Thursday, April 1, 2010

Home Field Advantage

First time out since my RI humbling. I don't know if I stumbled onto a traction secret, or if it was just the home field advantage but my tires were sticking like glue last night. Which was particularly surprising as the rain had stopped about 4 hours before I hit the trails, and that's usually plenty of time for the trail slime to develop. Stuck mostly to the perimeter of the Res. and the service roads to avoid the gooey center. Happy to report the trail bed is pretty well established, but on days like these, it's easy to remember what the purpose of the reservoir is; to collect and funnel water into storage "reserves" for later consumption.
Other than having Journey stuck in my head, an awesome night of riding.

I thought some clever beavers had built a really neat dam in this pond. Then I realized it wasn't a pond or a dam, but a pile of wood chips in a flooded field
Running stream of water down the trail
The fixer
Maybe I'll go the other way. For those not familiar with the Res., the gravel hill beyond the puddle is really steep, and considered something of a challenge

7 comments:

Mark said...

After a deluge like the one we just had, I'd recommend you find yourself some fire roads and ride those for a couple of days. Trails are going to be FUBAR for awhile. I know where you coming from, it's time to train and what do you do with soggy trails?

CB2 said...

Mark,
I avoided fragile areas, but along the ridge, things were quite firm. I left no tracks along the singletrack. The fireroads and levees were much softer; I skipped the whole center in between the fence lines because I know it is going to be a mess.

Fort James said...

Any race reports? I see you have your first result posted.

Had my first race over the weekend (an XC relay) and hopefully can get a report written this week.

CB2 said...

I had one race so far this year; a MTB TT.
http://charlieridesabike.blogspot.com/2010/03/king-of-burlingame.html
My first race of the Root 66 series is Saturday, I still haven't decided if I'm racing fast old guys or fast guys with one gear.

Mark said...

I think I am going to race SS Open class exclusively this year. Question is whether I can race this weekend due to daycare issues.

Mark said...

I see you are registered for the CAT 1 Farts over 40 class for Hop Brook. I am racing the SS open class.

CB2 said...

I'm racing Cat1 SS open (I thought), but whatever.
Ironically I need to find daycare now, but since my in-laws live in the condos off to the East of the course, I'm hoping it won't be to hard to find.