Fun kind of week this one - started well with the usual night ride, just George and me so we decided to mix things up a bit. Started at the Park N Ride and took a slightly different entrance into the park. A nice steep section had me "over the bars" in the first 5 minutes - always good to get the mind focused early in a ride. Then George decided to take us on a magical mystery tour. Perfect! We rode/pushed the bikes up Bull Run (George on his Nomad me on my faithful Redline 29er Monocog). Then navigated some trails George confessed he always gets lost in, nice technical downhill sections, logs you name it! Bunch of new trails - smashing.
Then we headed down Vineyard and hit the paved path as far as the bottom of "Double Drop" from where we did our usual route in reverse - amazing how riding a route you know well but from the other direction makes it a completely different ride.
Great ride - perfectly timed as my Nite Hawk light completely burnt out just as we were making our final climb back to the cars, two plus hours of fun.
On Thursday we had a "film-night" at the Bollux residence to show 24 solo to the Sunday ride crew. Fantstic film, a must for all MTBers, take a look at the preview http://www.24-solo.com/trailer/. Much fun had by all, food, beer and a few laughs at the insanity of the 24 hour riders - Gordo is a kin hero! Is it just me or does Mark Hendershot look scarily like Gollum from Lord of the Rings?
Saturday had me venturing to Harper's Ferry to partake in some white water kayaking with Sunday crew regular Sean (he of the Irish cycling jersey). As complete novices we were assigned "duckies" and spend three and a half hours being inept on the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers. Fortunately as there's been no rain this year the conditions were nice and benign, "less white water, more shite water" was Seans assessment. So no getting wet except when we chose to swim a "rapid". Hard work mind as those white water duckies do not like going in a straight line so you end up fighting the bloody thing all day.
Sunday and the usual ride - good turn out with five of us there for a spin. Doug and I took the opportunity to scoot off the front to give us time to "perfect" riding the log at the bottom of the Belmont hill. Few goes each, few successes and a few falls (just as it should be). MLW is still coming on leaps and bounds in terms of technical ability - happily taking on some pretty sketchy downhills that have more experienced riders getting off to walk. She has even manged to get herself a riding pseudonym - apparently she is "Steady Eddy" amongst several of the riders - due to her ability to just keep going at a steady pace regardless of the terrain for hours. Nice ride - just shy of 10 miles.
It is this ride that is the topic of my ire! Now I'm a pretty easy going guy (honest) and I am happy to defer to the trail maintenance guys most of the time - without them yada yada........ But the buggers are getting far too bloody enthusiastic in their pursuit of the smooth trail. They've gone and removed the "much storied" Y-shaped log at the bottom of the Rockburn Park Trail downhill! Roger me sideways! That log has been there for over a sodding year - and yes to begin with it was a real bloody challenge, but like most things/people time had mellowed her and now she was just enough of a challenge to make you concentrate but never (well nearly never) enough to take you off. Perfect bloody log then - and now just another victim of the over zealous chain saw! Didn't just clear a route though but removed the whole deal! What gives! Leave us some obstacle guys.
On that slightly pissed off note I shall leave you - good riding, and may the perfect logs in your lives never be stolen from under your fat wheels.
Dogzbollux
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