dollars in the large drum so I can at least do my part for using the trail system. I have a slight reflection on how my attitude has changed over the years on the pay thing. I think it is the very least I can do after watching all the hard work some of the groups do to not only maintain the trails but also having to fight to keep them open. I check out the map because I am not carrying one with me on this day. I am confident since I have ridden part of this trail before that I won’t get lost. I see that there are some interesting loops but all of them converge at the same point. Looks good. The only thing I didn’t get a good look at was the contour lines because the map was to faded for that. The trail starts out as a gated forestry road with little gravel so it s nice and fast feeling. I ride for less than a mile and come to the trail headed up on the left hand side. It starts with a quick upward stair, so I turn and race upward with a merciless stride. Soon I am on top and the trial continues to climb and climb and climb. As if to put me in my place I begin to feel the heat of the day coming on. And my merciless stride begins to slow. I soon realize that I am running to hot and begin to slow by pace down so I won’t become a victim of the infamous bonk. This is when for no apparent reason you lose all energy and begin to feel light headed and nauseous. I soon settle in on a nice pace one that I can maintain and I begin to take notice of the day, not to hot not to humid but a high chance of rain in the afternoon. I have seen two other groups of riders all with varying skills that had headed out before me so I should see some of them soon if they proceeded in the same direction as me. Nope not a soul around, this is why I love biking in the mountains. As I look up the trail I see no end to the up hill and I begin to grunt and scoff at my dismay. Is this ever going to end ? I check my odometer and it reads 2 miles and still climbing. Man , there are sections of this trail that are straight up and the erosion from water run off makes the trail very rooted. Quickly I can tell that I should of stretched a little more before starting. At the 3.5 mile mark I was still climbing but I could see up ahead that maybe the trail would begin to flatten out a little. I run into some other bikers and they share the same feeling that this is a never ending upwards trail. I start thinking what comes up must come down really, really fast. We had gained a lot of altitude and I was begun to see we were now at the top of the mountain. The trail split into two, one heading even further upwards and the other a jaunty looking down hill into a rock garden with a small spring flowing down it. Most likely from all the rains we have had this year. I started the uphill climb thinking this is crazy , also at that moment it begin to rain and I soon changed my mind and turned around and headed into the rock garden. The down hill looked to good to pass up. At the moment I hit the break over angle the sky opened up and let the rain cometh down. This was no ordinary rain this was crazy rain. This down hill turned into one steep, wet, and technical down hill. Image riding down loose, round river rocks in a rain storm with no breaks. That’s right, by now my breaks were not responding because of all the water on the trail and the rain. Hang on , here I go, weaving and dodging around rocks and up and over then back around. I don’t know how I made it down that hill but something was guiding me as I thrashed my way down. Also having a full suspension bike carried me a bit and I couldn’t of been more thankful, I was riding a fantastic peace of machinery the Trek Fuel 90. With water spraying in every direction I flew by two people who had decided to walk the treacherous trail which I think would have been more effort over those rounded wet rocks. Anyway, I could barely see due to all the spray and almost crashed into a newly formed stream now cascading down from the mountain. Then I came out into a small valley , shifted into over drive and started cranking it out. Man I was flying with no breaks. I came up on one of many large mud bogs but did a quick hop and sliced my way through it. Mud shooting up , spraying me in the face. Now this was riding. I road like this for about a mile and as soon as the rain begin , it had stopped. And now I was riding on ground that wasn’t even wet. Some how it was raining like crazy behind me , but nothing in front of me. Not a drop. Wow. This was crazy. I continued thinking how crazy what that, then I passed two people head the other way and they were completely dry, so I shouted as I passed heavy rains are a head. I also thought that the rain would be moving this way soon, so I rode on hard and fast. This section of the trail was primary on an old jeep road and was smooth with the occasional sections of mud baths. I then pop out at an intersection where some people were panning for gold. The stream and the trail had two ways to go back up or continue on the loop. I crossed the stream and head up a rutted out road that leads back to the biking trail. I remembered this from the last time I rode except I was headed in the other direction. Cool. The rest of the way from here was all down hill! So I hit the last main section which takes you out on to another old road bed which is kept pretty clear and I enjoyed the ride out back to the car. That was some ride all 10.5 miles. The great thing was that when I reached the truck, I was ready for another lap. But under the time frame I had to get back and pick up my shopper before she bought everything at the outlet mall!!
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