Birthday Run

Last Friday I met Mike and Jeff early in the morning to ring in my birthday with a little dirt riding. We headed to Capitol View Park at 7am with a few hours of riding in our minds. The weather had been awesome all week and it was going to be our first opportunity to ride dry dirt in a while. To our demise, the skies opened up as we pulled in the parking lot and the rain never let up.

You might notice some changes to the Troll. I took the rack off the back and added a suspension fork up front. I've had this Manitou fork for a while but never put it on. It's a quality fork but very dated. It was new in '99 and has spent most of it's life hanging in my garage. But after riding it last week, I think I'm ready to let it go. For whatever reason, I strongly disliked having a squishy front end. I really struggled to get used to its ride. Most people slobber over suspension bikes. But after years of rigid riding, I think I'm committed. I'll be taking this fork off tomorrow night and listing it on Craigslist. I have no use for it now. I love the control and feel of a rigid fork.

This was Jeff's longest ride thus far on his new Haro. As we rode through sheets of rain all day, he was the only one maintaining braking abilities with discs. Mike and I are on v-brakes and we both felt major loss in stopping power. At the end of the day, the biggest temptation to leave the trails were our mechanical issues from riding in solid rain.

At one point, the trail crosses under an overpass. The run-off created a massive waterfall. The whole day felt like this. Several parts of the trails were 3-5 inches deep as we mashed on the pedals to stay upright. Downhills were sloppy and slow and anytime you got your speed up, mud flew in your face and blinded you. It was quite the adventure!

But despite the rain, we had fun, as always. It was an adventure. We were outside. And we were riding our bikes. I will never complain when I get to do that. Mike said it first... It felt like we were riding somewhere new because of the rain. We'd never experienced Cap View like this before, so it added to the joy of riding. When it was over we were more exhausted and a bit more muddy than usual. But we all had smiles on our faces. It was a perfect way to start my birthday.

Get out there.