Saturday, September 27, 2008

A Classic ride for inspiration

Well today's ride was a bit of a last minute decision, but it ended up being pretty damn good.

When I left my house it was still dark (~6:30am), I got my morning coffee at Timmy's and I arrived at The Woodlot with the rising sun. I decided to push up Shotgun to see the condition of the trail on the way up and for the most part it is running well with very little water collecting anywhere.

I had forgotten to remove my single ring set-up I had on my bike from my last ride (Whistler 2 weeks ago), so the climb was a bit of a grunt up to the top.

My route was Krazy Karpenter, Tsuga to Snakes and Ladders and finally Shotgun. For the most part, Karpenter is beat down. It's a trail that's been ridden hard and put away wet far too many times. Over this winter I have a feeling it is going to see some love from some caring hands to try and bring it back to its former greatness.....stay tuned.

After Karpenter it was then back up to Tsuga for a nice rip and then down to Snakes and Ladders. This past summer the trail has seen minimal trail work and it is handling the traffic quite well. There are a few spots that need some loving, but from a maintenance perspective, very little is needed at this time. Over the last week, Tim had fixed some spots on the trail (log ride) and changed the last ladder down on the trail. In fact he removed it completely and put in a turn to the new line. Our plan has finally been completed and the old existing straight shot line is now closed. Today I the buffed the section of trail that cuts off the old line and sends you nicely along to the new end of the trail. I think all it needs is one more day of work to add more dirt after some rain settles the ground in and we are done. Unfortunately I forgot to charge my camera before my ride so no pictures of today's ride.

When I was done I packed up the tools and then rode out to Shotgun. A sweet little rip down to the car and I was home in no time at all.

Overall a good ride, a productive bit of building on a section of Snakes and a good long look at Karpenter that really sparked my interest in getting this classic back up to snuff.

No comments: