Lynn Woods 8-2-09

mr.evil can write something up if he likes. I post pictures, he does the write up. Seems fair to me...

mr.evil on his first of many attempts at a tricky and awkward feature:


A top-down view of mr.evil in the same spot:


Me showing off some mad levitation skills (I probably got double as high my first attempt but sadly the camera wasn't out) :


mr.evil doing a very short but steep roller:


Me rolling into a roller:


mr.evil on a roller:


Me getting ready to drop:


My shirt is very orange...


mr.evil on the last roller of the day:

awf170 said:

Me rolling into a roller:

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I am so upset with myself for wussing out on this roller. I wasn't even that steep, and had a decent transition. There was just something about it that got in my head.

Anyway, great riding with you Austin, you are a freakin beast on a bike. We only did about 5 miles, but it was far and away the most technical ride in my life. So far nothing else have done even comes close. Every part of my body is sore, I am going to chill out with a couple of beers and some advil for a bit, and then write something up.

awf170 said:

mr.evil doing a very short but steep roller:

mr.evil on the last roller of the day:

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both of these rollers are MUCH steeper than the camera makes them out to be.

Hmmmm Beer

Nice report and pics!!!!! Nice aggressive riding Tim!!! Austin...Your just FN crazy on the boards or on the bike!!!!!!

steveo

powhunter said:

Austin...Your just FN crazy on the boards or on the bike!!!!!!

steveo

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You have no idea! we didn't even take picture of the crazier stuff he rolled and dropped. We need to invent a new work to describe the riding at this place, becuase 'technical' doesn't do it justice.

Great Stuff Guys!!

mr.evil on a roller:



Awesome pic!!!

So we have all seen the picture of Austin and his friends riding Lynn Woods and we knew that the place has some crazy rollers and drops. If your like me, you assumed that the place was similar to our techy trails around here, just with some cool features to session. My own personal vision of what Lynn Woods was going to be like is a place similar to Case Mt. You know, fairly rocky trails with a large roller or drop every now and then. I couldn’t have been more wrong. What you don’t get from the pictures, is that after the big roller is another big roller 20 feet away. Then a drop, then another roller, the a crazy short rock ledge climb with several 18” high steps to ride up, then a drop, then some really crazy steep rock wall you have to ride up, then down. Then repeat that sequence for 5 or so miles. The P-paths were even hard as hell. The place is freaking relentless and totally demoralizing…..and I loved it! Seriously, this place is not for the faint of heart. We ran into a guy on the trails that was new to the area. He had just moved to Boston from Arizona and was scoping out the local riding spots. Said he like flowy single track, and had no idea what he was getting into at Lynn Woods. He seemed pretty miserable and was asking us the quickest way out.

I don’t know about you guys, but I have always been really impressed with the pictures Austin has posted of him dropping and rolling crazy shit. Even after witnessing that stuff first hand today, it was not nearly as impressive as the stuff I watched him ride up. After every crazy roller / drop there was an equally crazy up, and Austin rode up these things like there were nothing. FWIW I had to hike 75% of these climbs. I have never spent so much time walking my bike. Here is how these climbs would go for me. Wow, Austin made that look easy, guess I will take that line too. I ride up the steep jagged rock face, get almost to the top where I am presented with a 24” step I somehow need to ride my bike up even though I am already on a 60 degree rock face. So I give it a go, fail, jump off my bike and watch my bike summersault down the rock face.

While it may sound trivial, one of the biggest things for me to over come was adapting my riding style to the terrain. Everything required that you pedal out of the saddle in a large ring. If you tried to sit and spin any of the climbs you had no chance and around every corner was some feature that you need the big ring to power up. Once I adapted to standing I began climbing a little better. By better I mean that I would occasionally make it up things, or bail further up than before. All that standing was really tiring only made worse by the insane amount of upper body strength needed to maneuver up and down all this stuff.

So my advice to anyone that wants to become a REALLY good MTB’r is this. Move to the Boston area and ride Lynn Woods 2 days a week for the summer. After 3 months you will be a freaking animal on a bike and will be able to ride anywhere. I will defiantly be heading back out to ride Lynn Woods with Austin again and a couple times a year for the foreseeable future. Though next time with a full face helmet and maybe even some elbow pads. I think we are planning for mid to late September.

Looks like a good ride guys, nice work with the pictures!

You guys are freaking insane!!! Nice job!

MR. evil said:

So my advice to anyone that wants to become a REALLY good MTB’r is this. Move to the Boston area and ride Lynn Woods 2 days a week for the summer. After 3 months you will be a freaking animal on a bike and will be able to ride anywhere. I will defiantly be heading back out to ride Lynn Woods with Austin again and a couple times a year for the foreseeable future. Though next time with a full face helmet and maybe even some elbow pads. I think we are planning for mid to late September.

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Love it!

Glad you guys had a great ride, weather held up etc... good stuffage!

Wow..looks a little bit steezier than Gregs rides..

Bravo. Great stuff guys.

severine said:

You guys are freaking insane!!! Nice job!

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This was only the crazy stuff. Austin did some insane stuff but the camera wasn't out.

MR. evil said:

This was only the crazy stuff. Austin did some insane stuff but the camera wasn't out.

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I see ... there's a definitive difference between the two. To me, it's all insane! Then again, I still haven't gotten out on my bike yet this year...

MR. evil said:

This was only the crazy stuff. Austin did some insane stuff but the camera wasn't out.

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I thought you were in Texas?

awf170 said:

mr.evil on the last roller of the day:

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So we came upon this feature right at the end of the ride. It is a couple hundred yards from the end of the loop. By the time we got here I was totally beat. Not in the cardio sense, every muscle in my body was just tired. So we get to this feature Austin hits it and I decide to pass. Then Austin says something like "I posted a picture of this feature last year on AZ and you said this is something you would hit". So now I have to ride this thing. Hey, if I wreck its only a short walk back to the car.

What you don't see if the picture in that this roller is the end ofa much larger feature. You start out riding up steep rock with a small step, then onto a blind ladder bridge that you cannot see when you first get on the rock. The ladder crosses a small gap to the second much larger rock. On the second rock you need to ride along a rough 12" spine. As long as you stay on that spine it lines you up dead center for the roller. This ladder is also blind, you cannot see it until you go over the lip. The other thing you cannot make out is that the ladder itself is also off camber with considerable right to left slope.

GrilledSteezeSandwich said:

I thought you were in Texas?

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Randi is in texas, I'm home.

MR. evil said:

This was only the crazy stuff. Austin did some insane stuff but the camera wasn't out.

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Is this what you qualify as insane?



You remember that roller, right?

awf170 said:

Is this what you qualify as insane?

You remember that roller, right?

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OH I remember that one. That roller and some of the drops you took were pretty insane in my book.