Couldn't stand the weather

Sunday saw a break in the rain and a birthday party for D____ (a family friend) being held at home. Rather than stay in and be clucked at by a houseful of biddies, I rode out.

Up and away from the coast, the fog broke. Roads first, to get places and see things.





I was denied access to the trails I was hoping to ride not once, not twice, but thrice. So it ended up being a bushwack like you read about. After the 3rd denial I rode a different route and attempted one of those trails I've ridden once or twice and never repeated. I knew where it went, but (again) due to the undergrowth all being dropped and the leaf-litter/rain-debris ever lesser trail looks as takeable as any other. So I ended up climbing topo line style around swales until popping out in the parky spread oaks up top. Startled the heck out of a couple bucks and we eyeballed each other for a while. The "regular" trail was easy to find from there.

I decided to visit a beer stash and take stock of the day's options. Put in a call to J____ J______ to see if he felt like a ramble and we formulated a plan. It occurred to me that if I took the alternate trail down- why, then I wouldn't miss the turns and I'd refresh my memory in the bargain. This did not work out as I'd hoped, and it soon came to bushwacking again. Thick, denuded scrub forcing me to hold my bike over my head type bushwacking. At least it was heading down.

A quick trip through Cside(!) picked up J and some supplies and we set out for Ord. We stopped at the gate above Fitch School to pop-a-top. Then T___ rode up and geeked out with us at the 2 Lynskeys (his and J's). We had never met (or seen) T___ before. He sure had a Sweet Ride (no picture?!)- a custom 29er with a shiny red Rohloff hub, which was inneresting. My favorite part of his bike were the custom Ti Black Sheep Marylike/Albatrosslike handlebars. I'd have been more into hearing about the Rohloff, but it was clear he'd been on it for maybe 20 minutes total at that point; I want to know how it holds up, not how it looks out of the box. No beer for T___, as he works at REI and his son-in-law is threatening his fitness. So to speak. I think T___ was thrown more than a little off balance by our combination of pastimes and wanted to get away.

Then it was another beer and on to some trails we'd never been on before, following T___'s tracks(we guessed-they were pretty fresh). We saw this:

and linked back up with the East garrison stuff we all know and love. Speaking of which: the surveyors are getting serious out there. Trees are coming down in straight lines all over. Locals, RIDE THIS GOOD STUFF WHILE YOU HAVE IT! Because soon it will be a memory.

What is this man doing with these ingredients?

We talked about Rohloffs and their pros and cons. I'm very innerested in a reliable internally geared hub for the Big Dummy. Then J blew my mind with talk of the Nuvinci hub. I was not aware of that.

I left home on the bike at 11am and returned on the bike at 10pm. That's a Good Day.