Yesterday was a ball buster. Greg Ott and I poached a group ride made of real men. Mike Best, Nate Means, Doug Davis and Jason ?, don't know him. They came down from Columbia to camp and ride in the Mark Twain National Forest. Where else can you go out and ride all day and only scratch the surface of what is possible. The Ozark Trail is an expansive system of trails mostly open to mountain bikes and is managed by the Forest Service but mainly by the Ozark Trail Association of which I am a lifetime member. While I can't get down very often to help, I figure I'll at least support it with my membership.
*Edit*The handsome group of guys and gals that volunteer for GORC have a hand in this trail system's sweetness. That hand went to work on Sunday and re-routed a section of North Trace that had become the path for the nearby creek. Looks like I now have an excuse to venture down again to see the fruits of their labors. Thanks GORC!
This group then became "manlier" when joined by Dwayne Goscinski and Chris Ploch. We planned a banner ride consisting of a teasing of the Berryman, a chunk of the Courtois section of the OT and the entire North Trace section of the OT. While only about 26.5 miles one way, it's a tough ride with tons of climbing and lots of creek crossings. The trail surface was stellar for most of it. One section in the middle of the Courtois section has been "horsed up", holes poked in the soft earth that then collect water and never dry out. In all fairness the trail design in these sections contributes to this problem with a less than ideal choice of routing the user through lowlands. The equestrians still could make better decisions to stay off of trails when wet. Other than that, the trail was nearly perfect. Only a small number of trees down. When you cover this much ground and see the miles of dense forest of primarily deciduous trees, to have half a dozen trees down is not a problem.
Of course this was not enough, so we continued down past hwy DD on the South Trace section and rode the Telleck connector over to the Council Bluff loop and stopped there. Then it hits you. Over 28 miles from where you started, no place to get water or food and you're more than tired. Only thing to do is reset the Garmin and go. I thought it would be cool to get an out and back, recorded separately so I could compare all the data. This ride is definately harder on the out than the back which can be seen in the elevation profiles. Greg and I thought about cutting out many times but opted to finish it and I'm glad we did.
I was happy that I didn't walk ANY part of the ride except for the large trees and I had the exact average heart rate, out and back. This tells me that I accomplished my goal to stay smooth and meter my efforts even though the group full of testosterone was dropping us at the beginning. I've never had to worry about having enough daylight to finish a ride when said ride started at 10 am, holy crap! I finished my last bit of food with about 6 miles to go and ran out of water with about 3 miles to go, no big deal. Greg and I had no tubes left between us, I used one of mine and Greg's only tube, and my second tube had a bad valve stem. It just became more and more epic as each minute passed. I can't wait to do it again, but next time we stash food and water and do a loop at Council Bluff!
To add insult to injury, Super Dwayne thought the planned route sounded a little "weak" so he took it upon himself to show up in the morning while it was still dark and do a warm up ride. What would that warm up consist of but a loop around Berryman! I cannot even imagine! Freak! So my 8 hours and 46 minutes pales in comparison, whatever hurt I thought I had going on......
*Edit*The handsome group of guys and gals that volunteer for GORC have a hand in this trail system's sweetness. That hand went to work on Sunday and re-routed a section of North Trace that had become the path for the nearby creek. Looks like I now have an excuse to venture down again to see the fruits of their labors. Thanks GORC!
This group then became "manlier" when joined by Dwayne Goscinski and Chris Ploch. We planned a banner ride consisting of a teasing of the Berryman, a chunk of the Courtois section of the OT and the entire North Trace section of the OT. While only about 26.5 miles one way, it's a tough ride with tons of climbing and lots of creek crossings. The trail surface was stellar for most of it. One section in the middle of the Courtois section has been "horsed up", holes poked in the soft earth that then collect water and never dry out. In all fairness the trail design in these sections contributes to this problem with a less than ideal choice of routing the user through lowlands. The equestrians still could make better decisions to stay off of trails when wet. Other than that, the trail was nearly perfect. Only a small number of trees down. When you cover this much ground and see the miles of dense forest of primarily deciduous trees, to have half a dozen trees down is not a problem.
Of course this was not enough, so we continued down past hwy DD on the South Trace section and rode the Telleck connector over to the Council Bluff loop and stopped there. Then it hits you. Over 28 miles from where you started, no place to get water or food and you're more than tired. Only thing to do is reset the Garmin and go. I thought it would be cool to get an out and back, recorded separately so I could compare all the data. This ride is definately harder on the out than the back which can be seen in the elevation profiles. Greg and I thought about cutting out many times but opted to finish it and I'm glad we did.
I was happy that I didn't walk ANY part of the ride except for the large trees and I had the exact average heart rate, out and back. This tells me that I accomplished my goal to stay smooth and meter my efforts even though the group full of testosterone was dropping us at the beginning. I've never had to worry about having enough daylight to finish a ride when said ride started at 10 am, holy crap! I finished my last bit of food with about 6 miles to go and ran out of water with about 3 miles to go, no big deal. Greg and I had no tubes left between us, I used one of mine and Greg's only tube, and my second tube had a bad valve stem. It just became more and more epic as each minute passed. I can't wait to do it again, but next time we stash food and water and do a loop at Council Bluff!
To add insult to injury, Super Dwayne thought the planned route sounded a little "weak" so he took it upon himself to show up in the morning while it was still dark and do a warm up ride. What would that warm up consist of but a loop around Berryman! I cannot even imagine! Freak! So my 8 hours and 46 minutes pales in comparison, whatever hurt I thought I had going on......
5 comments:
Your next trip through the North Trace will be even better as we have completed the re-route of the "creek runs through it" section. Brand new almost entirely benched sweet curvy singletrack.
Saturday night held an awesome ride of the 3 fingers for Team Trail Monster.
We heard about the re-route a little too late. I saw the ribbons and figured that was the section, unavoidable creek down the trail. Thanks for your efforts, once again we use it but don't contribute enough.
Yo dude, track me down at your other job if you get time. I sit in the offices at the bottom of the tunnel, BB194. I have questions about an impending purchase, hopefully you have some advice...
I smell a road bike in your future!
Ha, been reading STLBiking posts, eh? Yes, I am surrounded by steel and aluminum bikes, yet I crave carbon and titanium. Just doing my part to stimulate the economy...
Post a Comment