the unforgiving fork
Did the Indian Creek ride with my buddy Ted.
Ted sent me these pix...green, green, green with some deadfall to walk around and 1 flat (again) to fix...
Meeting Ted
I met Ted and his crew on this trail in April 2005. My friend Brooke and I ended up pretty much riding the route with Ted and his buddies. Ted was impressed with my technical skills - so much so that he devoted the rest of that season to improve his technical skills. He said that they named a section of the trail after me "cynthia's section". Now his technical skills surpass mine - which i think is pretty darn cool.
Since then - we haven't had the chance to ride much together - him and his wife had a baby (zoe) soon after we met and then last year he spent time tinkering with his truck. He's a Network Admin by day and a metal fabrication guy by night. By the looks of his truck - he's a very detailed oriented person and likes to do things right.
So after a couple of emails back and forth we finally figured out a weekend ride wasn't gonna happen anytime soon - we decided to both take 1/2 day off work and start the weekend off with a good ride.
Friday's ride
We hit the trail ~1pm and finished up ~5pm. Ted was flying up the trail until Lenny's rest. It was pretty hot so we only stopped briefly and continued on. The turn-off to Indian Creek campground is pretty steep and there was more walking my bike then I would have liked... but oh well...I didn't want to cook myself so soon into the ride.
I was thirsty and noticed I was sucking down the water pretty fast. When we hit the campground I was almost out of water. There was a water faucet at the campground.
Me: "think this water is drinkable or is it just for the horses?
Ted: "we'll find out. If it's not - we'll be walking around with toilets strapped to our asses in a couple of days"
For some reason I thought this was the funniest thing i heard in a long time. I laughed all the way up the next climb.
Spiderwebs
From the top of the climb after Indian Creek - it's mostly fun, fast, descending with some easy singletrack, to erosion filled double-track, some whoops (I call collarbone alley as I know of 3 people that have broken their collarbones there) and some technical descending.
we were hauling it where ever we could. With Ted in the lead - I was able to keep him in sight most of the time.
After 1 section we had this little conversation:
Ted:"you owe me bigtime"
me: "why do I owe you?"
Ted: "since i'm going first I'm hitting all these spiderwebs"
Ted: "i've must've eaten a ton of them"
me: "eweee! uh - thanks!"
Ted: "at one point I had a whole gob of them stuck between my nose and mouth and I was going so fast I couldn't reach up and wipe them away"
me: "double eweee! glad you went first"
The unforgiving fork
a little while later we are hauling it on some moderately technical singletrack. I come over a little whoop - my front tire lands a little sideways - i was a little heavy on the bars - my tire rolls and I hear the "whoosh" of air burping and then I'm lying on the ground with my bike on top of me.
whoa - i got my bell rung pretty good and ended up with this dirt-rash.
I'm pretty sure with a suspension fork - i probably wouldn't have crashed...it would've just absorbed the hard landing and I would have been on my way.
I shook it off(somewhat) but must admit i was a little more tentative on the descents the rest of the ride.
We finished up a little after 5pm and hung out in the parking lot and chatted.
Mtn biking has brought so many different kinds of people in my life and i'm enjoying every second of it!
Ted sent me these pix...green, green, green with some deadfall to walk around and 1 flat (again) to fix...
Meeting Ted
I met Ted and his crew on this trail in April 2005. My friend Brooke and I ended up pretty much riding the route with Ted and his buddies. Ted was impressed with my technical skills - so much so that he devoted the rest of that season to improve his technical skills. He said that they named a section of the trail after me "cynthia's section". Now his technical skills surpass mine - which i think is pretty darn cool.
Since then - we haven't had the chance to ride much together - him and his wife had a baby (zoe) soon after we met and then last year he spent time tinkering with his truck. He's a Network Admin by day and a metal fabrication guy by night. By the looks of his truck - he's a very detailed oriented person and likes to do things right.
So after a couple of emails back and forth we finally figured out a weekend ride wasn't gonna happen anytime soon - we decided to both take 1/2 day off work and start the weekend off with a good ride.
Friday's ride
We hit the trail ~1pm and finished up ~5pm. Ted was flying up the trail until Lenny's rest. It was pretty hot so we only stopped briefly and continued on. The turn-off to Indian Creek campground is pretty steep and there was more walking my bike then I would have liked... but oh well...I didn't want to cook myself so soon into the ride.
I was thirsty and noticed I was sucking down the water pretty fast. When we hit the campground I was almost out of water. There was a water faucet at the campground.
Me: "think this water is drinkable or is it just for the horses?
Ted: "we'll find out. If it's not - we'll be walking around with toilets strapped to our asses in a couple of days"
For some reason I thought this was the funniest thing i heard in a long time. I laughed all the way up the next climb.
Spiderwebs
From the top of the climb after Indian Creek - it's mostly fun, fast, descending with some easy singletrack, to erosion filled double-track, some whoops (I call collarbone alley as I know of 3 people that have broken their collarbones there) and some technical descending.
we were hauling it where ever we could. With Ted in the lead - I was able to keep him in sight most of the time.
After 1 section we had this little conversation:
Ted:"you owe me bigtime"
me: "why do I owe you?"
Ted: "since i'm going first I'm hitting all these spiderwebs"
Ted: "i've must've eaten a ton of them"
me: "eweee! uh - thanks!"
Ted: "at one point I had a whole gob of them stuck between my nose and mouth and I was going so fast I couldn't reach up and wipe them away"
me: "double eweee! glad you went first"
The unforgiving fork
a little while later we are hauling it on some moderately technical singletrack. I come over a little whoop - my front tire lands a little sideways - i was a little heavy on the bars - my tire rolls and I hear the "whoosh" of air burping and then I'm lying on the ground with my bike on top of me.
whoa - i got my bell rung pretty good and ended up with this dirt-rash.
I'm pretty sure with a suspension fork - i probably wouldn't have crashed...it would've just absorbed the hard landing and I would have been on my way.
I shook it off(somewhat) but must admit i was a little more tentative on the descents the rest of the ride.
We finished up a little after 5pm and hung out in the parking lot and chatted.
Mtn biking has brought so many different kinds of people in my life and i'm enjoying every second of it!
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