Penwood 2009-09-06

Met up with Mr. Evil and Trev shortly after 8am this morning for a rip around Penwood State Park. This would be my first ride at this particular location and was excited to roll something new for a change. The weather this morning absolutely spectacular!! Bright, sunny and hardly a cloud in the sky. The air was delightfully crisp and felt more like an October morning then the 6th of September.

Anyway after everyone was geared up we rolled onto the trails and immediately started climbing right off the bat followed by some downhill and then some more climbing. This would pretty much be the pattern that the rest of the ride would follow as there appears to be very little level terrain at Penwood. Regardless, the terrain there is phenomenal!! Rocky, rooty and with plethora of cool stuff to roll up, over, down, etc. Reminds me of the Rez in West Hartford to a point but way more technical.

By the time we completed our loop we managed a nice 7.75 miles with 1563 feet of climbing, a pretty healthy rip that felt longer than it actually was. I felt like I rode well today although it took a few miles to wake the legs up after the 10 miles I rolled yesterday evening.

I've been trying lately to improve my confidence level descending some of the nastier downhills during my rides at Nassahegan but after some of the stuff I rode down today I'm pretty sure not much will bother me anymore next time I ride at Nass. There are definitely some serious sketchy descents at Penwood. I walked a few of them but was able to ride most regardless, kudos to Tim and Trev for rolling some super nasty sections of trail today and making it look easy.

In summary a great ride on a beautiful morning at a place I'll definitely be back to ride again. As always nice riding with you guys and look forward to next chance to hook up for a rip.

Here's the track data.....


http://crankfire.com/trails/data.php?dataid=618

http://crankfire.com/map/index.php?tid=14&t=618&w=0 .

:beer:

Sounds like a nice ride, sorry I missed it. I ended up on a 2 hour solo tour around Nass this morning.

bvibert said:

Sounds like a nice ride, sorry I missed it. I ended up on a 2 hour solo tour around Nass this morning.

Click to expand...

Solo tour???

WoodCore said:

Solo tour???

Click to expand...

Tour is a relative term. I'm making up a TR now.

Great ride today. I imagine the pace was a little slower than your used to, you were flying today. Anyway just got back from a BBQ and I am wiped but i will post some thing else in the morning. But I have to mention that Trevor was riding some seriously nasty stuff this morning with authority. Way to go!!!!

Well, we got started a few minutes late but once we hit the trail and the immediate climb, without any warmup.. yuk! I also had that whole "got in at 2am" thing going for me, didn't help!

Anyhow, we got rolling pretty good after 15 or 20 minutes. Like previously said, lots of ups and downs.. lots of em.. nice trails for the most part too!

After the runs at Case and practicing on some smaller rollers as well as overall DH practice and confidence building, I hit some sick shit tonight(from my point of view and riding ability). One nice roller, about 4-5', but steep.. smooth.. really nice one. But from my point of view that one nasty downhill was just great to conquer.. great ! Usually they look easier or less intimidating from the bottom up than from the top - on your bike - down.. but this looked sick bottom up. I was looking up and John was playing the smart role of hiking down, and I was thinking to myself "dude, be careful" and then realized I just rode my bike down that shit.. lol.. insanity.

I didn't get all that panicky on hard stuff today, more confident and analytical on paths and what I need to do.. just talked myself through it.. and did it. Good stuff, great stuff

Tim jammed down some stuff and I played the following fool..lol.. John had us on the long hill climb and the overall pace of the ride!

Great ride guys!

Trev & John summed things up nicely, I can't really add that much that hasn't been covered. Not having a real Ride under my belt in over a week all the climbing really kicked my ass. Once we reached the look out things were DH for a while and oh so much fun! Every couple hundred yards there was a gnarly rocky DH feature. With the exception of the first one we came across I rode them all. Inam pretty sure Trev rode every thing I did except for that one really steep DH to the gully. That stuff took some serious balls & skill Trev. John was killing all the climbs leaving Trev and myself in his dust. I will need to get back there soon with my helmet to hit that one feature I skipped.