I had an absolutely wicked ride today at The Woodlot. It was a solo ride on the Heckler with my burlier Mavic 729 wheels and Michelin 2.5s rather than the 2.35 High Rollers I have been riding on lately. I just thought I would ride different wheels for a change and a little more cush.
The climb was a nice pedal up the logging road then a left turn to head up Stove Top to the road up and then the push up the power lines. Recently I have started to enjoy the pedal climb up and stovetop really fills the need for a pedalable climb at least part of the way to the top. Once at the top I rode Krazy Karpenter which was a great ride and then up the trail to Blood Donor. I had a pretty bad spill on the bigger gap on Blood Donor a few months ago and my wrists are still hurting from it so I decided to skip the one big gap but hit the rest of them with reckless abandon. At the canoe log drop on Blood Donor about 2/3 of the way down the trail I ran into 3 guys on the side of the trail. One of these guys was Super T (Tyler Klassen) on a Yeti ASX giving some guys what look like a Tour de Woodlot. Super T was limping around due to a broken femur 12 weeks earlier so there were no drops or jumps in the books for him today. He was just out flowing the dirt.
At the trail head of Giant Killer (the end of Blood Donor) I ran into a guy that was riding The Woodlot for the first time on an XC Klein. He wanted to know if he was near the top. When I told him he was not quite half way to the top he requested directions down the hill so explained how to get down via Lower Toad Stool and Hoots.
So I then rode Giant Killer having ripping the trail on all the stunts that were open and then made my way over to Snakes and Ladders. Once at Snakes and Ladders I the trail non stop to the last big rock face. The trail is in great shape right now but I know where it needs some TLC, however nothing can be done on the trail until it rains again. At top of the big rock face I have started to stack rock that will be used to fill in the black nasty mud that accumulates at the top. So I left me bike at the top and proceeded over to the rock quarry gather some rock. I ended up stacking 2 big buckets worth of rock and one really BIG rock that I hauled up to the top of the rock face. I then geared up and rode out the rest of the trail to Shotgun. While passing by the bottom of Quick Hit I nearly ran over the biggest garter snake I have ever seen. Any ways I rolled down into Shotgun and let go of the brakes riding it as fast a my tires would let me go. Out to the car and homeward bound.
