This weekend has come and gone so quickly, it hardly seems fair. As I sit in the office this morning looking out the window, we have sunshine and chilly temps which is crazy considering the cold, rainy wet weather we had all weekend. I met up with my new neighbors, the Simril's, for an early morning ride on Saturday. We planned on riding from North Chatt to Raccoon Mountain and back via downtown, Lookout Mountain and Elder Mountain. The weather looked bleak from the start. I was sitting on my front porch all bundled up putting on my shoes and it started to rain. That was really hard on the motivation factor. I rolled up the street to meet my morning accomplices and the rain just kept coming. By the time we made it through downtown, the rain had stopped and we we all shedding our jackets in preparation for the climb up Lookout. We cut off the road to pick up the Guild Trail to avoid car traffic. We hit the road again and bombed down into Tiftonia and worked our way through the backroads to get to Elder Mtn. Road. Then the nice climb up the road to the top of Raccoon Mountain.
We hit the singletrack and found the trails to be in way better shape than expected. While it was difficult to find the right amount of clothes to wear, the ride was spectacular. Slightly wet and slippery, but lots of fun because everything was hooking up really well. After a modified lap around the perimeter with some re-routing for fun factor, we made it back to the East Overlook. Then the rain came again. This time it poured as we bombed back down the montain. Totally soaked by the time we hit the base, it made me all the more focused to get up and over Lookout again to haul ass back to the house. As we were crossing the Walnut Street Bridge, we ran into Jim and he followed us back up Forrest to squeeze one more climb in before we called it a day. This new route is going to be very useful for training purposes, several long climbs, some road sections to warm up on and lots of technical singletrack to mix things up, all from the front door. Once the time changes, this route will be doable after work, so look out Tuesday night crew, this one is getting added to the list.
We hit the singletrack and found the trails to be in way better shape than expected. While it was difficult to find the right amount of clothes to wear, the ride was spectacular. Slightly wet and slippery, but lots of fun because everything was hooking up really well. After a modified lap around the perimeter with some re-routing for fun factor, we made it back to the East Overlook. Then the rain came again. This time it poured as we bombed back down the montain. Totally soaked by the time we hit the base, it made me all the more focused to get up and over Lookout again to haul ass back to the house. As we were crossing the Walnut Street Bridge, we ran into Jim and he followed us back up Forrest to squeeze one more climb in before we called it a day. This new route is going to be very useful for training purposes, several long climbs, some road sections to warm up on and lots of technical singletrack to mix things up, all from the front door. Once the time changes, this route will be doable after work, so look out Tuesday night crew, this one is getting added to the list.
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