July 16th (Afternoon)

I don’t wanna work, I just wanna bang on the drums all day!

Yeppers, it’s Friday and that means two things, no work and a rest from biking! I do look forward to the weekend for biking rest for sure, usually by Friday I’m feeling pretty wiped and my rides get rather slow. However, this week was a really good one in terms of feeling tired and ‘lazy’. I felt that way on Thursday morning and this morning, but in the end I had good rides nonetheless. So, with a good physical week and a great exploration week under my belt, I feel pretty good!

I left work and instead of going down Hugh Allan right away, I continued on past the end of Copperhead and found a quick little trail from Pineview that took me right up into the trailer park at the end of Howe road. I rode through the park, down Howe, up and over Hugh Allan (a bit of a hill there, but nothing too nasty) and then across Summit. Summit had a small hill, but with the down hill just before it letting me push the big gear, I was probably only down to 6th gear in the back by the time I crested the hill. I then took the entrance into Peterson’s creek off of Summit, just below Castle Towers. It was a neat little trail going down into the valley, cutting across the hillside. At one section I was putzing quite slowly through a sandy portion when I heard someone behind me “Are you going to make it through, sir?” Sir??? Anyways, in my attempt to move over, I ended up having to bail and so I pulled over to let this guy past and it was a bylaw officer on a full suspension! Now that’s a job I would love! Anyways, he told me to be careful (thank you very much, SIR) and continued on. As I don’t know this trail at all, I was pretty slow, and the sandy sections (which I made through this morning) gave me a bit of a time coming down.

At the bottom, I crossed the creek OK, but still didn’t make it up the other side. I then started riding again and noticed the back tire was very low again, so I stopped and pumped it back up. I guess I’ll have to find and fix that flat this weekend. I decided to try the long, steep hill again and made it up ‘till my front tire started hopping and the bike started bucking and threatening to throw me over backwards, and then walked the steepest section (about 20 feet or so). Then I was able to get back on and finish the hill. The rest of the ride was great, I took the same trail down that I found on my way up this morning, such an awesome section of single-track!

I got some good speeds through the pipeline section at Rose Hill, but still missed the last hill. However, I did make it the farthest yet. I think my secret is to not look to far up the hill. I know, you’re supposed to look ahead, but on hills like this, it’s just discouraging! I find if I watch closely in front of me (I know the hill well enough that I don’t have to worry about picking the best line really), then before I know it I’m farther up than I thought! Anyways, I did make my best distance up this hill to date, so that was really cool!

Finally, I took the main trial into Juniper (cranking out at a really fast pace), and then meandered along the lookout trail before making my way back to the main one (just had to get in a bit more single-track). In the end, I had a fast time of 45 minutes and a great average speed of just about 19km/h. I love that I have the options now. The only problem I’m going to have now is indecisiveness!