Well, seeing as how I had Friday off of riding due to my derailleur mishap, I figured I would go for a nice little ride this morning and try and find a cool trail coming out of Juniper down towards downtown. Don't get me wrong, I love coming down the Juniper hill and hitting speeds of 75km/h, but that just can't compare to a really fast and flowing singletrack or doubletrack in my opinion.
So, I left the house at 6:30am and headed up and out of Juniper. I know there's a network of trails down there, but I just am not sure how to get to them. At the top of Juniper is a very steep downhill/drop off that I'm a bit nervous to venture out on right now. So, I tried finding a trail that wasn't as much of a dropoff, and instead found a "slight narrow clearing" to ride down (which turned out to be pretty steep still). Anyways, I finally met up with some good trails and started riding.
However, I would appreciate it if Google Maps would update their satellite images! Because the trail/road I was expecting wasn't there... And I ended up going down through a really neat little valley section where there was dirt cliffs going up on both sides of the road. It was really neat looking. Unfortunately, this road goes right alongside the Valleyview dump and as such, there was garbage everywhere. But, on the flip side, it sure reminded me of riding in Mexico! Now I had the terrain similarities AND the garbage!
However, this trial eventually dead-ended at a gate into the dump and I had to turn around. On the way back up this hill, I did notice a small trail heading in the direction I wanted to go originally so I took it and it finally met up with the original track that I had scouted on Google Maps. This was a fast, curvy double track all the way down into Valleyview. What a blast! Once I'm comfortable with this trail, man is it going to be fun!
Oh, and just so you know I practiced my bunny hopping every 20 seconds... :)
It took me about 20 minutes from my house to Valleyview road. I came out just west of Vicars road, an intersection that normally takes me about 7minutes to get to on the paved streets. When I subtract about 5-7 minutes for backtracking and slow riding due to unfamiliar terrain, I would probably only have to leave the house about 10 minutes earlier.
Well, what goes down, no matter how much fun it was, must go back up... So, I figured I couldn't live in Juniper and be into biking without tackling the Juniper hill... And up I went.
And up...
And UP....
Ugggh... Granny gear was my best friend, and together we crested the top in about 20minutes, sweating profusely, breathing like the world just ran out of oxygen, but alive and smiling at my latest triumph! What a fun way to start a Sunday! Maybe I should take every Friday off... :)
Well, I'll report back in tomorrow!
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