Today Shawn, Ryan, and I headed out to Alafia to do some riding. My goal for today was to ride North Creek as much as I could mentally and physically handle. Of all the trails out there (the I had attempted) North Creek had really been the next "hurdle" of sorts to learn to clear. Roller Coaster and Bridges will be the next. There are 3 sections of this trail I absolutely needed to learn how to clear. Number one was the tree roots at the beginning of the trail. I learned how to deal with it, stay to the left, pedal hard and jump it, let the rear wheels roll over it if I don't hop it completely. The second is still on my to do list. I call it the staircase of death because it looks like you are going to die if you go over the bars. At any rate, the first 4 steps down, I lost my footing on the pedals and ended up in the wall. It was downhill from there, as the trail got the best of me. It seems that not only was it crazy hot and humid, but this was our first trail of the day. I honestly felt as if I had no power or stamina. Could it have been from the cupcakes I ate the night before? Perhaps I didn't eat enough for breakfast. I guess we'll see how it goes as the summer gets into full swing.
Mentally for me it seems, I need to ride some easier trails and get my confidence "warmed" up before I try doing this portion of the trail. At any rate, i felt wobbly as could be, was dismounted several times by the trail (once to avoid going into the gator infested waters) and I ended up falling once, which resulted in my derailleur knocking on my wheel. I finally got to a point where I could adjust the cable tension and all was well with it again.
I continued down the trail and even made the final jump. From here we headed over to Rock Garden, which we proceeded to run the opposite direction. As usual running this trail is great fun, albeit it is almost all uphill going in reverse order. We got to the end of Rock Garden and we saw four adult deer and a doe, foraging just past the edge of the trail. It seems like every week I see more and more wildlife while on the trails. From the end of the trail we headed back to the trailhead to take a break and drink some water.
After the needed break, Shawn and Ryan went back to ride North Creek again. I passed and headed back to Rock Garden, it just wasn't in the deck for me mentally. I rode rock garden again and then followed it up to where North Creek exits. While waiting for Shawn and Ryan I chatted with a guy from the SWAMP club, who gave me some pointers about riding North Creek, and commented that my 29er should clear most of the obstacles without a problem. Just about that time Shawn and Ryan were just exiting the trail. We chatted and cooled off for a minute and noticed the sound of a gator which seemed rather close. I looked down about 5 feet down on the edge of the water, only to see a 2.5' gator slinking back into the water.
After checking out the gator we headed back down to Rock Garden and ran it again. After running Rock Garden we headed back to cool off again back at the trailhead. I decided to go ahead and run North Creek again, and this time try to clear as many of my previous problem spots. I cleared the roots, and approached the staircase (which I decided I was not going to do). The next trouble spot was where a pair of trees grew close together and their roots formed a wide V and behind this V is a short drop. Our friend from the trail told me I could just roll over the bottom of the V - he was right! Problem solved. Now if only I can get my head around the initial drop.
All in all good riding today, even if it was insanely hot!
View Larger Map
No comments:
Post a Comment