This just in…

The west side trails officially suck right now. There are some patches of dirt to ride on, but there are icy snow banks crossing the trail everywhere. It can be hard to stay on the trail at times, since the snow is not rideable everywhere. This forces you to take alternative lines, which is a bad idea. We’d like to keep the singletrack single. It’d probably be a good idea to stay off the trails until they’ve had a chance to melt a bit further.

There are several new gullies that have formed since the last big rain. Some of them are clearly visible, and others are hidden under the snow. Scott was walking in one inch of snow, and then all of a sudden he sunk in up past his knee! I’m glad he wasn’t riding at the time! Keep an eye out for these new gullies or you’ll find yourself flying over the bars.

As you can see from the pictures, all the northern exposures are covered in snow. This makes for some fun challenges as Scott demonstrates above, but also ruins trails like Jackrabbit pictured below. This trail swoops back and forth through this little canyon; however, there was no swooping today.

I think tomorrow will be another road bike day!

We had winner of a ride on Friday, the last lunch ride of the year. You couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day for snow riding. The temperatures were just below freezing, and the light fluffy snow was falling. I met up with Jeff P and Jon, and we headed for Ash Canyon.

After Thursday’s icy boondoggle, it was wonderful to ride in such wonderful snow. The ground was frozen, and the snow was just the right depth to offer incredible traction. We rolled up the hill with less effort than in the summer sand!

Mountain Men

Jeff P led us to the trailhead of a brand new, not yet named trail. The trailhead is near the entrance to the creek trail, but on the uphill side. The singletrack follows the contour of the mountain, and takes you all the way down to the rocked switchback on the Baldy Green trail. The grade is gentle enough to be enjoyed in either direction, and will be a great connector from the lower trails and the creek trail. Also, being on the south side of the mountain, it will be a great winter trail. And being up past the timberline, you get a great mountain experience. There are some nice trees, steep hillsides, and no view of the city!

Once we hit the Baldy Green trail, it was on! The snow was providing excellent traction, and you could ride at almost full speed down the twisty singletrack. I railed the twisties on the Jackrabbit Trail faster than I have ever ridden them. It’s great to be able to ride these trails every season, as each season brings different trail conditions, challenges, and feel to the trails.

It was almost a year ago that I ran into the FBC crew while riding in the Pine Nut Mountain Range in Gardnerville, NV. It was a beautiful fall day, and as I was rounding a corner I came upon an unconscious rider, her right leg twitching. I thought she was dead. The rider turned out to be J-Mo’s wife, Kristy. At the same time I saw Kristy in the face plant position, I noticed a rider (J-Mo ) coming to her rescue from the other direction. You can read their story here (now that I know J-Mo better, I’m surprised that upon his arrival he didn’t pull out his camera and take photos of his unconscious wife for his blog). When more riders from their group started showing up to the accident scene, I recognized them as the lunch time cyclists from Carson City. This wasn’t a good time to bring up trails in CC. I would have to do that another time.

That time came two days later when I stalked ran into Jeff and Kristy at her dentist’s office. I figured since they couldn’t get away from me I’d be able to talk to them about building more trails in CC. I then started blathering away to Jeff about my vision of trails in the Ash Canyon area. In particular, if I were to place pin flags on the ground, would they be willing ride in a trail during their lunch hour? He replied,”umm, yeah sure”.

You see, I thought the end of Deer Run needed a reroute. The end of the trail was an overgrown fall-line rut that wasn’t much fun. The reroute would take us around the contour of the mountain and end up near the bottom of the original trail. That was the beginning of the Postal Route (later named Sandie Goes Postal). Without their help it would have taken me forever to ride this section in. To all the riders of the FBC, I thank you.

Thank you Kristy for the face plant.

Thank you Sandie for this post. It got me motivated to do more. I am sorry you broke your ankle, but your accident did provide a great name for the trail (Sandie Goes Postal). Trail networks are always much better when there is a story attached to each trail in the system. I just hope I never have to name one the Deliverance trail.

Special thanks to J-Mo for providing this blog for us to have a forum, share information and tell our stories.

Thank you M & K for showing me the start of Baldy Green.

Thank you Amy for putting up with my long hours working on the trail, and my OCD.