September 26th rides!

[andtckrtoo]

Pretty ride! Thanks for sharing! Makes me want to go out and ride my MTB!

[fastdogs]

today during lunch break I went to creve coeur park to try to find the mountain bike trail there. I managed to ride 6.5 miles around the lake looking for it, never did find it. but I ran out of lunch time and had to get back to work.
After work, I just didn't feel like the day was complete without breaking in my new rear tire on some sharp rocks and dirt. On my way to pick up my little boy from daycare, I stopped in at greensfelter. I'd never ridden there- I have hiked there with my dogs and that was enough to keep me away. It's steep- all incredibly steep hills and rockslides- pretty torn up by horses hooves. But I'd never been on the two mountain bike trails (I understand you can bike on all the trails now)- declue and dogwood. Declue is supposed to be very technical- dogwood was described as "fast and flowy", so dogwood was the choice. When I got on it, I noticed the sign had a black diamond on it though. I did well on the first part, the rolling up and down dirt parts were a blast. But just when I'd get going real good, there would be a giant rockpile with a drop on the other side. I rode some of these and walked some. Toward the end, though, as it went up and up (not real steep, just long), I lost momentum and ended up walking some of that hill. What caused the loss of momentum was a log across the trail- a small one, maybe only 6", about 3" off the ground. I was going pretty fast, and too late to stop I saw it had a drop down into a little creek bed with big rocks. I made it across, and as usual I stop on the other side to marvel that I am still alive (can this lower-end rockshox survive?). It was all uphill from there.
I think I was riding it counterclockwise. It broke in my new tire and satisfied my need to ride a trail- I was pretty tired and sweaty by the time I finished.
vickie