Epic Redemption

Thanks to my Dad offering to hang with B-Man, I was able to head back to the mountains today to make up for yesterday's broken nipple suck fest. Hmmm take the word "broken" out of that last sentence and MAYBE yesterday wouldn't have been so bad. BUT the nip did brake and a planned epic day in the mountains pretty much ended at mile 4 and a whopping 7.5 miles on the day.

TODAY however was a different story. I returned to the mountain today with the Mamasita and her 29" of hoochie mama black Scandium/Carbon love. For 90% of today's ride the Mamasita was just fine. For the other 10% my back was begging Jesus for at LEAST the 1 inch of cush that the Dos Niner gives me.

This was pretty much the ride I wanted to do last week, but saved it for this week. I stared by heading down Tower Road to Cherry Trail. Then hitting a few trails at Laurel Hill before heading over to North Woods, Mountain Streams and finishing with the with the Camp Run forest road and it's 1,300+ feet of elevation gain. I have to say you know a climb rocks when your ears pop as you ride a steady 3 mph up it.

I ended up with 4:21 (total time) and about 32.5 miles. I tell you it was everything you could want in a mountain bike ride. Or at least for me. I dig hitting a variety of trails and trails surfaces and this one had it all. Forest roads, rocky double track, single track, snow mobile trails, etc., The ony thing I did NOT have to ride today was pavement. NO PAVEMENT. All dirt or at least a reasonable facsimile of dirt. A.M. EDIT: I realized at about 4 A.M. that this was a lie. There was indeed pavement. I had to ride about 20' across Route 31. So I guess it was more like 99.999% dirt like substances. Sorry.

It was 32.5 miles and it felt hard. Like beat up from a race hard. And THAT means it felt GGOOOOD. There was a LOT of climbing and once again the descent down Mountain Streams was fast, and a real arm burner. Jeezus I'm STILL hurting from that one. It was a tad more intense on a full on hard tail too.

I really tried to keep a good tempo today, and for once I really didn't have to fool around with the maps. Just a bunch of pee breaks, and a stop or two to stretch my back. I'll post a map of the ride later. Right now here's a few pics.

The fall colors are really starting to come up. The base of Shafer Road
climb was lit up in million different shades of gold. Good Stuff.


Hell, for this pic no PShop Filters were even needed.
Just a rough road, and shaky hand!


Camp Run Road occasionally goes from crushed stone
and dirt to just plain BIG OL' STONES.

I'm beat and need some bed time.

Later.