Chili Trail Time

My incredibly awesome wife pulled together some of my buddies for some last minute mountain biking before the baby comes. She wanted to make sure that I got in a solid day of man-time before I get covered in baby powder and tiny pink dresses. Needless to say, she is the best wife ever.

Despite the chili temps, we were able to get three other guys that were willing to take on the scenes at Capitol View Park's mountain biking trails. So early Saturday morning, we loaded up the Subaru and headed out.

The ground was frozen solid when we started riding. With temps around 20 degrees, I had anticipated the change in how my body would react. But I never considered how it would change the condition of the terrain. Honestly, it was pretty nice to have such a hard surface to ride on. It sured up the ground contact with the tire rubber. As the sun rose and heated things up a bit, everything melted and got sloppier. But that just added to the fun of our second pass through all the trails.

Here's Jeff half-way through the Sink Hole. This is a great point of interest at Cap View. I could spend an hour here testing various speeds and the different points of entry and exit. Jeff rides an old rigid Giant MTB. It's one of those older bikes that performs flawlessly. I love how a twenty year old bike can do that.

This is Mike riding a borrowed bike for the trip. He'd never really ridden trails specifically maintained for cycling. He was loving it, though. Hats off to a guy who will make his first trip in such cold temps. I think he only came because I promised him a cup of coffee, though.

And here's Justin working his gangsta lean as he rides this log. He's on his Kona Dew with knobby tires. It's technically a 700c hybrid, but will do the duty of a 29er at paces like we were riding.

We didn't make many stops. Right here, we were admiring the Kentucky River that passes by the park. But if you stood still for too long, you'd get cold. A normal day at Cap View will allow you to make all the runs a couple times. Our longest stop was between runs at the car. It was hard to get going after sitting for a while. The cold was a certain deterrent. But I'm glad I've got guys in my life that will do stuff like this even though it doesn't feel logical. We had a great time and it was certainly worth the layering.

Get out there.