Ride the Cliff (no Wind, no Surf)

Maybe it had been windy after all, but
Indian calories were the order of tonight's
sunset celebration of a day well ridden. 

So … my first full weekend off in two months.

A chance to get some quality exercise time in, and today was shaping up to be a beauty of blue, sunny , perfect temperature, calm day.

Maybe a little too calm — no surf/no wind — day, from the point of view of cardio and endorphins. Sure there's light-wind sailing, but I needed to get my HR over 130 for about an hour. By that measure, it looked like a no-brainer for a bike ride.

After a tyre-inflation brain fart that led me to rupturing the inner tube stem (unlock the pump head maybe?). I decided there was not enough time to fix the road bike flat … and grabbed the MTB instead.

Down into the high-tension cable
easement for some MRB exploration.

One of the evils of Strava and Map My Ride is that riding an MTB mostly on the road looks ugly on the averages and segments and whatnot. A 30 lb MTB up a mile long Cat5 road hill is not a pretty speed combination.

But the plus side of the MTB coin is the ability to combine road and trail and even try some "backcountry urban" — unfamiliar combinations of off-routes and long-unridden roads, and places where no bike has gone in years.

THe start up Longview Hill was not going well at all, so I cut across Stratford and onto crescent, to a new steep climb up to ridge. FRom there a few sections of singletrack — the high speed descent, great for bike handling skills in the dry and gravelly trail.

7 pseudo dips at the end and then the torture side trail up and down to the lacrosse field and back up the steep technical to the road.

After the dead end,; the way out.

I could not face the steep road section back to the trail head, so I peeled right and turned the ride into an exploration of the cliff perimeter.

Brilliant idea, as it made what was old new again, and the ride turned into a 1:10 epic of hill after hill after descent after hill, and more hills, plus …

An off-piste descent into the high-tension cable easement.

That was good, but overgrown and in need of some serious machete work.

It dead-ended in bushes and a hardly used shed.

I turned around and ginned back up through the weeds, spiders' webs and stinging things.

Up through weeds, spiders and stinging itchy things.

The return was another smorgasbord of hills, steeps, 12-17 percent interludes and three fun decants including the main Schreiber trail section.

Great workout, great fun, new route. I'm almost glad I accidentally flatted my roadbike tyre.