I was supposed to go ride at The Camp for a trail work day and for testing purposes. I loaded up two bikes, gear, and headed out. I drove all the way there, parked the Truck With No Name, and reached for my.........ahhh! No helmet!
So, I had to drive all the way home and with limited time on my hands, I decided I couldn't afford another round trip to the Camp. So I headed to Ullrich Park.
Now back in the day, Ullrich had zero trails. None! So Jeff Kerkove and I decided to do something about that back when he and I wrenched together at the shop. We were joined by a couple of local riders and we opened up a small, technical trail system in there. Well, with the benefit of about 8 years of running all around the U.S.A. and checking out some very well thought out and very well built trails, I think I can say with some authority that Ullrich Park's trails are terrible! Really. They are super poorly laid out. I was just looking around there and I could totally see how we screwed that up in there. Hopefully someday that will get rectified, but it would mean scrapping about everything out there and starting from ground zero. Besides this, it was muddy there!
So with this bummer on my mind I left there and headed to Geo Wyth State Park. It was okay for the most part. At least I got some decent riding in for the testing I needed to finish up. I also spied a few cool routes that could be implemented in there, but that isn't going to happen anytime soon! It's just hard to have ridden on excellently designed trails and then not look at your own backyard and think, "This could be soooo much better!"
Well, that was followed up by some excellent Sea Otter work by my buddy Grannygear for the site, which kept me pounding out the keyboard for hours last Saturday evening. Sunday was started by an excellent time with my family, church, and then I got another great test session in. So now things seem to be catching up in that regard, and T.I.V6 is the next big hurdle for me to leap over.
And it looks like it will be a wet one! Does anybody wish T.I.V6 woulda been this past weekend? I bet some of you do!
I think the weekend before Trans Iowa is always perfect Mark! Have a great week!
ReplyDeleteDude! We have 30 loaner Bell helmets at the camp. I was there, you should have called me. We even have gigantic sizes! Ulrich, I think you are the only else that agrees with me that it's a poorly laid out trail system.
ReplyDeleteBeen there, done that. I leave a helmet in my Element now which is my bike hauler. I always have one now...
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