Today's Ride

Second ride of the year today.  42miles, 3460 vertical gain.  Still chilly.  It took half an hour to get the feeling back in my big toe.

i recently read  on another forum that with mtb every day is a powder day. i don't neccessarily agreee with that sentiment but yesterday's ride sure felt like one! 70d temps and sun, springtime soil moisture providing the perfect amount of speed and tack, foliage just peaking out enough to provide a little color with no slappers or obstructed views, and having a few rides under my belt to provide a bit of confidence with higher center of gravity, legs, and lungs

Life would be so much easier if mountain biking was as much fun as skiing.

I've been out 4 times so far this year----man_0_man it doesn't take long to get out of riding shape. Got some work ahead of me just to get back to where I was at the end of last year. Sure is a hoot tho.

it is!!! it just takes some time in the saddle to develop the skill sets and conditioning required to make it so, the post ride beer may even taste better

mt biking is the closest thing to tree skiing. it's a great substitute.

Got out for a quick tour of the backyard trails Sunday afternoon.  It’s been a relatively dry spring, and other than a few branches here and there that needed clearing, the trails are in excellent shape for early season riding.  Some of the singletrack has even been blown clear of leaves, presumably by my neighbor Kevin who created most of the trails several years ago.  I gotta buy that guy a beer, or better yet get out with a leaf blower myself and clear some more.

At one point I had hopped off my bike to clear some downed branches and almost jumped back when I saw this guy looking at me from about 10 or 15 feet away.





Not that I’m scared of turtles, it’s just startling when there’s a person (or animal) nearby that you didn’t expect.  At first I was hoping it might be a Blanding’s Turtle, which would  have been really cool, but it’s just a common snapper.  Blanding’s is much smaller, with bright yellow markings and a domed shell.  They inhabit some of the vernal pools that are scattered around these parts of the Saratoga Sand Plains, and they were only discovered here after the land was protected as Karner Blue butterfly habitat.  I think that’s one of the really cool stories about the patchwork of lands owned by Saratoga County, NY State, The Nature Conservancy and the Wilton Wildlife Preserve that surround our house:  protect the land for one endangered specie (the butterfly) only to discover later that it’s also home to another endangered (actually “just” threatened) specie.

Anyhow, sorry for the nerdy nature-boy tangent.  The riding’s good here in the Saratoga area, I’ll probably be hitting SMBA later this week or next.  Mountain biking makes me almost forget that I miss skiing!

Glad you snapped a picture of that turtle!

Riding a bike is just another way to get out into the woods and experience nature. Good to see you are keeping your eyes and ears open.

Our LBS' Tuesday night ride was cancelled today due to wet trails an erosion concerns. Looking forward to the warmth and sun coming in the next few days.

I am not a Mtn Biker, tried it for a few years but the road is my passion so I turned my mountain bike into a commuter.

So how many of you Mountain Bikers are signing up for the Black Fly Challenge? I know several people who do it every year, there are black flys and it is a challenge.

http://www.blackflychallenge.com/

Sick Bird Rider wrote

Glad you snapped a picture of that turtle!

Hyuck hyuck!
I often don't bring my camera because there's usually not a lot of good photo ops on a solo ride.  I was glad I had it Sunday.  

Sick Bird Rider wrote

Riding a bike is just another way to get out into the woods and experience nature. Good to see you are keeping your eyes and ears open.

That's certainly a big part of it for me.  Ditto with trail running.  And skiing too.

DackerDan wrote

So how many of you Mountain Bikers are signing up for the Black Fly Challenge?

I know Matt did it a year or two ago, and I know quite a few others who ride every year.  I'd like to do it sometime.

If you need some training for the Black Fly Challenge, you might want to head up to the Hinterlands. Despite the spell of warm weather, the local snomo trails are still a bit wet, soupy and soft. The absence of biting insects, mechanical failure or injury kept yesterday's ride from being a complete suffer-fest but it was certainly an adventure on two wheels, and occasionally two feet.

The first major obstacle was this little wet spot with a mandatory portage:


My futile attempt to dislodge the beaver work from the culvert:


A little fancy footwork on some makeshift bridges got me to the other side:


Farther along, things got a bit soupy. I tried to ride the edges, with varying degrees of success:


I found the last snow patch!


Sections that are typically firm and fast in the summer were soft and grabby on this day. Bike-stopping quicksand, actually:


All in all, a good start the season, a first attempt at working off the winter slackage, and a reminder to get my rear wheel trued up. See you on the trails!

Wow, mud.  It is DRY down here.  We could actually use a little rain, but the 7-day forecast is showing nada (yes, a little Spanish since it's Cinco de Mayo).

Hit SMBA Friday evening with K-Man and his crew for two and a half hour ride.  The trails are dry and in prime mid-summer condition.  Rode out to the Canyon loops and back, essentially the furthest out points of the trail system (for now).  Although I’ve ridden Backstretch and Canyon several times before, I think it had always been by headlamp.  It was cool to see this terrain in daylight – the woods and ponds in the back half of the trail network are beautiful and Canyon’s eponymous gorge is pretty dramatic.  Should have taken more photos but I was working hard to keep up – these guys ride hard - and the terrain at SMBA rarely gives you an opportunity to lift your eyes up from the trail for more than a half second at a time.  Someone decided on the ride back that it would be fun to play “kill the new guy” and we rode Dam rather than the (relatively) easier Porcupine.  I survived by walking where I needed to, including over the Dragon’s Back, a very cool spine of swirled bedrock.

Here’s a quick photo I grabbed somewhere out on Canyon.  Kman is the rider just in front of me.

Our LBS' Tuesday Night Ride is back in action. Our crew of six riders headed out for a less-gruelling-than-usual tour of some local double and singletrack, still surprisingly damp after a week of hot, dry weather. Like Jeff in his post above, I took the camera but there was not much time for photography, due to the brisk pace. It is a great group, we welcome anybody, any MTB, and even though certain folks are notoriously fast, nobody gets left behind. And, conveniently, the start/finish point is right beside the pub for after-ride refreshment.

To illustrate the range, tonight's group was all guys (we do get the occasional female), ranging in age from 20 to 58, riding everything from an ancient Giant hardtail to an esoteric Soma steel-frame hardtail to a Spec carbon 29er FS. In the photo, our youngest member contemplates the fact that his bike (the Giant, likely as old as he is) needs to keep up with the Spec Camber Pro 29. He did a pretty good job, all things considered. It's all good on the Tuesday Night Ride!

The Tuesday Night Ride heads out again. Tonight was the most technical riding I have done with this crew: The Mall Trail (as in, it goes to the mall) to Rosie's, with several interesting water crossings and a bushwhack through the wild leeks.

Fundamentally, The Ride is all about getting together and having some fun. Bob and Rob went to high school together but hadn't seen each for a few years. Rob was working in the area, so Bob hooked him up with a bike, Rob bought some shoes and pedals, it all worked out:
 

There is always a bit of road riding to get to the trails:


The Mall Trail was tough and technical, I'd give it a four-hoof rating. Helluva trek with with a shopping cart. Here we rest:


Water levels are still high, some rocks were added to this bridge before crossing:


As usual we repaired to the pub afterwards. Unfortunately, the pub was rather crowded with the Tuesday Night Baseball Ladies, the birthday party, the pastor and his buddies talking theology over a few pints, and others. We riders sat in the outdoor patio freezing our butts off, trying to be manly, until, finally the baseball ladies left. The things we must endure.

Got out Sunday afternoon for a short solo ride.  I know that’s 4 days ago, but I’m posting it under “Today’s Ride”anyhow.  Photos from my solo rides are pretty boring.  Mostly they look like this one from SBR, but without any of the riders:

By the way, there’s a trail somewhere in there amongst all the leaves, right?

So, no mtb stoke photos from Sunday, but I did have two pretty cool wildlife encounters.  The first was a Pileated Woodpecker.  You know, the big guy.  16 – 18 inches tall, red-crested head.  Of course he flew away in a split second.  No pic.  The odd thing is that I just saw another Pileated Woodpecker two days earlier, while I was running on the local paved bike path.  Pileated Woodpeckers aren’t exactly uncommon, and I’ve seen a few in the woods around home over the years, but two in two days seems like a lotta Woody Woodpecker.

No more than 2-3 minutes later, I came upon this handsome (not!) fellow.  He’s an Eastern Hognose:  

I don’t like snakes one bit, so it was all I could do to stand quietly and take a few pics without having a heart attack.  Besides being fairly large (3 feet is common), Eastern Hognose snakes have a cool defensive mechanism – they enlarge their body, flatten and widen their head, and hiss cobra-style.  Here’s a close-up of him in his Back-Off-MoFo mode.  But don’t worry, they are completely harmless.  Unless you’re a toad.


And I got out again last night (Weds) with K-man and his crew.  I may even have a few decent photos.  It was an awesome ride, and I’ll try to post something in the next few days after I go through my pics…

Adk Jeff wrote

By the way, there’s a trail somewhere in there amongst all the leaves, right?

Yes, just left of the nearest rider. I think we were the first through here this season. It's a lot like tree skiing: aim for the spaces between the trees.

Adk Jeff wrote

Here’s a close-up of him in his Back-Off-MoFo mode.  But don’t worry, they are completely harmless.  Unless you’re a toad.

That's a big &*%^ing snake, harmless or not. All we need to worry about is bears, moose and wolves. Snakes, yeessh.

Sick Bird Rider wrote

It's a lot like tree skiing: aim for the spaces between the trees.

If only leaves were the powder of mountain biking...

Sick Bird Rider wrote

That's a big &*%^ing snake, harmless or not. All we need to worry about is bears, moose and wolves. Snakes, yeessh.

I couldn't agree more.  Bears and wolves, bring 'em on.  Snakes not so much.

great morning to bike to work on the old hardtail! nice 18 mi ride mostly on the nor-bath and irt rail trails - lots of farms and trees and even a covered bridge but a splash of urban is what really caught my eye

I have a new favorite place to ride: Spier Falls.  The riding is tough and technical, but satisfying and fun.  Rode with K-man and his gang last week for a 3-hour tour.  Came home with some scrapes and popped a tube on the ride, all par for the course.  Loved every minute of it (well, maybe not so much the 800’ vertical climb at the start of the ride).  Did a TR with some more pics on my blog here.

The Western Ridge trail:


Setting sun from one of many overlooks:  

Last week was wet, but I managed to dodge the drops and get out for a couple rides.  

Solo ride at SMBA Thursday evening:


I was supposed to meet up for the Blue Sky shop ride at SMBA, but I got delayed on the Northway and got to the trailhead 7 or 8 minutes after the 6pm meeting time.  There was just one other car and no one in sight.  Since some storms had moved through during the afternoon, I figured the ride had been cancelled, but I wasn’t going to let 2 hours of Jeff time that I had negotiated and scheduled with my family go to waste.  The trails were quite wet even though it had stopped raining.  Maybe mud is the powder of mountain biking. Probably not, but it was a fun ride anyway.  Except for the bugs, which were brutal.

On Saturday it rained all day.  Temps never got out of the 40s.  I was going to ride my out-the-backdoor trails but decided to do a tour over the marked trails of the Wilton Wildlife Preserve and Park instead.  I guess these count as out-the-backdoor too, since one of the trailheads is less than a mile from home.

WWPP trail, Fox parcel:


Bikes are allowed on these trails, but I don’t ride them much because they’re pretty flat and sandy in spots.  You can make up for the lack of technical challenge by riding them fast at night, which is pretty fun.  With all the recent rain, I knew the sand would be packed and more rideable.  But the real reason I wanted to ride the WWPP trails was to check out the blue lupine, which is in full bloom right now.  

Lupine:


Quite a bit of WWPP’s trail mileage passes through areas that have been restored as habitat for the Karner blue butterfly.  These are open, savannah-like areas of pitch pine and oak, grasses, blue lupine and other wild flowers.  Blue lupine is the sole food source for the butterflies, and it grows in abundance in these areas.  All told, WWPP has protected something like 2,500 acres, of which maybe a couple hundred acres is restored habitat.  (Click here for a map of WWPP's protected lands and the trail network).  When the lupine is in bloom, a run or a ride over WWPP’s trails feels like it’s right out of that famous scene in the Sound of Music where Julie Andrews is running through the alpine meadow.  Lucky for the butterflies, I refrained from singing.

More lupine:




Trail through restored Karner blue butterfly habitat:


This week looks to be a lot better than last weather-wise, so hopefully I’ll have a chance to get in a ride or two back at Spier Falls, SMBA or Luther Forest.