7 degrees / mosquito assault
Quite a while ago I wrote a post titled sore bits. It was about my long bike ride on the rails to trails project up in the Snowies.
My, what a difference 7 degrees makes. After riding for the past few years on a bike seat was essentially level, I decided to tilt the seat down a bit. After the ride yesterday at Happy Jack, I'm optimistic.
On the less optimistic side, I may have contracted the West Nile virus yesterday, too. I started at the Happy Jack trailhead rather than at Tie City like I usually do. I rode up Aspen and then decided to try the Haunted Forest trail, which I'd only been on once before, so my memory of the trail was spotty.
Despite all the sunshine or the last few days, the Haunted Forest trail wasn't very dry. In fact, it was like a swamp, mostly. A mosquito-infested swamp, but just steep enough that I couldn't keep traction. Plus, I couldn't get my derailleur to shift down when I was first starting the ride, which meant that already by the end of the first hill my heart was pumping in the danger zone ("right into the danger zone, danger zone, danger zone...."). But every time I stopped to catch my breath, I was besieged, on all sides, by a fog of hungry bugs. I inhaled a couple of them.
Finally I made it to the top of the trail, where it intersects the Summit Trail. It used to be that I would go out to the Happy Jack trails and manage to see only my neighbor Meg in an hour of activity. Oddly enough, at the intersection of Haunted Forest and Summit, I ran into my new neighbor, Trampas, and his friend Sam. They're both students in the MFA program.
Trampas and Sam with him gave me the trails report to the west, which happily were much drier than Haunted Forest. I rode Summit, Upper UW, Roller Coaster, Blackjack, Ridge, Meadow, and the Pole Creek trails before making a pass back down through the campground and then up the FS road. I figure I probably only lost a pint--pint-and-a-half at most--of blood to the mosquitos. Not a bad trade for a mostly great afternoon ride.
My, what a difference 7 degrees makes. After riding for the past few years on a bike seat was essentially level, I decided to tilt the seat down a bit. After the ride yesterday at Happy Jack, I'm optimistic.
On the less optimistic side, I may have contracted the West Nile virus yesterday, too. I started at the Happy Jack trailhead rather than at Tie City like I usually do. I rode up Aspen and then decided to try the Haunted Forest trail, which I'd only been on once before, so my memory of the trail was spotty.
Despite all the sunshine or the last few days, the Haunted Forest trail wasn't very dry. In fact, it was like a swamp, mostly. A mosquito-infested swamp, but just steep enough that I couldn't keep traction. Plus, I couldn't get my derailleur to shift down when I was first starting the ride, which meant that already by the end of the first hill my heart was pumping in the danger zone ("right into the danger zone, danger zone, danger zone...."). But every time I stopped to catch my breath, I was besieged, on all sides, by a fog of hungry bugs. I inhaled a couple of them.
Finally I made it to the top of the trail, where it intersects the Summit Trail. It used to be that I would go out to the Happy Jack trails and manage to see only my neighbor Meg in an hour of activity. Oddly enough, at the intersection of Haunted Forest and Summit, I ran into my new neighbor, Trampas, and his friend Sam. They're both students in the MFA program.
Trampas and Sam with him gave me the trails report to the west, which happily were much drier than Haunted Forest. I rode Summit, Upper UW, Roller Coaster, Blackjack, Ridge, Meadow, and the Pole Creek trails before making a pass back down through the campground and then up the FS road. I figure I probably only lost a pint--pint-and-a-half at most--of blood to the mosquitos. Not a bad trade for a mostly great afternoon ride.
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