Cypress Fun

I left work a little early today in order to make it to Cypress for a shuttle ride up the hill with Rob, Mike and Rob's buddy Chris. The plan was to do 2 or 3 shuttles of the hill covering as many trails as we could.

Mike was the guide for this ride as he has ridden Cypress many more times than us other guys. So the first shuttle was up to the 3rd switchback and we parked in a gravel parking lot. This run included Firehose and Family Guy. I am not sure what other trails we did between or before these trails but some really lacked flow and were what I would say to be in disrepair, but Firehose and Family Guy are 2 trails that totally rocked. They were soooooo much fun. The long rock faces and natural features and drops on them were amazing. I had an absolute blast on these trails. Now I am not making fun at all, but I cannot say that Rob had as much fun as me. He stated that this may very well be his last trip to Cypress....ever.

Here is a LINK to Rob's Blog entry on this Cypress Ride.

The second shuttle was one of the regular lines down the Roaches (Roach Clip and Roach Hit) and Cherry Bomb. These trails are just a ton of fun.....technical with flow....steep rocks and tight descents with little to no built up stuff. I had by far my best run ever down these trails. That run simply could not have been any better.

I had to take off immediately after the ride so I said see ya to the guys and I was on my way. I missed out on a beer with the boys but that last run more than made up for it.

After Work

Tonight was I believe the first non night ride after work ride of the year. Tim, Rob and I managed to get up to Snakes and Ladders to do a little work and hike some tools up to the trail.

We arrived at the trail with good light, but I knew that we were going to be pushing it if we were going to build and ride at all. As it turns out, we basically just built and rode out Snakes and Ladders and then Shotgun. Rob and I widened the transition for the 2nd of the doubles that leads to the long flowing berm that Tim was worked on. However before this, the three of us moved this rather large rock out from the middle of our berm. It took the three of us about 15 minutes to get this thing out of a hole and well out of the way of the riding line. After it was moved you could not even tell where it first came from.

So with barely enough light to see our way down the trails, we packed up and headed down. I am really glad that we know these trails well because there is no way that we could have made our way down the hill in one piece with the sparse amount of light that we had. So after we finished Snakes and Ladders it was over to Shotgun. Tim and I played our cat and mouse game, but it turned out to be a little hazardous with the lack of light, so it turned into a nice cruise down the hill to the cars.

We actually accomplished allot tonight and I can see us hooking up like this after work on a regular basis after work now that there is lots of daylight at our disposal. I guess night riding is out for a while.

Rework

Today was another early day at the Woodlot building with Tim on the new berm jump section on Snakes and Ladders. Tim primarily worked on the lower long sweeping berm below the doubles and I worked on the upper berm before the doubles then I 'reworked' the gap.

The reworking of the upper berm I did worked out quite well. We are now able to rail the berm allot better than in the past. All it needs is a little more dirt and time to solidify. The section that Tim worked on came together really well. His portion simply flows perfectly.

I then I decided to 'rework' the first gap. My intention was to make the transition of a jump a little longer by making it steeper and the bottom between the two jumps deeper. After I had completed my 'rework', I tried the jump thinking that I had improved the existing jump.....well all I can say is that I wrecked a perfectly good jump. I must have hit that jump 10 times and every time I was sent flying one way or another because of the 'rework I did.

As it was on this day, I has to leave a little earlier than Tim so I took off with my tail between my legs on the hard tail and rode down the rest of the trail. Tim continued working on the lower berm and assured me that he would fix my 'rework' of the gap.

I think that my 'rework' gave me bad trail karma because I seemed to be getting hung up on things and wiping out on stuff that I had ridden a hundred times before. On my way down Shotgun I ran into the other builders at the Woodlot (Jamie, Ewan, Rich and Cory). I stopped to talk to Cory for several minutes to sort out some things and I was on my way. I really have to give those guys props for the absolutely beautiful work they have done in the past few weeks re-opening Shotgun.

It was then down to the car and home to the wife and baby.

Easter Monday

On this holiday day I did not have anyone else to ride with me, so I went to the Woodlot solo. I rode Cabin Trail, Snakes and Ladders, Hoots and Shotgun. It was a really, really fast flowy ride on the Bullit.

Apres Work

This was the first after work ride of the year.

Rob and I hit the Woodlot after work. Our quick ride was Snakes and Ladders, Hoots and Shotgun.

Fun ride and nice to get out during the week in the daylight.

Riding Buddies

Today was the first time in a long time that Rob, Tim and I rode together. We hit the Woodlot with a full head of steam. We rode Krazy Karpenter, Blood Donor, Giant Killer, Snakes and Ladders and Shotgun. It was a fun ride and great to be out together as a group again.

Quick Hit work

Today I decided that it was time to clear Quick Hit so that it can be re-opened seeing as the logging is now complete. I simply rode my hard tail to Quick Hit and started clearing branched from the trail. I worked alone for 4 hours before calling it quits. I think it will take one or two more days to have the trail cleared so that it is rideable again. I then just rode out Shotgun and drove home. I was really tired.

Warm March Night

Tonight was another one at the Woodlot in the pitch black of night. Tim stopped by at my place on the way and we chatted for a bit, I finished loading up my bike and we made our way to the parking area of the Woodlot. We have been having some really nice warm weather and tonight was no different. It was what some might term as warm.....at least for early March.

The route that we decided on was Krazy Karpenter, Blood Donor, Giant Killer, Snakes and Ladders and finally Shotgun. The climb up was at a very relaxed pace, stopping every now and then to adjust our packs or just to pause to chat a little more intensely about one thing or another. Once we were at the top of the hill and all geared up, we powered up our lights and headed off down the trails. The new bits of work that have recently been completed on Krazy Karpenter have really helped to make this trail fun to ride again. It is an old school trail with a bit of new school polishing which make for a really fun ride. It had rained a bit in the last few days and some of the woodwork was wet and slippery. On the log with the teeter totter on it I went for an unexpected ride as I was a tiny bit off line after the teeter and I had to jump off the log sans bike as my wheels were sliding off the edge of the big log. So about 3/4 of the way down Karpenter there is a short connector that takes you straight to the trail up to Blood Donor. This is the first time I had taken this connector and if you don't mind missing the last bit of Karpenter it cuts a substantial amount of time off the already short push up to Blood Donor.

Once at Blood Donor we decided that I was going to go first. I skipped the gap/hip due to the fact that I have not seen the thing in the daylight and hitting a bigger gap for the first time in the dark is not the smartest thing in the world. So I railed the manicured berms and hit the small step-up gap that is after the gap/hip. Tim decided on the way down that he would hit the gap but he didn't quite make the jump clean. It was not a big wipeout but as he described it, "I came up a tad short but still landed on the tranny".
It was then down the trail to the drop into the hole which was as smooth as ever. Dropping into a completely black hole is a very eerie feeling until the lights on your head and on the bike catch up to the angle of the drop. It was smooth flowing down the rest of the trail hitting every stunt and whatnot on the trail down to the entrance of Giant Killer.

Giant Killer is was simply a rip. Tonight this trail just worked for me. Nice and fast and smooth over all the stunts and for the first time in a while I rode the whole skinny section cleanly when it was wet. Then aired the gap at the bottom and rode out the rest of the trail to the road. Giant Killer is such a fun trail in the dark.
So over to Snakes and ladders we went. Just this past weekend Rob and I reworked a jump and hammered out a berm on Snakes and Ladders so this was going to be the first time Tim had seen it. So we ripped the trail down to the start of the run in to the jump section. I went first and just aired the first jump and popped off the second jump and railed the berm as best I could. This new revised section is going to be absolutely outstanding once we get it all dialed. From that point on down the trail Tim and I just ripped not stopping for anything tearing down the trail.

So we now headed over to Shotgun. It has been a long time since Shotgun was open due to some logging that started in the early fall of 2004. Normally Tim and I play a cat and mouse game down Shotgun taking turns at who leads and who chases. Tonight was no different. Tim was the mouse but that didn't last very long as he made a wrong turn at the very start of the trail and I passed him really quickly. So we then bombed down the top portion of Shotgun to the road and the clear-cut. So as I said earlier it had been several months since the clear cut section of Shotgun had been open to ride. The other builders have been busy lately clearing the old existing line and doing groundwork to make the trail rideable for the masses that now flock to the Woodlot. One new feature that was added was a super long bridge/ladder that goes over a wet area of the trail. This bridge/ladder rocks and really adds to the trail. The remainder of the trail appeared to be the same as before and had not changed since the logging took place.

So to the cars it was, we loaded up and headed home. I can sum this up as another sweet night ride at The Woodlot.

Jump and Berm

Today was an early morning build session and ride with Rob. We rebuilt a small jump on Snakes and ladders that had not worked out the way we wanted when we first built it. The new version of the jump worked out perfectly.

We then went to work on a berm that will lead into a cool jump section that we plan on making. We each took turns filling the bucket with dirt and throwing it on the berm. When it is done this new bermed corner will work out really well for this section of trail. We were able to completely fill the berm with dirt and rock and after a few weeks of settling we should be able to shape it perfectly so that we can rail it to the jump we plan on making.

After working all morning we decided that we would push back up the trail and ride Snakes and Ladders then Hoots and upper Shotgun.

We got allot of work done today and were bagged when we got down to the cars.

Double Shuttle

Night riding at Seymour. It really doesn't get much better than this. Well......it does when you shuttle the hill twice.

The riders tonight were Tim, Graham, Marco and me. The route: 1) Corkscrew, Pingu, Boogieman and Empress. 2) Corkscrew, Pingu, Pangor, Slash, Empress.

The weather conditions: WET, really WET and slippy.

The ride was wicked. All I can say is wicked. One really funny thing that happened on the ride was that Tim forgot his cell phone on the roof of his car on the first shuttle and we were sure we had lost it. On the way up the hill on the second shuttle we could see it on the side of the road glowing on one of the hairpin corners. It turns out that his phone stays illuminated when it is flipped open, so lucky for him we recovered it on the way up.

Overall a long and really good ride.