Summertime....

Um, where did Spring go? Yesterday, the high was forecasted to be in the upper 80's, low 90's; so Paula and I decided to meet at 0900 to ride at the Cove. She will be racing at Douthat on May 3rd and needed to get in some climbing time. I am commited to doing house repairs and other crap until what seems like the next Century, but decided to go spend quality time in the great outdoors.

We set off on our ride shortly after 9 and headed up Four Gorges Trail. I do hate starting a ride this way, but it sure beats a mile of pavement followed by a quartermile fireroad climb, in otherwords SINGLETRACK > PAVEMENT. On 4G, there is of course an unexpected dip in the trail where I was brought quickly to a stop. The resulted in the soaking of both of my feet in the cool water beneath the stack of leaves. Oh well, at least it was warm today. After this brief interuption, I was able to find some rhythm again. Why it seems to take a while to get used to riding a certain bike I will never understand, but this happens to me everytime I switch between my bikes. I will definitely say that my SS has taught me how to stand up and ride. I found myself using this alot with Ritchey Sunday especially on some of the weird little ups and turns.

Once off of 4G, we made a right and continued on up the Brushy Mountain Fireroad. We didn't stop until reaching the Gauntlet trailhead. I was shocked that I was able to ride continuously to this point, and that I did so without ever using the granny gear. After a visit to a nearby tree, we headed down Gauntlet. I have never ridden this trail downhill, and the only other time I've been on it was climbing it the day before the Green Ridge Mountain Fire over a year ago. Well, the trail was rerouted at the top following the fire. It was the most fun a person should have on a bike. Fast, flowing - absolutely fun! The middle and bottom sections were rougher, but there was more than one place where you could let off the brakes and roll!!!

Upon reaching the bottom, we paused for a break. Of course we had stopped about midway to rest our hands. Mine were taking a beating from the trail. We took Horse Pen to Trough. This a flat trail that has a skinny bridge. Paula stopped, I think I halfway bumped her as I said, "move, I'll ride it." I made it, but halfway across I thought this is going to hurt if you mess up now. HA! At Trough, Paula was telling me about the split in the trail. Seems the downhillers have made a nice place to do there crazy jumps, and as it turns out we got to see one of them roar down the hill and fly over one of the jumps. It was pretty cool to see. Crazy, but cool. We did get to chat with the guy soon after. He was very nice.

Ok so Trough is likely very rideable, but I was getting tired and hot. I ended up walking a bit too much, but oh well. Riding back up the fireroad to Hi-dee-ho was cool too. Good way to recover a bit. Stopped to take some pictures of the fire damage. Mother Nature amazes me how it grows back despite alot of burned trees. Hi-dee-ho is a fun trail. I've ridden down it a few times. I've never done the switchbacks - I just don't trust myself enough. I was hard on the brakes again in the narrow sections. Once the trail widens a bit, I rolled on. Remembered to pull the front wheel up on the little jumps, so I got to fly a bit. Ritchey's full suspension worked marvelously. I didn't even realize I'd passed the trailhead to the connector because I was having so much fun.

For all of the climbing, this ride was the most enjoyable I've had at the Cove in a while. The lower trails just get trashed when they are wet, so they are rutted pretty bad in places. I get tired of splish splash mud too, so maybe I'll just have to continue going up to ride.

Ok well - there's more I could say, but I gotta get to bed. PEACE YA'LL. =)