July 28th (Afternoon)

Today’s ride was a blast! It was warm (36° again), but on a bike it isn’t too bad. Especially considering that most of my ride is downhill on the way home (most of the ride), so I usually have a breeze that helps to cool me down.

Anyways, as soon as I hit the trailhead at Castle towers, I felt good. I came down the Tom Moore trail fast and yet controlled, making both the sandy sections as well as the boardwalk (without pin-balling between the railings this time). I cleared the creek at the bottom, but again I did not make the bank up the other side. As I started the climb up out of the valley, I saw Phil about 1/2 way up, right below the spot where everyone has to hike-a-bike over a little drop-off. I really wasn’t in the mood to ride with anyone today (he’s good on the technical stuff, but I just wanted to fly today and he tends to “slowly meander” a bit more than I like). So I stopped and waited for him to get going, which seemed to take him forever! Anyways, once he got going I continued on up the hill and made it all the way up to the drop-off, farther than I have done yet. And seeing as how I’ll never make it over the drop-off, it’s the furthest up this trail I ever will be able to go I’m sure. If I ever expect to make the entire climb, I will have to start going on the the long, straight, steep hill instead of this bypass, technical trail.

So, after the climb I managed some really fun and fast single-track sections. I’ve been trying to learn how to “pump” the bike with the terrain (push it down into the valleys, lift it up over the peaks, helping the bike over the terrain). With this technique, it is a much smoother ride and as for anything to do with speed (auto racing, motorbikes, biking) smooth is fast! It was a lot of fun, I even found myself getting some air time on a few dips and bumps. As I went through the logging section, I noticed Phil coming down from the upper Frolek’s road. I figured he was probably about 2 minutes behind me, so I turned it up and really pushed through the next single-track section and down to the lower Frolek’s road. I figured he’d gain on me here, as he downhills faster than I can, but all the way to the gate I never saw him. I even took my time hanging around at the gate, but he never showed up, so either he crashed or was having a rather slow day! It was hot after all…

Well, another tree has found it’s way across the trail. Again at the Rose Hill pipeline section. I walked around it, but it really killed my momentum for the final hill. However, I did make it a really good distance up again (to the sandy part before I spun out and lost traction). I took the pipeline trail into Juniper, and in the end had a good overall time and good speeds, so I was happy!