Thursday, April 17, 2008

Bug, bug, buggy!

Another successful Thursday night RAW (ride after work) ride. Kept it to the standard 4 mile loop: Down Hanover to the Brody Forest Road; up the Brody, down the Gussy, onto Sandford, then Tamarack, back onto Hanover and then home. While on the Brody, I choked on the steepest climb, went back for a second helping and got 3/4s of the way up before stalling. Also did a little clearing and finished up re-routing the new section. Forgot to look for my glasses, in fact I just hammered through that section now that it's open.

The new section that I have spent the last three or four rides and part of one work session re-routing is finally finished as I mentioned earlier. In fact, I shifted a few rocks around at the stonewall and cleaned it on my first try. Of course that section needs to be cleared out some more, especially around all the rock outcropping so they can be ridden more fluidly. Also the section past the stone wall on both sides needs more clearing work.

As I was approaching the ROW I could hear a leafblower off in the distance and guess who should ride up on blowing the leaves on the ROW? Tom! The ROW is nice and open now, however the trail is going to stay on the west side of ROW. The center will be drainage. The re-routed section after the first climb from the jeep trail over by Sanford Road, that I did on Sunday rides, nicely now. Just need to go in and take care of the leaves now and establish a treadway.

Worst thing about the ride though was the bugs! Unbelievable how many there were and I was covered head to toe in bug juice and they were still all over me. Seems the warm weather has brought them out in droves. It was so bad talking to Tom that I couldn't stand it and had to take off.



The 'Horse rode nicely. Can't wait to try a fully 29er sometime or for that matter a hardtail with gears.

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