After a solid hour and a half ice-skating yesterday, our legs were dragging a wee bit to start, but still energized enough to take on three laps — two via the second half of the blue trail and a lap of the green, about 50 minutes all in all.
As we arrived at the Stillwell lot, another rider just finishing for the day reported, "it's as perfect as it gets out there." Hard to believe there was ice in the puddles just a couple of weeks ago. This was not that far short of T-shirt weather. Put on a wind shell for good measure and opened up the sleeves halfway at the shoulder zippers to let the breeze in. A nylon t-shirt underneath was all that was needed.
And he was right, perfect weather — just the right temperature about 55, sunny, slight breeze, and almost ideal trail conditions, give or take a couple of soft/muddy spots in the usual boggy parts of the green, but the blue trail and the rest of the woods were rolling nicely.
This place is always a fun ride, with some very fun — almost pump track like — flow on parts of the blue. Lots of tree pairings to scootch the handlebars between; gravity-bending roller-coaster sections. It's good to be back in the saddle.
Gordo was highly motivated to redo any steep climb/root sections he biffed on the first attempt, and made them all on the second try.
This was definitely a longer, faster effort than last time. Lost a whole chunk of map data after a stop to chat with some other riders at the top of a hill section, and forgot to restart the GPS. One old timer gave Gordy a major boost of encouragement to ace a steep gravelly, section the two of them had just walked up. The kid is making major progress.
P.S. don't try this at home without goggles and a face shield: after pumping the rear shock to 205 psi last week it felt too stiff. So I decide to press on the schrader valve to let a few PSi out and get the sag right. Pwoosh -- high pressure air and vaporized oil shoot out. And sprits my forehead and glasses. OK. Shoulda read the manual,I guess.
Probably let a bit too much out, but the ride never felt to plush.
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