Ocoee Brush Creek Trail

We woke up this morning and headed to the Ocoee Campground area so we could ride the Brush creek trail. This time I remembered to pack some energy bars and we headed out. We took the trail beside the river up the Rafting center. Then we took the old copper trail which also paralleled the river. There were a lot of people rafting and kayaking as it was a beautiful day. This part of the tail was nice and cool as the wind was cooled as it blew across the water. The next section was a short but steep climb. This part of the trail was a bit overgrown and I got my arms slightly torn up as some of the briers were crossing the trail and got me as I was leading the way. The top was a nice view and we stopped to catch out breath for a few minutes. The next part was a roller coaster of a trail. It was about 7 miles of rolling, twisting fun. The tail finally ended up near a bridge crossing brush creek. There were some blackberries at the trail head and we enjoyed a few as we sat in the shade and relaxed for a few minutes. I figured that we had a climb ahead of us as it seemed like we had been going downhill for most of the time. I took the lead and was cruising through the woods pretty good. I kept expecting a hill, but somehow it never came. I actually think the trail flowed a bit better this direction than the other. There was a small climb at the end, but this is definitely a trail I would recommend to others. We scooted down the section we had to climb earlier and rode back to the Whitewater Center. Mitch and Monty went in the gift shop and I payed around on some of the stairs and rocks. I found a short section of 4 sets of stairs that I was able to ride up which I haven't tried to do since college. Made me feel good that I could still do it. The ride back to the campground was nice and I got to watch some of the rafters going down the river as was riding beside it.

When we got back Monty told us there was a shower and I decided I would make use of it instead of riding the 3 hours home in wet bike shorts. The shower was actually pretty cool as there was two shower heads. One was normal height and the other was waist high. Perverted thoughts aside, it worked great as I was able to get the dirt and grime off my legs much easier. I would really like to have a shower in my house with multiple shower heads. Maybe someday I can afford such luxuries. The drive home ended with a stop at McAlisters where I met Stephanie for dinner.

Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/BrushCreekTrail2008_7_27

Racoon in the Rain

Went up to Raccoon for Mitch's weekend trip. We met at Cracker Barrel in Trussville and it was raining pretty hard on the way there. I was pretty worried it would rain out our ride, but when we got to Chattanooga it did not look too bad. We starter riding and went counter-clockwise from the visitor's center. It stated sprinkling on us, but only stayed a sprinkle the whole time we rode. I carried my camera, but it as so wet out I was afraid to get it out of the zip-lock bag. I had a pretty good ride as I didn't have any wrecks this trip and successfully dropped off the 3' rock on the one way section. I landed the slightest bit sideways and burped the air out of my tire. I was running pretty low pressure so I decided to put a bit more in it for the rest of the ride. I was shaking as I did this and it made me realize how I am still not completely comfortable jumping off stuff yet. I guess I will have to keep it up till it doesn't bother me anymore. We took a nice slow lap and stopped to play on a lot of stuff. We did swing by the log ride and rode across a few times, I rode across successfully and then started getting sloppy and had to jump off. I don't know what was wrong with me, but when I was trying to stop on the log and start back up again and locked the back tire and slid off and landed on my butt. I guess it was a little too wet to try that.

We then moved on the lower chunky section. This section was more difficult and being wet only made it more fun. I stopped to jump off one of the rocks a few times, but could not convince anyone else to try it. I thought for sure Jay would at least try it. We finished up this section and decided to lap the intestine section in the opposite direction we were going. This direction seemed to be much faster and have a better flow. I was scooting through pretty fast just trying to keep up with Jay and at one point came to a small drop with a stream going through it. I just jumped without thinking about it and cleared the water and almost cleared the whole dip. This is definitely something to look for next time I am there. Finally we finished out the loop with the climb up and then coasted down to the parking lot.

We headed to the hotel and after checking in and taking a nice cool shower we headed out to get dinner. We decided on Big River Brewery and sampled a few of their beers while waiting for our food. I ended up getting a steak and it was quite tasty after a long day of riding. We headed out, but stopped at Sticky Fingers for another beer before heading back to the hotel. I tried a Sweetwater Blue (it was a Blueberry beer) and thought it was pretty good.

Unfortunately, these are all the pictures I took.

Hot at Hurricane

We met at hurricane creek at 1:00 to check out the new stuff that they had built. It was only me, Tommy, Lee, and Monty. We started into the trail and I heard a terrible sound behind me. I knew someone had crashed and immediately turned around and went back. Monty was about 30 feet down the hill. I sat in shock as he got up and said he though the was ok. It appeared he only had some minor scratches. After a little time to recover we headed on and went to the mountain bike race course. We rode up around and found the new 5' drop that he had built. I was not feeling it this early into the ride and decided I might come back to it later. A short ride later we found the new structure right next to the wooden berm. It was pretty interesting to ride as it was pretty high even though it was plenty wide. We started off slow and finally after Lee rode the skinny I decided to try it. It is about 3' off the ground and is 12" wide. It is really intimidating just because of the height. I managed to make it even though I was really shakey. Another thing that made it difficult is that it is at a right angle off the wide part so you couldn't get lined up before going across. The second time I hit my helmet on the wood above it as I didn't duck enough. I still managed to make it without falling. I decided to ride around some and found a 3' drop on the course right up the trail. It had a ramp up and a short level section before ending. I jumped off the first time and came down on the front wheel a bit more than I wanted. It scared me a bit, but I didn't crash. I went back as there was a short gap jump that I really wanted to do. I looked at it quite a while before deciding to try it. I was told to be careful and not pull up to hard because the bike could kick out due to the angle of the ramp. I gathered my nerves and headed down the ramp. I didn't pull up at all and was not really going as fast as I should have been. Anyway my back tire came down right on the edge of the landing ramp. If I had come up a inch or two shorter it would have been bad, but I did land it and stay on the bike. I checked to see if John (the guy who runs the place) had gotten a good picture and he said he was waiting to get a picture of me crashing. I somehow felt insulted, but didn't mind that I had let him down. We finally headed on around the rest of the race course. I jumped off the 3' drop again and this time landed correctly. We circled on around and headed out to the top of the Gauntlet run. I went second as me and Lee wanted to ride the whole thing without dabbing. I made it all the way to the start of the woden section. I made it around the rock , but was going a bit fast and tried to hit the wood instead of hanging to the right. My front wheel dropped off the outside of the wood pathway and I had to put a foot down. I hiked back up to take pictures of everyone else coming down. We tried to stop at the dirt jump section. but it was soft dirt and we couldn't really play on it. We rode across the skinny bridge and hiked the bikes up to the short loop on the other side of the valley. I ran out of water at this point, so I knew I wasn't going to last for much longer. We rode a lap and headed back down the mountain. I passed the rock as I decided I was doing to well and didn't want to wreck now. I rode back across the bridge again. I actually made it both directions over this bridge. I was unable to make it last time I came. I think having Lee there to set the bar helped encourage me. I had to try after I saw him make it. Lastly we rode across the normal bridge (about 18-24" wide) and rested at the picnic area before trying the hill. We finally headed to the hill and I locked out my shocks as well as dialing my front down to 110. I went ahead and put it in a low gear and followed Lee up the hill. He made it about 3/4 of the way before wheelieing off the side of the trail. Somehow I made it to where he was and was so tired I was about to quit, but he was yelling encouragement and I managed to make it all the way to the top. It took me about 10m minutes to recover afterwards, but I actually made it. Lee went back down to the bottom to try again and I couldn't believe he had the energy to even try. He rode all the way to the top this time. I definately owe him a beer as I promised anyone who could ride it a beer. We went on back to the entrance and watched some helmet cam videos that some of the other riders took while we cooled off. After a nice beverage in the parking lot we headed back home. I don't know if I want to ride there again till it cools down a bit. Most of the time my clothes were so wet it looked like I had just gotten out of a pool. my clothes were so saturated they were dripping. I weighed when I got back home and I had lost over 5 pounds. Me and Steph decided to go to Longhorn and get a steak to help me recover.

Check out Tommy's blog as I know he has some video's up of a few things. I am going to have to see if he got any other videos. I wil have to get picture up later as this is the first chance I have even got to Blog about it.

Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/grundcm/HurricaneCreek2008_7_20

Like a kid again

The day started out nice as I was able to get up early enough to meet some of the other BUMP folks at Oak mountain. I got there only a few minutes after 7 and they waited on me to get started. We rode a lap clockwise and I was feeling pretty good. We got back to the parking lot a little late and missed the group that was meeting at 9. I talked them into going the reverse direction for the second lap (counter-clockwise). We headed up johnson's mountain and I could feel the heat getting to me a little. I actually noticed a bit of difference as I came to the rocky section leading up to Blood rock. I climbed this in a bigger gear than I have in a while. I don't know if this was just due to not riding Oak in a while, or the road biking making a slight difference. Once again I tried to climb blood rock. I am going to try Joe's method some day of getting enough speed to carry you up the first section, but today I just tried to use technique to climb it. I almost got to the tree, but once again I got stuck. We got to the top of the mountain and met up with the 9:00 riders. After a short rest we headed down the hill and finished out the lap. I was slightly debating doing a third as I was feeling ok. I didn't really want to ride by myself so I sat and had a tasty beverage out of a plastic cup in the parking lot. Joe pulled up and was going to ride a lap, but I knew I would just slow him down so I headed to McAlisters to get some food. I sat outside as I was pretty sweaty so as not to disgust any of their other customers.

I talked to Joel and decided to meet him at his house to head to Bottle Tree. I had never been to his house before and he lives on the mountain beside downtown Bham. He collects old bicycles and I spent a good bit of time just looking at all the bikes he had. He also gave me some of the beer he made and it was really good. The only other person I know who made beer was in college and it was not the best. We waited for one of his friends and headed down to the bar. I took the IndyFab and I have to say I was not very comfortable. They would haul ass down the hills and through the intersection and I was so busy trying to pick a line to avoid the bad road I kept falling behind. I was still a little uncomfortable on the road bike. We got there and had a beer and ate. I was really impressed by how good the food was. they had Cajun sweet potato fries that were really good. I will probably go back just for those. We hung around for a few give aways (they were giving away shirts, and bike stuff) before deciding to head out. It was pretty late(for me that is past 10) and we put the lights on the bikes. I wanted to ride around some and everyone else wanted to also. We followed Joel around downtown and just had fun. He took us on a tour of some of the art as well as riding up a ramp and through a parking deck. I started feeling much more comfortable on the bike and started hopping on and off the curb (this sounds crazy as 3' drops don't bother me on the mountain bike). We finally headed up 20th street to Vulcan. This was a pretty steep hill and I used granny gear on my bike for the first time. We rode down Vulcan trail that is on the edge of the mountain overlooking the city. It was awesome and the moon was near full, so I turned my light out and rode for a short time by moonlight. We headed back to Joel's house and I headed home. I really enjoyed this ride and would definitely do it again.

Never going to be fast

After a few really rough weeks at work I finally was able to start commuting again. Today I only had to work an 11 hour day, so I got to ride to and was "forced" to leave early enough si I wouldn't be in the dark on the way home. I was feeling pretty rough after the ride in, but after riding home I am feeling much better. It has been about 2 weeks since I have been on the bike. I think I am just going to have to give up on ever getting faster. I just can't seem to get on the bike enough to improve.

On a sidenote: We went to Charleston SC the weekend of the 4th to visit some of Stephanie's friends. I have been there before, but I have not really noticed how much bikes are respected there. As you drive down the streets, almost every porch has a bike on it as well as every bar, grocery store, or pretty much any store has a bike rack, an if not there were a few bikes chained to a nearby fence or pole. I watched and motorists seemed to actually not completely despise the cyclists and gave them equal use of the road. I thought it was pretty cool.

I am going to try to get in a few more rides this week while the weather is nice.