Well, Saturday I figured that I would wait until later in the day to ride, figuring that Cedar Bend might be good to go by then. I threw the Lynskey in the truck and went up about 4:30pm to find that it was very humid, hot, and the air was still in the woods up there. It was a real cooker!
I had put a full charge of water into the Osprey Raptor 10 and I was prepared to try and do at least two laps of the trails. Unfortunately, the Cedar River truncated a lot of my choices that were lower in elevation! I still managed to put together a decent loop including the service road, and two big, steep climbs. I stopped to take the photo here, and was being swarmed by insects. I didn't stick around in one place too long!
What a pressure cooker out there! I was drenched in sweat after the first loop, and I did another, faster loop the second time through. I was starting to feel the heat in a bad way. Maybe I should bail outta here? But after a bit of service road, I dove back into the woods for lap #3. I figured I would back off a bit to settle down and just have fun. Ya know what? I ended up going faster! Should I do a lap #4 Nah! I bagged it and went back home before I did any damage. Probably a wise thing, seeing how profusely I was sweating! It was just running off me!
Saturday Night/Sunday Morning: Big, big thunderstorms roll through again, dumping inches more rain down. Crap! No way that Cedar Bend gets better after this, and that was all I had for anything off road around here. I stuck around the house, took the kids on a hike, and then................I got inspired!
I remembered an e-mail from Mike Curiak where he admonished me to "just go for a ride". I thought about that, and how he had all these really cool places to ride, some right out of his back door. I didn't have that cool stuff to ride, but I had something to ride, or better said, "somewhere". I had also been perusing a site by mountain bike pioneer Charlie Kelley. He often just rides in blue jeans and a t-shirt. I figured that not only did I have somewhere to ride, but I didn't have to make a big fuss and change my duds out just to ride it.
And ya know what? I went out for a ride. On my Salsa Cycles Fargo, in my jeans and t-shirt, on gravel. Yup! That stuff Mike Curiak once described as something he couldn't figure out why anyone would want to ride miles and miles of. (I think he was just trying to get a rise outta me when he said that) Well, I rode about twenty miles of it, and it was great.
I saw deer, I saw rabbits, I saw a baby bird learning to fly, and whose very concerned mama gave me a quarter mile escort out of the area! I saw the sun setting on waves of green topped with "green caps" of trees waving in the wind. And by the way, the corn is fixin' to tassle already!
So what if I didn't have primo single track that was easily accessed. I had something to ride, and I rode it.
I hope you got your ride on this past weekend too.
4 comments:
This rain.....will it ever end? Yeah, when it turns to snow!
The local trails here are under chest-high grass and lined with mud . . . We quit grousing and just drove four hours west to find some awesome riding in Wyoming. It rained twice when we were there, but rock doesn't turn to mud ;-)
Raining here in Virginia every day as well...seems like an oven during the meat of the day,monsoon season at the evening,LOL!
I did get out to the trails Sunday,though (much too rocky/rooty to be affected by rain,thankfully),and have asperations of a long (for me) road ride tomorrow,weather/child care permitting (the wife works all day then has class all eve on Tuesdays). Hope you have a great rest of the week,my friend! =)
Steve
@SS:Mtn Biker: Thanks Steve! I hope you get that ride in and have a fantastic rest of the week yourself. I hear cooler weather is on the way to you as well.
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