Landscape of Virginia

After a terrific bike ride on in the northern most part of the county of Albemarle where I live, I had to get a burger fix right away. "Five Guy" right after finishing up on this trail the Preedy Trail Park where I spent over a half an hour doing their loop. It was challenging but nothing too too much of a hazard for me to navigate. One needed to look ahead and see how to gear their bike for the terrain ahead but it clearly could be managed with some lightweight hardware and some nerve. The fun was that they built in some good up/down short hops all over the place and they put them in lines of three and four hops per run. Outstanding work whomever designed it, and my hats off to those men who did the grunt work of making it fit into the landscape by working with the hilly land around them. I ran into some disappointed dog owners who felt they were put off by having to have a leash around their dog's collar but man for the sake of some great biking trails it ...

I went Mountain biking with a friend who is very experienced in it today, I found that my skills were lacking in a few major areas. Like getting over that rock formation or that sapling laying across the trail for instance, well I'll come back another day and have another go at it. Today, well shall I say, "it was a crappy performance on my part" and that has nothing to do with getting a flat. Right! It showed me a good example of what humility is thru my friend's actions and words. He's a truly good mountain biker in every meaning of those two words. It's time for me to lick my wounds and try it again another day. Man I hadn't been on that trail before, I usually took the "easy route". Today, I got a taste of what these riders do on a daily basis, those guys who are in the photos jumping, riding at those crazy paces over that terrain you wouldn't send your worse enemy over in a jeep no less. Well, I'll keep coming back!

Today, I got out of town. I went up to ride a trail with a friend, some paved mountain roads and some dirt. The dirt was the best, it was packed down from recent traffic and rain so it was a nice smooth packed surface for us. Going downhill was a howl maker. The thing was that the road surface would change at an unexpected moment on a downhill run. It would go from packed earth to gravel in a heartbeat and then it became a little trickier to stay upright. Both Chief-John and I made it ok. There were some close calls but we managed. We traveled north of C'ville up across a ridge and then downhill to some pastoral landscapes with horses, longhorn steers and other lovely animals like anti-biking farm dogs. It was all good! It turned out to be a twenty eight mile ride, over two mountain pass roads and along some really nice bottom land. The weather couldn't be beat, it was cool under the canape of tree limbs and there was a dampness in the air. We enjoyed it all...