2008 Tuesday Ride Report - May 6, 2008 -- Rosie Creek

By Tom Clark

I missed the first Tuesday Night Ride this year, but because of the late melt, late snowfall, and early start of the riding season, the first ride was on the roads -- so I didn't miss much.

This week, we started at the intersection of Cripple Creek and the Parks highway. The ascent was unremarkable, other than because of the small group (only five of us), we all arrived at the top around the same time, no waiting around. This turned out to be the case all night long.

We headed down Rosie Creek Tr (woodcutting road), and took the left fork and then a sharp left a few miles later. Normally we go straight, but we were feeling adventurous and wondering if there was a way to incorporate more trail and less road in this ride.

Our adopted route was as muddy as Rosie Creek Trail was -- really sloppy. It really was too early to be doing this ride, but hey, there it is on the schedule, so by God we do it. There were a few moments when it got close to crappy. Had this been a late season ride, just the muddy ride on the loess roads would have been enough to qualify it as Stupid. However, everyone was anxious for a non-snow trail ride, so we were pretty forgiving... for the time being.

Woodcutting roads end, it turns out. We tried a couple of routes that didn't pan out, and in doing so started to prepare the ride for the Stupid label. It's always entertaining to see where things go, anyway. As Dave James observed "third time's a charm". Indeed. Geoff Orth selected a four-wheeler trail that diverged diagonally uphill from the woodcutting road, and it turned out to be the right way. In retrospect, it makes sense that the trail would be something smaller than a full sized vehicle path.

For a quarter of a mile, the trail was great. Rooty and wet, but good traction and no ponds. Then, after going downhill a little ways, we got into the dreaded lowlands. It was seriously wet, but the late melt also worked in our favor. Had we tried to do this a week or two later, it would have been thigh-deep in places. Instead, the ground was still frozen in spots, and there was firm ice six inches below the surface of the water in many puddles, keeping us from sinking out of sight.

After pushing and riding and laughing at ourselves for something under two miles, we came out on Sonata, a good quality dirt road in the Cripple Creek subdivision, and a short while later we were back at the cars, with less than two miles of subdivision roads under our tires, way down from the usual five or more.

So, a rousing stupid good time had by all. The feeling came back into my pinky toes hours later, and I'm confident that my shoes will dry out before I have to do this ride again next year.