MR. evil
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- Nov 29, 2007
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Got out for a ride this morning with my friends Chris and Red, the first ride with these guys in almost a month. Chris has always ridden about 50% of the time on a single speed, but in the last month Red drank the SS Kool Aid. This morning they both decided to ride their SS’s. Both these guys are really fast and always dust me. So Red being on the SS gave me some hope that I would be able to at least keep up with him…..how wrong I was. He is even faster on that damn thing.
We decided to do a tour of both sides of the Holyoke Range (Earl’s trails & Bachelor Street). We started out over at Earl’s and just climbed forever, followed by more climbing with Chris and Red hauling ass! I was riding at a good pace, but I still felt so bad for slowing them down. We did about ½ of the climb up to the summit and then cut over and crossed Rt 116 to ride B-Street. This was the first time I access B-street this way and hit a bunch of new-to-me trails. We started out on ‘Technical Trail’ (that’s actually its name) and Chris did something that just amazed and pissed me off at the same time. I was right on his tail coming around a very rocky / technical corner. Right after the corner the trail went up and was VERY steep and rocky. Chris on his SS took off up that climb like an F’g rocket! I literally felt like I was moving backwards as he accelerated up hill. I have seriously never seen anything like that before.
The new trails they showed me, ‘Technical trail’ ‘Viper’ & ‘Raptor’ were all very cool and tough. From there we hooked up with ‘Serpentine’ (one of my Fav’s) back to the B-Street trail head and started out on the standard B-street loop. A slew of more climbing and we made our way back to the Earl’s side. Once we got to Earl’s I was really looking forward to a very extended DH back to the truck by riding down the way we rode up. Chris and Red had other ideas. Instead of heading back and down we started up. But they promised me that would wouldn’t go all the way to the summit. I seriously would have not been able to make it up there. Trying to keep up with those two really took a toll and I was starting to bonk. A couple of miles into the Earl’s side (part 2) my fatigue reared its head. We arrived at a depression in the trail that was filled with mud. The depression was about 18” lower that the trail and had a very steep down and up. Chris went first and his wheels went pretty deep into the mud but he fought his way through. I decided that I would take a different approach. So at the edge of the down slope into the mud I sort of did a wheelie drop. My plan was to have my front wheel clear the mud and land on solid ground on the other side. Bottom line is I didn’t have enough juice in the tank to pull this off. My front wheel didn’t clear the mud, and went down hard right into the deepest part sending me OTB. As I did a face plant into the hill side after the mud, my bike was kind enough to get tangled in my legs and follow me over. So after I slammed into the hill side the bike slammed into my back. I took the seat right to my lower back (that’s going to hurt in the morning) and I must have kicked the rear Der. in the process because the Der. cage got bent pretty bad. I lied in the mud all tangled in my bike for a minute until Red was able to untangle my bike and help me up.
After I composed myself we climbed some more and I knew it wouldn’t be long until I started to get some leg cramps. My quads were getting really tight and I felt a little dehydrated. After about another ¼ mile of climbing I was finally rewarded with a nice long DH back to the truck. So I have been home about 5 hours now and soreness along with the effects of dehydration are starting to set in. I have a feeling tomorrow is really going to suck.
Total we did about 12 miles in 3 hours with 4000 feet of climbing according to my GPS. Will post up a track later.
We decided to do a tour of both sides of the Holyoke Range (Earl’s trails & Bachelor Street). We started out over at Earl’s and just climbed forever, followed by more climbing with Chris and Red hauling ass! I was riding at a good pace, but I still felt so bad for slowing them down. We did about ½ of the climb up to the summit and then cut over and crossed Rt 116 to ride B-Street. This was the first time I access B-street this way and hit a bunch of new-to-me trails. We started out on ‘Technical Trail’ (that’s actually its name) and Chris did something that just amazed and pissed me off at the same time. I was right on his tail coming around a very rocky / technical corner. Right after the corner the trail went up and was VERY steep and rocky. Chris on his SS took off up that climb like an F’g rocket! I literally felt like I was moving backwards as he accelerated up hill. I have seriously never seen anything like that before.
The new trails they showed me, ‘Technical trail’ ‘Viper’ & ‘Raptor’ were all very cool and tough. From there we hooked up with ‘Serpentine’ (one of my Fav’s) back to the B-Street trail head and started out on the standard B-street loop. A slew of more climbing and we made our way back to the Earl’s side. Once we got to Earl’s I was really looking forward to a very extended DH back to the truck by riding down the way we rode up. Chris and Red had other ideas. Instead of heading back and down we started up. But they promised me that would wouldn’t go all the way to the summit. I seriously would have not been able to make it up there. Trying to keep up with those two really took a toll and I was starting to bonk. A couple of miles into the Earl’s side (part 2) my fatigue reared its head. We arrived at a depression in the trail that was filled with mud. The depression was about 18” lower that the trail and had a very steep down and up. Chris went first and his wheels went pretty deep into the mud but he fought his way through. I decided that I would take a different approach. So at the edge of the down slope into the mud I sort of did a wheelie drop. My plan was to have my front wheel clear the mud and land on solid ground on the other side. Bottom line is I didn’t have enough juice in the tank to pull this off. My front wheel didn’t clear the mud, and went down hard right into the deepest part sending me OTB. As I did a face plant into the hill side after the mud, my bike was kind enough to get tangled in my legs and follow me over. So after I slammed into the hill side the bike slammed into my back. I took the seat right to my lower back (that’s going to hurt in the morning) and I must have kicked the rear Der. in the process because the Der. cage got bent pretty bad. I lied in the mud all tangled in my bike for a minute until Red was able to untangle my bike and help me up.
After I composed myself we climbed some more and I knew it wouldn’t be long until I started to get some leg cramps. My quads were getting really tight and I felt a little dehydrated. After about another ¼ mile of climbing I was finally rewarded with a nice long DH back to the truck. So I have been home about 5 hours now and soreness along with the effects of dehydration are starting to set in. I have a feeling tomorrow is really going to suck.
Total we did about 12 miles in 3 hours with 4000 feet of climbing according to my GPS. Will post up a track later.
