September 7th (Afternoon)

Another good ride this afternoon. Often after a good morning ride, my afternoon one is painful but not today so that was good!

As I left work, there was a rather large downpour coming into Kamloops on the West end. Seeing that I was just on the front end of this system, I figured that I’d better “lay the hammer down” or I was going to get soaked! From work ‘till about the old Merritt highway, it kept spitting at me here and there, but by the time I got to the trails, I was out running it and riding under beautiful sunny skies!

Going down into the creek was good, but the back brake was a bit noisy and squealing a lot… I did make it through the creek and up the first root, but no where near as far up the next section like I know I can do. Even the climb up out of the valley was a rather poor effort, as I failed to keep the bike straight and had to bail way sooner than I normally do…

The rest of the ride was great, though. I, again, took the two new gulley trails down to Frolek’s lower road, and by the time I got to the bottom, the back brake was at least a bit quieter!

Up ‘till Juniper, the trails were pretty quiet (minus my own squealing brake!) However, on the Juniper trail I met up with about 7 hikers/joggers/bikers… All with dogs of course! A really good time though in the end. Not a record, but pretty close to it and better than I’ve done for a long time for sure.