RAW Burlington - 2009-09-11

Despite the dismal weather Bvibert and I decided to make a go of it this evening and get a ride in! We met up on East Chippens around 5:15 and got rolling several minutes later. The rain for the most part held up and we managed to squeeze a somewhat soggy 5.4 miles in roughly an hour and a half.

Despite some standing water in a few places, the trails are still in great shape despite todays rain. Not once did I feel like I was damaging anything and really saw little to no mud!

Anyway as expected the roots, wood and rocks where slippery as hell this evening and it helped make for a great ride as I was left with no choice but to focus in on bike control, balance, etc.

Great riding with you again Bvibert and look forward to the next rip, hopefully under slightly better conditions! :beer:

Good ride considering the weather. We still got a pretty good pace through a lot of the sections despite the slickness.

The trails were in great shape considering the rain we just got. Like WC said; there was some standing water, but no real mud.

Another thing of note is that the scoville twisties are now unpassable not too long after where the sandy pelican comes in (if heading towards E Chippens). The section that bears off to the left just after the entrance (the route that we usually take) may be effed up too, the logging has come in all the way to that area. We didn't go down that section, so it's hard to say if it's been affected yet. We did a little (understatement!) bush whacking from where the trail is blocked by downed trees towards the road and ultimately to Woodcore's existing by-pass, but it would take some work to make it clear enough to ride, and parts of where we walked had trees marked for harvesting, so it may not be worth it.

Unfortunately, that whole area of woods was marked pretty heavily with paint for harvest. It stretches from the patty pink cranks trail all the way to where they are logging...essentially the whole entire section of woods. I'm sure some of the area will remain wooded and the some of the existing twisties MAY remain intact, but with the amount of paint I saw sprayed on countless trees...I'd say that they are going to come close to leveling a large majority of the forest in that area.

The loggers have had a healthy swath cut to within 100 yards of Scoville Road for some time now but just started widening it out to the west this week. Even with all the trees that have been cut so far there's probably just as many if not more still standing that have the blue line of death. A pretty extensive harvest!

Regardless, it looks like at least half, if not more of the existing trail will survive and the part that will be lost was pretty beat up and frequently muddy anyway.

You're right about the blue line of death...there are TONS of trees with them. Anyhow, from the looks of what I have seen on my last couple rides in this area...it appears that the Scoville twisties rolling north from the "Sandy Pelican" will survive this current harvest. Didn't see any paint there. The furthest west that I saw paint was over by where the old ladder bridge stunt used to exist. I agree that the section that is being lost, is spent anyways...it will shift traffic to other places though...the Sandy Pelican will most likely become a main artery...

The other concern is the cemetery side...have you seen the trees marked through there? In the coming months, the riding population may be forced to migrate to other locations due to lack of options from the Scoville side. I kind of hope not...I like the way things are spread out just fine.

The cemetery is definitely in jeopardy, unfortunately.