I had a good idea that today was going to be the last ride I can go on before my wife gives birth to our first-born child. My wife has a pretty good idea that the baby is going to come soon but not in the time that it would take for me to go for a quick spin up to the Woodlot. I had just happened to have been watching a very, very good Mtn. Biking film that morning……..The Collective. My favorite scenes are Hawaii and the North Shore, especially the Wade Simmons scenes on the Shore. The music is perfect for these two scenes; the light happy music for Hawaii (Sunday Jen) and the cool jazzy track for the North Shore (Life in the Rain). All I can say is that Wade is the smoothest rider I have ever seen. Watching how he flows and pumps along a trail styling everything his tires touch has to inspire one to try and mimic him.
So with the sounds and images of The Collective fresh in my mind, I headed to the Woodlot on what had to be one of the wettest days of the year. I am used to the west coast rain as I have lived here my whole life, but today was one of the wettest I had seen in quite a while. I had a few ideas about what my route was going to be, but once I was headed up the hill I nailed down a nice quick flowing route for my (wet) ride today.
Blood Donor to Giant Killer and then over to Snakes and Ladders and finally Shotgun. Blood Donor is now a trail that I hit virtually every time I go for a ride and The Woodlot nowadays. I just cannot get enough of it. It has flow, top to bottom…tones of it. I knew I was the only guy on the hill at the time as there were no tracks on the trail up and there were no other cars in the parking area so I played it safe during my ride. Giant Killer was next and it flowed today for me like no other day absolutely awesome. I even did a stylish dismount off a log ride mimicking Mr. Simmons. With the tunes of The Collective in my head I was smiling the whole way down the trail…… it is funny how the ultra cool jazz music so perfectly matches riding in The Woodlot.
So I jetted over to Snakes and Ladders to see what my buddy Tim had been up to over the last few days. I had not talked to him since we last rode on Tuesday so I was very eager to see what he had done. I had the song from the Hawaii scene (Sunday Jen) playing in my head. I swear I had the best ride every down my trail. She was ripping so well in the rain and it flows so well all the way to the rock faces. Tim had worked some of his wizardry on the trail at a spot where the flow used to just sort of stop. A few unsafe bar bashing tight trees were removed and an old short logride was re-established. The short ladder approach that places you on the log is like magic and perfectly sets you up for a nice drop of the log back onto the trail. I swear it was like he worked an exorcism on the trail resulting the perfect line the just flows. I stopped and dismounted off my bike after this new little feature and ran back to have a closer look. It was like this thing just belonged there naturally. Ultra sweetness. The rest of the trail was just a quick rip to the bottom and then a nice quick ride over to Shotgun.
Shotgun was really good. I was still on my high from ripping Snakes and Ladders so as usual Shotgun was a blast. I ran into 2 guys that were out walking their dog and having a look at the trails. They were riders but decided to just walk the trials to have a look at the building on the trails. I pointed them in the right direction as they had never really been there before and I was on my way to finish my ride. By this time now, there were a few cars in the parking area so I wasn’t to be the only one enjoying The Woodlot today.
All I can say is I had an absolutely fantastic ride that will take a few days to down from the high.
