More Time on the MTB

Yesterday, a few buddies and I took a half day off of work to head into the woods for some time on the mountain bike trails. Capitol View Park is a great destination, within a thirty minute drive, that has plenty to offer in a few hours of riding.

It didn't take us long to realize that the day was going to be perfect. It had rained the day before, but the ground was so dry everything just ran off. It was muddy enough to get interesting at times, but nothing that slowed us down at all.

Here we are crossing over a massive downed tree. This was the only place that we had to dismount to cross. Other obstacles were at least attemptable on two wheels (I say "attemptable" obviously because we attempted them, but not always cleared them:)). You can see Jeff in the background carrying his bike over it. This picture was taken shortly after I went down. We'd only been riding for about five minutes before I wiped out. After laughing about it, we realized I do this every single time I mountain bike... I bite it about five to ten minutes in. I think it's because it takes me a while to get acclimated to the bike. It takes one good wipe out to realize my limits... then I'm all good.

Here's Jeff and TD. Jeff flatted out and was riding a squishy tire for nearly the second half of the day. We patched it, but must have missed something. TD was rocking a lender bike since his is in storage in Chicago. Though he had not a bike, he was our boy scout of the trip... very prepared. He was the only one with tools and pump, which we found we needed.

That's me standing with Jason right before we left. We looked clean from the front, but there was mud to be seen on the back side of us all.

I didn't really get any good action shots. We pushed it fairly hard all day with very little time to stop. It's more fun that way. Having a blog tempts you to stop a lot and gather material. I didn't want to stop. Getting a day off of work to ride is too valuable to spend fiddling with a camera.

All in all, we had a blast and got in a great workout. I was more than tired last night when my head hit the pillow. I told Angie that mountain biking makes me feel old. I remember a day when my bones didn't rattle on the trail. It looks like that day has passed.

Get out there.