Raccoon Mountain Day #2

I was extremely excited to get back out to Raccoon and ride some more. After a nice ham, egg, and cheese from Hardees I was ready to start. We started from the visitor’s center again (mainly because we were warned that many cars were getting broken into and we figured it was the safest of the parking lots with people coming and going). Tommy and Moran were with me at the beginning and we headed back onto the trail this time heading clockwise. There was a nice technical descent to get started and some short climbs. We were passed by a bunch of people I see pretty regularly at Oak Mountain. They were moving pretty good, so I didn’t get to chat with them, but did snap a few pictures as they were descending a rocky section at the same time I was taking pictures of Tommy and Moran. Setting a leisurely pace we were enjoying this ride tremendously. The weather couldn’t have been better and the trees were fully changed and had just started dropping leaves (the trail was still clean of leaves).

We came upon the part of the trail Tommy dubbed the Shire, so we had to get a picture of him riding through. I believe every trail we have ridden has had a Shire except for Trussville. Usually this is a section where there are many trees grown close to the trail. Tommy keeps threatening to one day buy a bunch of garden gnomes and set them out in the woods at Oak Mountain. I think it would be a great addition, but don’t know if it will ever happen.

Brian (Ansel Adams) Moran took control of the camera at this point and shortly after wrecked twice. I also noticed that almost every picture he took is blurry. I think he was mad because my camera did not have a sport mode.

We came back to the dam and this time the camera battery was not dead. There were a few whoopties in one section before the trail went back into the woods for a while before the trail crossed a rock bridge over the bottom section of dam. Unfortunately we met a huge group of riders at this point and me and Tommy had to wait for them to all cross before we could go across. I was actually a little supprised at how rude some of the riders were at the park. There were a few times when we should have had the right of way they basically pushed us off the trail. I am not complaining as most were nice, but I don’t usually experience this at Oak Mtn (Of course I could be considered the rude one there and we were just out for a comfortable lap today so it didn’t really matter). I had managed to burp my tire on a landing I had jumping off a small ledge and landing leaned over because there was an immediate turn afterwards. I quickly refilled my tire with CO2 not knowing I had greater damage.

We got another few miles in before Tommy and Moran had to head back. Tommy had prior engagements later that day so they had to cut the ride short. At this point I kept going and began to explore a bit. I noticed my rear tire was rolling on me around turns and I stopped at the overlook parking lot to examine the damage. I first saw there was a small hole in the tire and I kept trying to get the Bonty juice I had in there to seal it, but it would not seal. I was a little frustrated as this was a small hole and it should have worked. At this point I also saw that air was leaking from the rim bead. I figured I had gotten some dirt or something in the bead which was keeping it from sealing. I borrowed a floor pump from some bikers in the parking lot and I let the air out, tried to clean the bead and re-aired it up. It still was leaking, so I just gave up and threw my spare tube in it. I aired it up and thanked them for the pump.


I rode backwards through the black diamond part (I really need to look up the names of the sections) and not only jumped the rock but there was a banked section of rock one could ride up on and go around a tree, however there was a gap that had to be hopped in the center. I was not really expecting it and just rode it. I realize that with no picture you have no idea what I am talking about, but imagine the gap was 3’ instead of the 1’ it actually was.

I decided to ride back to the cutoff just so I could have a record of all the trails on my GPS. I found some more singletrack that bypassed this section and it had a pretty easy log ride on it. I actually rode right by it and only saw it looking back through the woods on one of the switchbacks. I rode back and rode across a few times. I arrived where the trail branched off and noticed a trail going into the woods. This trail consisted of lots of loops that I kept exploring. There were quite a few boulder fields that were VERY fun to ride. This stuff was pretty challenging and I played back on this stuff for 30 minutes to an hour just exploring. I found a 7’ drop that appeared people had been jumping off of. It took me a minute or so to get the nerve to just ride down it. Most of the rocks I could just ride up by getting a good bit of speed and then just peddling up. The rocks were amazingly sticky (I didn’t have a problem with traction). There were also many drops off the rocks as well as a decent through a pile of rocks that put a huge smile on my face when I made it to the bottom even though I had to peddle back up the hill to get back out. I really do not know if these trails were supposed to be ridden as I saw no other riders back there, and I will not post the GPS maps in case this is off limits, but they were all marked with ribbons around the trees and small flags on the ground. I would kill to have something like this locally as this type of riding was the most fun I have had in a while.

I saw a few deer on the last part of the ride as I rode the fast curvy single track through the woods. I also ran across more female riders. I was also really surprised how many female rides were out on the trails. These were not the normal girls just riding through the woods, but women who looked like serious riders (they were wearing costumes and you could tell they had been riding for a while). I had to get a picture of the steed before I left as it treated me right this whole trip. I haven’t reiterated it in a while, but this bike kicks ass. I was heading out and the sun was just starting to set so I snapped a picture of the lake also.

All the pictures can be seen here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/RaccoonMountain2007_11_11