Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Bad Luck or Bad Judgment?

It seems like a lot of bad stuff has been happening lately. Some of it has been my fault. It started on Memorial Day at Hanson Hills. I really meant to check out some information online before pre-riding the race course. I knew there were a couple of places along the trail where I would have to make a decision about which way to go. Since I'd only been on the trail twice before and both of those rides were about a year ago, I knew I wouldn't remember which way I was supposed to go.

But things got hectic before we left to go up North and I never did figure out where I was supposed to go. I figured I'd have to play it by ear when I got to the trail. The next bad decision I made was not eating enough. I had eaten breakfast at the cabin while I was waiting for Chris to wake up, but by the time we got to Hanson Hills it was after 1 p.m. Not only did I neglect to eat lunch, I didn't take any food with me on the ride. Needless to say, I was starving.

As it turned out, there was a new loop which I eventually decided to follow. In the past I really enjoyed Hanson, but that day I wasn't having much fun. The new trail didn't seem to flow very well and it was ridiculously rough. I was feeling beaten and battered early in the ride.

At a certain point the trail dumped out onto some sandy two-track. It was so sandy, in fact, that pretty soon I couldn't ride at all, so I ended up pushing my bike. Presumably, the singletrack started up again somewhere, but I sure couldn't find where. I ended up going back and forth on the two-track for at least an hour.

When I finally found the trail again, I wasn't convinced it was the right one. I was completely disoriented at this point and didn't even think I was going in the right direction. Eventually, I made my way back to the parking lot where Chris was waiting with the puppies, ready to call out a search party. I had been gone more than three hours.

Oh and one more thing. As Chris was helping me load my bike in the car, he noticed my tires had a ridiculous amount of air in them—about 60 psi. I pumped them way up for my road ride and forgot to let air out of them. I guess that new trail wasn't as rough as I thought.

Next up: the Poto disaster

2 comments:

Ali B. said...

Whoa ... 60psi! That new section is definitely rough, but I have high hopes for it! :) Glad you made it back to Chris and the puppies safely.

Brad said...

60psi on that stuff! I rode the new trail about a month back, with 28psi in 29x2.2 tires, and thought it was very rough. I think given time it should wear in and flow nicely, albiet not quite like the "who needs brakes" old trail.
Glad you made it out safely.