Tuesday Night Mountain Bike Ride, August 12th, 2008 -- Burgundy Jenny M

By Tom Clark

Five regulars and one new fella (Bruce something) rode up Burgundy and up the trail off the end of the road. The trail just keeps getting steeper and at its steepest, features nasty roots across the trail. Despite the wet conditions, I was able to ride to the top, not something I've always done. It helped stopping partway up to portage over a big messy spruce tree that was across the trail -- got a little break there. We regrouped at the top and enjoyed the fast descent going east for a mile or so. There was a little bit of climbing in there, but it was basially down. The problem is that it is hard to find the right exit off the trail. We try to come out in the gravel pit with the cell tower at the top, but this year my trail-finding-unit malfunctioned.

We found ourselves descending rather steeply, to the point where I was totally off the back of the saddle, hoping that my ass didn't get munched by the rear tire. I could just picture my balls getting pulled past the seat stays and having to remove the rear tire to extricate them... Todd Redinius and I led the descent down the hill, knowing full well by this time that this was not the right trail, but we'd come too far to turn back now. Ultimately, we ended up coming on private property. The owner was quite pleasant, but was glad to hear about the route that we'd followed, as he wanted to close it against further use. We agreed, as it was not a great trail anyway.

We rode for a third of a mile on the road, headed west, towards the pit where we were supposed to come out. Then, we took the powerline trail until Dave James led us down a wood cutting road? river access road? farm access road? Who knows... On the way, we managed to get pretty good and dirty with all the puddle crossings. We rode along Mullen Slough for a short distance, then started our ride around Jenny M hill. I assume that's the name of the hill. It's the name of the creek there anyway. We rode up the hill, regrouping a couple of times, and then when we got to the fork where we typically split up and meet one another coming around the loop, we regrouped again. This time, only five showed. Bruce was missing. We waited a bit, then Geoff went looking. After a while, Dave James went looking. Finally, Todd Redinius, Jim Vogt and I went looking for the other lookers. We found them riding back towards us, and they reported no sign of Bruce, so we assumed that he headed home.

We continued on up the trail, and split up, as per usual. Each party was shocked to find that the loop was cut short by a logging operation. We met up in the middle of one of the cleared areas, and there we had a long BS session. The talk went from music to concerts to mind-altering drugs. Everybody chimed in with a story of one kind or another, and there was general agreement that Geoff Orth was/is a pretty cool dad. Todd Redinius was pretty silent throughout all this, and when asked he explained that all that stuff never interested him much -- he was more of a beer guy. Pretty respectable, really.

Finally, the meeting was adjourned, and off we went. We'd noticed the wood cutting road on the way up the hill, near some truly cavernous erosion (excellent soils conservation!), and we elected to follow it out. It's always fun to ride something new, so this section of woodcutting road was good for all. I stopped to look at some of the eroded stuff when we got back out to the main trail/road, and was dazzled. Some of the runoff channels were eight feet deep. That's a lotta loess that went somewhere...

While zooming back the road, then the field, then the subdivision road, then the path on the side of the highway, Dave James commented on what a psychotic ride this was. It's has no unifying theme or feel, no standout climb or descent. It is a collection of disimilar rides, thrown together because any one of the rides is too short to stand by itself. So, we do this, this psychotic ride. We even ended it with a few loops around the paved go-cart track at Valley Center. Psychotic.

I found a note from Bruce telling us that he'd gotten lost and eventually found his way back at about 10PM, so he'd been gone for an hour or so. Good deal. At least his car wasn't still there. All in all, about 21 miles ridden, more or less depending on who you were, and about 2200 feet elevation gain. Buncha nice sunshine, and a pretty sunset, and mud from toes to eyeballs. Damn good fun.