Man! I'm sittin' here in a long sleeve and long pants and I'm shivering after being outside in the rain! Winter is starting to hammer down on us. We rode this morning, leaving at 7am to beat the weather. Forecast called for PM rain turning to snow.
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We were on dirt at 7:15 and started climbing on a trail I have just recently stumbled across. It's a signature piece, all the way. All the bells and whistles from the hands of the Headmaster Forest Elf himself. This super sweet sliver of technical tight woods riding climbs 2.5 miles up and over a ridge before dropping you down it's spine the the nearest county road. This trail is a key connector and allows for the creation of more loop opportunities. The only drawback of today's route was that it required about 3 miles of climbing on paved road. No biggie, as it went pretty quick, though. Before we knew it, we were on dirt again, this time climbing what I like to call the bmx track. Bmx is a nice bermed road with some very jumpable terraces. It's even pretty good as a climb. Good thing, too, as this was a one way affair today.
For those of you that were on the rain ride during the 'fest, bmx is where we parked and started climbing up the jeep road. Today, we climbed the same route and connected shortly thereafter to the next prime cut. I've decided to call that section "singlespeed." Rumor has it that the trail was cut to be climbable via singlespeed by its creator. It is breaking in quite nicely, too. Anyway, more climbing and some more climbing until we were at the high point of the day. The point, the top of a 50' cliff, is usually the areas best view. Today, though, we could hardly see across the valley to where we had just been. The fog/mist/rain had slowly been encroaching all day and had finally engulfed us at the top of the mountain.
The rest was all downhill. The route is one of the oldest trails in this network, but still probably the best downhill around. By the time we were halfway down, I experienced my first finger numbness of the season! yeooww I was getting cold! By this time, it was raining cats and dogs and we weren't even to the more technical bits. Not normally hard, but the rain creates new hazards when you try to navigate roots and slick rocks in handlebar width singletrack. After a few close calls, I luckily made it out unscathed. I had no idea how long the ride would take, but we busted it out in a solid 2 hrs. I thought it would take longer, but I'm glad we were able to hammer it out that quickly. Twelve miles and 2200' of climbing were the stats.
The rest of the day was spent in the bike shop - super slow except for the smooth talking scammer 11 year old that comes around, but he's another story!
I'm warming up now - better grab a beer! Later..
When I rechecked the forecast this afternoon, I went from hoping the rain would go away to hoping it gets cold enough and stays cold enough for a snow ride tomorrow. I just checked NOAA's site, and forecast calls for 100% chance tonight, 100% chance tomorrow, and 70% chance tomorrow night for snow. Looks like I needn't cross my fingers.
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