Sunday 6 mile ride Passion + 10
So, a friend and myself decided we should go for a Sunday afternoon ride. I mean, the weather was perfect 
, 87° with equally as much humidity. We called a friend who is new to the mountain biking scene and invited him to attend. Around 5pm we left my house, heading for a new, unridden slice of singletrack in the woods near my house. The landowner had donated 100 acres of her land to the city to become a park/recreation area. They so far have built 3 main trails, one from the parking lot, one from the road above it, and one to where we do not know. Anyways, we proceeded to chuck ourselves down some 'classic' WV downhill (rain yesterday left some dry, flakey mud ontop of slick clay, woohoo!), chock-full of rocks, roots, and yes, mud.
We got to the bottom of this trail, to a 3-way trail intersection, headed out to the parking lot. This was 3 miles. We figured we'd just ride back up to my house, about 3 miles of road biking. But 550 vert. feet. Instead, we opted to bike-out to a main, 4-lane, road, and then down to the bike shop, to see if anybody there would give us a ride back up. Nobody was there. This has mad for almost 9 miles of riding now. We realized, and accepted our fate, to bike back up. On the way back, we passed a bank, the temperature was reported as 95°, awesome .We figured we'd try a longer, but less-steep route, in hindsight, it wouldn't really make any difference.
After almost 5 miles of flat riding, we began our climb... 450 vertical feet in under 1.5 miles. Once up that, we had about another 100-150 to go, so we pushed around another mile and a half or so back to my house. The new rider had hit the wall at the top of the first climb, and he was a pain to haul up the hill... claiming he was going to black-out, he was sick, etc. I like that little lie, "The top's just around the corner, I swear." I look over to my biking friend, and ask, "Your legs burning?" "Nah. Not all all." "Neither are mine. I've got atleast another 5 miles in them."
I'll try to get some pics up of the area, the trails are excellent, rivaling a lot of good trails in the Charleston area (steeper than Teaberry for sure, we need to check on Black Bear again). The area by the creeks would be a great place to set-up some north shore obstacles, infact, it kind of needs them (the creeks are a bit, uh, smelly). But, that's how an innocent 6 mile ride turns into a 16 mile ride.
, 87° with equally as much humidity. We called a friend who is new to the mountain biking scene and invited him to attend. Around 5pm we left my house, heading for a new, unridden slice of singletrack in the woods near my house. The landowner had donated 100 acres of her land to the city to become a park/recreation area. They so far have built 3 main trails, one from the parking lot, one from the road above it, and one to where we do not know. Anyways, we proceeded to chuck ourselves down some 'classic' WV downhill (rain yesterday left some dry, flakey mud ontop of slick clay, woohoo!), chock-full of rocks, roots, and yes, mud. We got to the bottom of this trail, to a 3-way trail intersection, headed out to the parking lot. This was 3 miles. We figured we'd just ride back up to my house, about 3 miles of road biking. But 550 vert. feet. Instead, we opted to bike-out to a main, 4-lane, road, and then down to the bike shop, to see if anybody there would give us a ride back up. Nobody was there. This has mad for almost 9 miles of riding now. We realized, and accepted our fate, to bike back up. On the way back, we passed a bank, the temperature was reported as 95°, awesome
.We figured we'd try a longer, but less-steep route, in hindsight, it wouldn't really make any difference.After almost 5 miles of flat riding, we began our climb... 450 vertical feet in under 1.5 miles. Once up that, we had about another 100-150 to go, so we pushed around another mile and a half or so back to my house. The new rider had hit the wall at the top of the first climb, and he was a pain to haul up the hill... claiming he was going to black-out, he was sick, etc. I like that little lie, "The top's just around the corner, I swear." I look over to my biking friend, and ask, "Your legs burning?" "Nah. Not all all." "Neither are mine. I've got atleast another 5 miles in them."
I'll try to get some pics up of the area, the trails are excellent, rivaling a lot of good trails in the Charleston area (steeper than Teaberry for sure, we need to check on Black Bear again). The area by the creeks would be a great place to set-up some north shore obstacles, infact, it kind of needs them (the creeks are a bit, uh, smelly). But, that's how an innocent 6 mile ride turns into a 16 mile ride.
