Thursday, May 14, 2009

Appearances are Everything


Here it appears as though I am about to ride my bike, did I?

Thanks to Clay for the picture. He has been covering the WNDC quite well this year and its nice to read but I figured it was time for an update.

Yesterday was one of the best editions of the WNDC yet this year. We had the reigning DSG mud champion with us down from the Midwest along with some Creole crew, or is it Cajun? I always forget, anyway we had at least four states represented with 11 riders.

The route was a big one which included some of my favorites in the forest:

Reasonover -> Camp Summit -> Airstrip -> Shelter Rock -> Barn Trail -> Bridal Veil Falls Road -> Conservation -> Johanna -> Twin Oaks -> Briery Fork -> Grassy Creek -> Sandy -> Tarklin Branch -> (quick stop on the kids ‘skills’ trail) Holly Mountain -> RidgeLine -> Jim Branch -> Isaac Heath Locust -> Lake Imaging -> Buck Forest Rd -> Conservation -> Airstrip -> Fawn Lake Loop

I am always up for a classic tour of the forest when someone new and skilled shows up to ride. However, neither slick rock nor Burnt Mountain was ridden. Judging by the looks on everyone’s faces after Ridgeline, I don’t think anyone was let down. I think I heard “I can’t imagine a trail getting better than that” coming from someone.

The kids trail always turns out more injuries than any other. One was a victim of a knee bashing and I was almost victim of a groin pull trying to exit a skinny.


I can never really write enough about Ridgeline. Something about the far sight lines combined with high speed ripping sounding turns just gets me all emotional. I even entered and exited the log ride at a high speed but had to leap off a little early instead of leaving it all to chance. I had a “roadie tanned” Beefcake behind me laughing like a 5 year old coming down a four minute slip and slide which added to the hilarity of it all.

Good times for sure.

Thanks to ZB, I will be trying a tubeless cross tire 34 X 15 setup for this weekend’s Sumter Metric Century. It will either be a great idea or a disaster but it should make for good story telling either way. I plan to be on the lookout for cars and any bleach rain drops though so hopefully those exciting details will be left out this go around.

Hears to hoping everyone out there is riding their bikes again. A goat in a mountain shell has turned back up in the WWW, good on ya and I hope our treads will cross again soon.

1 comment:

The Evil MGE! said...

Nice pose, submitten that to Men's Health? Ridgeline, oh how I miss it. Though I do have Sandy Wash here that is similar in flow just with hardly any trees. Thanks for the link. You should get the Posse together and come out for the Crested Butte Classic. 100 miles, Beer Party, 3 loops from downtown, and best of all no entry fees and Colorado high country. I think Jody and Broussard did it a few years ago. Thanks for the mention and link. We're thinking of going out there in the fall. I'll let you know.