RR Fall on the water

Things get pretty busy for me in the fall, but Tuffgrrl and I have it worked
out to sneak out for quick mid day sanity preserving 10 mile loops.

Yesterday we opted for one of the trails along the river. Fall is so funny;
how the heck to you dress appropriately for a ride in the crisp cool, with
sun and wind? Tights are a good bet. Earband, check. Goretex shell- too
hot... no rain, leave that in the car, try the softshell jacket instead;
gloves, not
cold enough for the winter gloves, yet. Pedaling across the bridge I'm
thinking, Oh crap I'm going to freeze my ass off... but then as we drop into
the damp forest I get a chance to warm up. Then, off with the headband, the
softshell gets unzipped at the first climb, and finally we have climate
balance.

Everything is damp and loamy, and the sun is incredibly low angled despite
the fact that it's mid day. The forest is dark and shadowy in the shade,
and either warm cozy fun or beautiful filtered goldness as we move in and
out of the trees.

The trail is familiar but the nice surprise is that the one downed tree has
been cleared. Instead of making a loop which involved about 4 miles of
road, we go out and back, sticking to the single track. Funny thing, I've
never ridden this trail in reverse before so it's a lot of fun. All the
jaddgedy basalt that one has to go UP is rather fun on the way down.
Instead of the sun on our backs, it's on our faces before we drop one last
time into the forest. The pines are kind of stark, but in places there are
groves and spots of beautiful color. The rain has greened thing up but
soon the green will be frozen brown deadness. I still get amazed at how
energized I get by miles of riding...;-)


(rr from Sunday)
The season is winding down, but it ain't over yet. We were out Sunday with
TG and her crew that includes a couple of crazed freeriders that ride trails
too. I dragged Mr
Adventure away from him homework to go play with us. I was scared tho- he's
following the guys over unfamiliar territory that sometimes involves close
to vertical drops, and things the guys are jumping. I try to warn him...
"uh, honey, you might not want to follow those guys blind...." but... he
goes any way, and does some rather amazing descents with his seat under his
chest. We opted to keep riding when one of the gang flatted, and some of
the others just want to jump. When we got to the top of the towers, we look
N and hoo-eee... big black clouds blowing in. Good thing it's two miles
downhill! About 3/4 of the way down the snow pellets hit and we make for
the car, heater turned onto max. But we got 9 miles in and still had day to
spare.

Penny