Monday, January 2nd, 2012

First 2012 Ride at Henry Coe

The first ride of the year had to be special. That settled the place – Coe. I’m all about chasing fad, so I logged on to MTBR to see what’s hot for Henry Coe right now. Sure enough, I found two rides on the first page. But sorry, Patric (ratpick), I couldn’t get excited about you and Diesel’s CX ride even though I was utterly impressed with it. That settled the ride for me – JL de Long’s Chrismas Circus.

The GPS track would take us up Jim Donnelly Trail, a novelty for me, so up we went. Oh my god, I could not imagine how much effort had gone into that trail! I learned from Paul (pliebenberg) later when we talked to him in the parking lot (after he and his wife went to do some trail flagging) that the 2nd Saturday trail crew did most of the work. Thank you, thank you!

I think this was the driest at Coe that I had seen, especially on Kelly Cabin Canyon Trail. It certainly was nice that I came out of the canyon with dry socks, but I kept thinking to myself, we need some rain before the coming trail work day.

I was glad to find that I had not lost all what I’d learned about mountain biking after my long sabbatical. I was still able to ride no-hand on the paved road at the end. I came off my bike at the very last wall on Jackson and had to push 20 yards or so, but that was already better than I had expected. My endurance has regressed though. I used to consider myself lucky for not getting cramps often on long rides, but on this ride (not really a long one), they started on the Cross Canyon climb out. Luckily, I was able to keep them at bay by pedaling delicately (gearing couldn’t be high nor too low). The cramps would come on when I got off my bike with my legs extended or when I was crawling. Um, yeah, I crawled under that big fallen tree on Domino Pond trail. Why hadn’t Roy (plymmer) ridden though here yet?

Mr. Mud had a little set back on the ride – one screw in his left cleat came out of the worn threads while he was coming down Timm Trail, and we didn’t have the right Allen wrench between our two tool sets to loosen up his pedal, which he just (over) tightened yesterday. Being a tough guy he was, he rode all day without being able to unclip the left side when needed to. There were a few low speed tipping overs (hehehe… oops, did I chuckle out loud?), but he pulled it off. On Cross Canyon climb, he pulled away from me. Ok, his endurance shone. But, I beat him on JDT and Anza- Jackson climbs. Oh, on down hills, I always let him pull away from me – drop me to be exact. Not that we compete with each other or anything.

Another wonderful ride. Coe never disappoints. We’ll be back!

Oh yeah, it seems that posting rides on Strava is the fad nowadays. Here is mine.

A few photos from my camera. (We’ve yet to find the micro USB cable for Mud’s camera.)

A lone bike at the top of Jackson Trail.

Mud came up Jackon.

The bike is no longer alone.

Lunch break at Kelly Lake.

The giant fallen tree on Domino Pond Trail. Mud climbed over it, and I crawled under.

2 Responses

  1. # Patrick Herlihyon 02 Jan 2012 at 10:14 pm

    This ride report makes me so happy :mrgreen:

  2. # Paul Namon 04 Jan 2012 at 10:39 pm

    :biggrin:

    Welcome back!