Since the trail has been cleaned off and easy to follow, we decided to do a night ride on Friday. I arrived early and did about 2.5 hours of trail work before the ride. I worked the section on Serpentinas from the top of the hill towards the bottom. I canted the trail a little in the turns so speed can be maintained. I mostly made sure that there weren’t any off camber sections. I got 6 turns done and after 2.5 hours of work it can be ridden in about 10 seconds. But before it might have taken 11 seconds. Eventually it will be sweet. I met Scott at the parking lot at 4:00 and we headed out for a quick loop before the main ride at 6:00. I will say that with the cleaned turns and the new tires I was having a great time carving through the woods. The new berms worked well which makes me want to work some more. We met Tim at 6:00 and headed out for a full loop in the dark. It was a really nice ride, kinda spooky and quiet but fun. The temperature was perfect and it was really dark with no moon. Not something I will be doing on my own but with a group it was enjoyable. I’m guessing we got in about 17 miles. Scott and I sat in the parking lot to look at the stars and he saw several shooting stars. It was almost romantic.
Saturday I dragged myself out in the woods again. I did 6 or 7 more berms before giving up for the day. It’s hard work and I was worn out in about 3 hours. I rode it a couple of times and I think it will work out well. The berms aren’t big but they are enough to hold you on the trail. There were two more turns to go but they were big turns and I was beat. While I was pushing my bike through the woods I found a deer stand. It’s real close to the trail and the access road. Also I scared up an large owl carrying a dead snake. And I saw four huge hawks frolicking in the tree tops. Nice.
I got sucked in to the ‘Cycling the Silk Road’ videos this week. I caught myself looking for panniers and small cook stoves on the Adventure Cycling website.
