Godzilla Revisited

G-man walking the rest of the way up Godzilla. 2nd of
3 attempts. Godzilla showed no mercy today.

GODZILLA is a very steep wall of rutted gravel, roots, sand, moss, broken sticks and even a little bit of dirt.

For all of the above, traction was surprisingly good today. It was just the steepness and the step-up root ledges that got us.

We came at it at the end of our ride — and a sweet ride it was — tired but not too tired. With just enough left in the legs to give it an extra attempt or three. To tell the truth, after the first shot, my heart was beating so fast I wasn't sure I wanted to push it again. But, I took a minute to take a photo of Gordo on his second attempt, and decided, "Hey, why don't we descend it and both of us try again?   

In past years, attacking this with C.L.I.M.B. rider Cory "C-Rock" Davidson, I've made it up about 3/4 of the way, stopped only by the technical issues and traction (rear-wheel spin-out). Then there were a few years where physical issues kept me off the bike, and only recently have I gotten to where I could take this kind of body busting climb on again.

Gordo is fit as a fiddle, so it's only technique and picking exactly the right line ... he has the legs and the aerobic capacity to do this. On his third attempt he got 2/3 of the way up — not bad for a Godzilla newb.  

LUBE, PUMP, PACK, RIDE
This was our first MTB ride of the fall and it was nearly a DNS. 

I forgot I needed to do all those first-MTB-ride-in-a-long-time preparations.  

Swap the road bike out of the van and into the basement (the pampered bike); bolt on the bike rack; grab 2 MTBs; pump 4 tires; find a rag (where did they all go? check some t-shirts, nope the armpits are still OK); lube 2 chains, get 3 drinks ready, find some cold weather MTB clothing, grab an extra helmet and gloves; walk the dog beforehand; clean off some amber eyeshields for Gordo.

After the camelbacks were packed with the remaining bits and bobs and innertubes, and we ascertained that Gordo had indeed misplaced his Rx eyewear after an extensive search of the house, we were off.

I forgot how much I like that part of the Greenbelt and Bethpage. Nice mix of technical parts and some good flowing singletrack. Some of it is seriously fast for the curves, and you better be sure of your line and your traction, or you'll become a tree ornament pretty quickly. 

Bethpage has an abundance of mix and match random trails, so the permutations are almost infinite. The trail track doesn't do the various twists and turns justice at all, since it samples at relatively wide intervals. And the trail's multiple curves are lost in the lack of fine GPS detail.

K-dog requirement#1 — I must be walked before you
guys go off riding, deal? deal! K-dog takes in
the early fall afternoon sun.

What the track did reveal that that slightly odd feeling that the return Greenbelt section was on a different trail was correct. The return section was much more fast and flowing; so fast that at the X-junction, about 200m from "the clearing," there was that tell-tale sense that I was one the wrong track, but not one I couldn't get out of. (It led to the Broadway junction just below the Charles Campagne school.)

We doubled back and took a trail that headed back in the general direction of the parking lot. … but not too soon. There were plenty of fun sections to explore. We re-did the "step ladder" part twice, once on the easier side and the second time and attempt up the wood/root side. Fail. Gordo aced the easier side on the second go-round.  

After that we zig-zagged through some roller-coaster sections and found ourselves at the feet of Godzilla. For the first time in years … and for Gordo the first time ever.

Singletrack ... "with a side order of everything."

Maybe made it half way up the beast before Godzilla swallowed me up. Ditto for Gordo. He made a second attempt up the left side, but Godzilla rejected that, too (photo).  I told Gordo that going down the beast was as rewarding as going up especially if you took the trouble to get up it. But make sure to stay back on the bike, or you're going over the handlebars and it's a long way down.

We both made it down relatively uneventfully aside from a stick in the spokes here or there.

There was one more descent of note. A revisit to the scene of a pretty bad crash I'd had many years ago. Needless to say, I was more careful this time not to go flying over the handlebars.