I just have to say for the 100th or so time how much I appreciate living so close to the High Drive trails. There's just loads of swoopy, rocky, rooty, sandy, single-track less than a mile from my front door.
I've got a good loop now to ride. I carved it out on Saturday and rode it again today. I like having a loop that I can ride regularly. Once you do a loop for a week or two solid, then you get a good baseline. From there, you can go back to that loop anytime and get a good idea of where your at -- either fitness-wise, or bike-handling wise. This loop has it all: lots of good (and challenging) descending and gobs of hard climbing.
It takes me about 45 minutes to ride the loop. Hopefully I can do it in under a half hour by the time cyclocross season starts. My "loose 10 pounds while still drinking beer" diet isn't exactly producing results. I think I'll have to switch to the standard "no beer until you loose the weight" torture diet, or the "just don't eat but drink as much beer as you want" cleansing diet.
My new loop is really fun to ride on a cyclocross-type bike. I don't think it would be nearly as much fun on a mountain bike. Well, actually, the descents might be more fun. There's one twisty swoopy fast double-track section this would be really fun on a fat-tired-super-high-trail-with-a-smidgin-of-suspension bike. The climbing though would not be fun. I really hate climbing on mountain bikes.
For anyone keeping score. I did finally make it up my goal hill. It took me about 8 tries. I nearly vomited at the top, but I made it.
Anyway. I found this weird shed thing off the trail. It's about 100 yards off the main trail and I've ridden right by it a number of times. I attempted to get the cliche shot of the old shed in the wilderness overlooking the manicured cul de sac sprawl below, but my phone camera doesn't do cheap irony well.
I'm not on a restricted diet so feel free to buy a beer and give it to me. ;-)
ReplyDeletePlease let me know when you have a cyclocross race. They look like a lot of fun (the kind where you're working hard because you want to) and I'd like to get some shots.
Wow. The weird shed thing is fascinating. I'd love to know the story. Not so much what it is, but how it got there. Somebody worked their ass off to make a dream come true. Wonder if it did.
ReplyDeleteThat weird shed thing was the water supply for the brick structure down the hill. The Parental School used to have 40 acres of lawn and farm fields. That building held the water supply for the main house, which is three stories tall, so it had to be up the hill quite a way to give good pressure in the structure.
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