Today I rode with Rob and Mike at the Woodlot and went for a longer ride than I have been lately. There was still snow at the parking area and in the exposed areas, so we decided that we would walk up Shotgun, rather than going up the main road as usual. The hike up the trail was okay, but when we reached the top of the trail, we realized that we really didn’t need to hike up the trial, we could have just gone up the normal way as the snow was almost all gone or hard packed. We continued up the hill to Tsuga. I had not ridden it in quite some time so it was great to be back on an all natural trail having an absolute blast. Luckily the trails were almost bare of snow so it was really nice damp riding the whole way down.
From Tsuga we went back up the hill to hit Gold. It was wet, but apart from the wet spots, we had a good time with Mike hitting the 2nd highest drop on the ‘Swiss Army Knife’. Then we hit Blood Donor. It was nice to see that this trial has seen a ton of work done to it to get it back into true riding shape and give it some flow. I will say that it has kind of been dummied down a little too much for my tastes but there are reasons the trail saw the work that it saw and it is appreciated.
From Blood Donor it was to Giant Killer. As always it is one of my favorites even though the teeter totter half way down was shut down due to some broken parts on it. At the end of the trail Mike did the bigger drop to transition where you have to do a quick turn to the right after landing and he wasn’t quite able to complete the turn. He hit the tree pretty hard but just got up, dusted off and continued on the ride.
We then headed over to Heckyl an Jeckyl which is where the ride just went wrong for me. The beginning was alright, I did the first drop entry into the trail and did the log ride and banked 180 turn. The logs were wet and therefore the turn was a little slippery. I then rode along the log to the drop off the end of the log. As I said it was slippery and I had trouble getting some momentum for the drop and I made one pedal stoke too many. I tried to get my nose up but it was too late, I was already on my way down…….NOSE HEAVY. Thank you Bell for making a great full face. I was picking dirt out of helmet but apart from my bruised ego, I was okay.
The rest of the ride was alright however it seemed that someone had removed the sign at the top of the trail telling us that it should be closed. There was active logging taking place at the bottom of the trail and we had to hike our bikes over logs and the creek a few times.
We made our way back up to Shotgun and had a blast ripping down the trail. There was some building taking place that day over the creek and at the small rock drop. We packed up the cars and headed to the local Pub for beers and a burger. Not a bad day of riding apart from the nose dive I took.
