Day 8: More Single Track Trails
Awake a bit slower today. Yesterday’s ride definitely took it’s toll on my endurance and energy. Nobody has a clear idea of what they want to do today. Some want to go to Mount Bross again. I’m torn. Mt Bross is pretty cool, but I’d much rather do some more hard riding on my last day.
Drew Marcum & I decide to hit the trails near Breckenridge around French Gulch / Wellington Road (it connects through the mountains to the Tiger Road trails we have been riding on about 10 miles away by highway).
We start out hammering up the trails at a good pace (I am seriously lagging at first until I get back in a rhythm). We start trying to find new trails by going up semi-used ones. We are going under leaning trees and fallen logs until the trails end. We finally give up and go looking for the single track trails and find some nice ones off of Tiger Road. We hit probably a 4-5 mile single track and play on that.
Eventually we end up back at Tiger Road. It’s a bit early so we decide to ride for a bit more. We try the North Fork trails. They are nice trails, nothing too difficult. We run to the end of the North Fork in a meadow. Then, being geniuses, we see a “single track” trail…more of a goat trail…and follow it. We are following it down the mountain until it to dies out.
We are in a valley and know we are going back above the trail we came in on. So we light out downhill. At first it’s just a steep hill with relatively loose soil and rocks. We have to jump a couple of logs. It’s starting to get fairly difficult quickly. Do we turn back? Nooooooo. Not us. We keep going, riding over and around fallen trees and lifting the bikes when necessary. After about 45 minutes of this we finally make it back down to the trail. We are whipped and done. Back home we go to start the sad process of packing our gear to go home.
Not long after we get back to the condo, the others start filtering in to pack as well. The trailer is brought up, new tires installed, and the bikes are loaded, toolkits, gear, etc. This takes a few hours. After that it’s shower and pack travel bags, dinner, and generally decompress from a truly awesome vacation.
Riders today:
Drew Marcum
Steve Keener
If you ever get the chance to do this sort of a trip…jump at it. We rode every single day, saw amazing sights, trails few people will ever want to travel by motorcycle, and generally forgot about the stress of our everyday lives to enjoy nature and test ourselves. I guesstimated we did about 350 miles on our dirtbikes (street, climbing mountains, dirt roads, single track trails, rocks, and unfortunately crossing logs!).
Racing | Steve Keener | 26 July 2009 |
