September 24th (Morning)

Another warm morning of 9°. I did get the toe covers in the mail yesterday from MEC, so I tried them this morning even though the weather was not bad. Yesterday was 9°, and without the toe covers my toes were cold and took a bit to warm up, but they weren’t that bad (when compared against the 2° day of Wednesday morning!). This morning, however, with the covers my toes were fine! Nice and warm. I hope these things work well when the temperature drops again, though! I might have to consider buying new shoes too, or at least winter booties I guess?

The ride was good, the sun was out so the light was plentiful (no headlight or taillight needed). I did feel a bit low in the energy department today, but not too bad overall. Nothing like Wednesday’s ride home, that was for sure! I had an interesting encounter with a dear right at the logged-out section that breaks up the single-track across Frolek’s land (where the second gulley trailhead is). I have seen a doe here quite a few times (I even considered calling this “Doe Valley” because of how many times I’ve seen one here). Today, she was standing right by the trail, actually at the fork between my traversing trail and the gully trail down. I continued riding towards her, expecting her to bolt away. However, she just walked slowly around me as I rode by her, less than 10 feet away! She was on alert for sure, but I think she was being a bit too curious and trying to figure me out. Kind of cool, as long as she doesn’t go postal on me suddenly…

I didn’t make the technical curve/dip today. This is just such a bizarre section, where I need momentum, yet momentum can also be my enemy. I come around the corner and up the hill leaning the wrong direction (due to gravity, can’t do much about that), which throws me off balance for making the section. It’s a strange corner, one that I can only seem to make every 3 or 4 tries…

However, I came down into Peterson’s Creek with some good speed, and made it through the creek and up the bank on the other side, so that was awesome! The climb up out of the valley was “routine”. As my legs were a bit lacking in energy today, it was good to get about 2/3 of the way up and realize my body had simply gone into “auto-pilot” even though my mind seemed to be elsewhere… Hah!

I might go riding with Dave this weekend, so show him my trails I take home. Hopefully we can work it out to do that, should be fun to see him make (or not make) some of the climbs that I am challenged by so much!