Eric's Ride Log

Rich came up from C'lotte last night and we met up with Wode and Ian out on the town. That, along with the first rain in weeks, made for a slow pace today and we didn't go nearly as far as originally planned. Oh well, good times were had by all. Here's a shot of Rich on Spencer:

We started at about 10:30 near the Trace Ridge parking lot on FS5000. We must have dodged a few rainstorms because on the way up even the road was hard to get traction on, it was easy to just make the back wheel spin out. We made quick work of 5000 and made the turn onto Spencer with no hesitation. Spencer starts with a steep gravely doubletrack for a few hundred yards and with Rich right behind me, talking, laughing, and just following my wheel, I got my heartrate up into the lower 500's. When it came time to attack the steep slimy singletrack through the field, I had nothin'. We walked up past the nasty rooty section then started to hammer though. Quick recovery! Anyway, the weather was warm and s t i c k y. I had to take off my glasses because I couldn't get them to stop fogging up. I hadn't come to a stop, I just had them in one hand, and I wasn't paying close attention to the trail. I rolled over a 2" tall 45* root and got the smackdown that not paying attention will most certainly bring. I tweeked my knee pretty good trying to save it but was otherwise just fine. It was quick and painful, but luckily I wasn't going very fast. We continued on and Rich got hung up on a rooty lift/steep thing and I decided to try to race a little and was happy to have held him off for a whopping two or three minutes. The climb to Trace was over in no time and we made our route decision there. As slick and nasty as the woods were we decided to head down the slower-tech-way rather than the lightning-fast-not-so- tech-way considering slower crashes are usually less threatening than high speed crashes. I took the lead heading down Spencer and was having a great descent. Up near the top in the most tech of sections I pulled a huge move out of my ass, manueling through two drops in a row without letting the front wheel touch the ground. I had a great descent, railing the turns, hopping logs, hanging in there right at the very edge... We hit neverendingroad next. The road was filled with wildflowers that looked like daiseys. We took it down a notch and enjoyed the easy spin that is neverendingroad. Along the way Rich found this guy who summed up the way I was feeling: Slow and Happy:

Next was Middle fork, some of the prettiest trail around. It doesn't have much elevation change but what it lack in hills it surely makes up with tech moves and pretty trail. We putzed along at a good pace then took the turn over to Fletcher Creek. Up the short-but-annoying climb and down the crazy-fast 'Bobcat downhill' to the reservoir road. Up the road for a mile or so to the parking lot and we made the decision to check the time at the Jeep before doing another loop. We had been out for about 2.5 hours and decided that we had had enough and other responsibilites should be addressed, not ignored, so we headed home.

Great ride, shorter and slower than expected but hey, we were out later and umm... full of adult beverages than expected the night before. We felt lucky to be out there at all. Thanks for coming up Rich! Good Luck at the Hell-Ride and BC Bike Race!