I can say that the trainer has paid off. Yesterdays ride was great. Although, when I went to load the bike in the truck I got a little scare. Both tires were flat. My first reaction was “Oh crap, I don’t have any tubes”. Then I realized it had been 4 months since that bike has been moved. The air had simply leaked out, and some quick work with the pump had things back in order.
After meeting Sean and Darryll, we mounted up and headed out. I flet pretty good, but I was paying a lot of attention to how my back was feeling. The loop we did was pretty short, but lots of fun. We took some of the main trails up to the switchbacks, then played on the log a bit. I have noticed lately that sometimes Yoshi will start to act really weird when we stop for too long. A couple times on Lumpy Pants he has taken off on me, and it seemed like he was scared of the area. See, when Yoshi is scared, he tends to run off and hide. While we were playing on the log, I noticed Yoshi was hanging out a ways down the trail, and in the bush. Maybe he doesn’t like it when we stop for too long, or maybe he smells something he doesn’t like. Either way, I took off with Yoshi while Sean and Darryll played on the log a little more.
We met up near Snakes and Ladders, a classic trail at Hartland. During the rip don S&L I was very conscious of how my back handled the drops. Nothing out of the ordinary, but I was a little nervous.
Basically from there we headed down to Skull, then out. It was a quick jaunt, but I loved it. The fall air was nice and crisp, the trails had oodles of traction, the trees had shed most of their leaves which turned roads into singletrack after several passes by mountain bikers, the streams burbled, and the park felt empty. I love riding this time of year!