Last Thursday I headed back to western PA for a couple-ish days. I wasn’t all that keen to make a trip back right now, but with my dad recovering from a recent heart attack, I thought it was only proper to head home, check up on him, and pay a visit. It would also give me and my family a chance to catch up with some great friends that we haven’t seen in a while. I wish I could have seen a few others during my stay, but that will have to wait for later in the summer or fall.
I guess you could call this Welcome Winter Weekend. Some say “welcome,” I say “fuck it, I hate winter.”
In between my days at the gym I have been trying to get out and enjoy the dirt before the snow flies. As you can see from the ground in the pic above, it has been flying here and there but it has a long way to go before it causes any worry or would make me think about maybe regretting not purchasing a fat bike.
Almost every trail system has one or two parts that you can either A. Recover and take in some fluids and/or nutrition or B. Put the hammer down and get all “speeder bike on Endor“. The pic above is of from my local trail system at the Mid Michigan Community College. Most of the 16-ish mile loop is undulating and lumpy with some roots and embedded rock thrown in to make your lower back feel “alive” and glad you have a full suspension (or make you wish for one). However, this particular section is currently wet, packed down dirt and sand, sort of like a dirt highway that you can get you reach speeds of 17 mph or more if you choose, before hanging a right into some slower, new trail with lots of twists and turns. Either way, it’s all good.
Dirt is always good. Singletrack is always better… whether fast and smooth, slow and rocky or twisty and turny.
I ride my “home trail” over and over again. Backwards and forwards in every season of the year. I ride it, race it, run it and hike it. Hell, I’ve even snowshoed and skied on it.
The trail might not be the best trail in the world; there’s not all that much climbing, not that much descending, it can beat you up with sections of embedded rock and lumpy “newness” and there are days when it’s the last trail I feel like riding. Yet I still think it’s a pretty awesome stretch of dirt.
Today, I took advantage of some extra time on my hands [unemployed, possibly unemployable, slacker!] and the amazing early fall weather we have been having to hit up MMCC for some weekday action. I have to say, even though I dig riding the dirt and gravel roads, it’s always nice to get back on singletrack.
