Tuesday Night Mountain Bike Ride, August 19th, 2008 -- Two Rivers School Bafflement

By Tom Clark

Eight riders showed up on a perfect night, if a little cool. Bruce, the fella who left the note about getting lost last week, didn't show, and neither did our intrepid "I'll try anything" Jeff Gimble. On the other hand, Geoff Orth brought a friend who proved to be entirely capable and willing to go on stupid adventures with the rest of us.

If we had stuck to tradition, we'd go up the ski trails, come out on the road, ride up the road to the top of the longish hill, turn into the woods and take the trail descent back, and repeat. Then, go back to the school via the ski trails. An OK ride if you live in the area, but worth driving almost thirty miles, one way? Nah.

Geoff Orth got his bike back from the shop, and as we started to roll out, he found that the tire was about flat. While he put air back in the thing, he absorbed merciless heckling, mostly from Eric Troyer. Geoffs friend said "these are your friends?" Fair question. Once the air was in and the seat readjusted (Troyer turned it around backwards), we got underway, promptly getting lost in the ski trails. Why it is that a bunch of trail hounds who know their way around scores of trails around town can't remember how to navigate the Two Rivers ski trails -- bah. Dumb trails. (Blame it on the trails...)

Eventually, Troyer sniffed out the right track. Actually, I think it was just a process of elimination. Having arrived at the road, we opted cross it and go up the trail, rather than go up the road. This didn't last very long. After trying out a side trail that got steep and wrapped back around, we bailed on the idea of going up the trail and went up the road. It was a good detour though. It eliminated some of the road at least.

Eric had an idea about taking the left fork when we got to the trailhead, instead of our usual right. This sounded good to me and evidently everyone else, so when we got there (after a not-uncommon bull session) we entered the trail and went left. After a very short, fun descent, it forked again -- back to the road and away from the road. Off we went, away from the road. It was a lovely trail at first, then turned into a very steep and fairly technical descent with lots of off-camber, diagonal roots with drops. After a while it mellowed out, and through a cut in the trees we could see straight ahead across the valley in front of us and up the next hill. This was a very linear trail, probably a section line. Turned out that this was the case. We consulted the map on Geoff's GPS and noted that it appeared to intersect a trail or road at the top of the next ridge. After a quick poll (which I don't think was conducted very well) we said "Hell, we've come this far" and went for it. There were a few comments like "maybe I should have brought lights." We've all been on those rides where a simple "what the hell, why not" has turned into a long, dark pushfest, so it was fair to be a little concerned.

As expected, the creek looking thing on the map was a creek, and the area around it was pretty wet. A particularly deep mud pit swallowed Todd Redinius' front wheel, pitching him over the front and into the mud, to the amusement and appreciation of all. There were some yells from Troyer and Orth as well. I don't know if anyone stayed completely dry. I didn't. At the creek bottom, we found some wee bear tracks which didn't concern me until someone said that it was probably a cub. Huh. After getting through the valley bottom, which was quite short, we began the ascent up the other side. It was short, less than half a mile, but steep and tricky. I rode to the top, only to get caught up in some fool birch tree slash ten feet from the road which turned out to be there, like we'd hoped. Others came in and after a caloric intake session, we headed back the road, which kept intersecting with larger and larger dirt roads. There's clearly more to explore out there.

Our ride back to the trailhead was about two and half miles long, plenty of time for jawing. I also started thinking that my choice of a sleeveless jersey wasn't so great. It'd been hot earlier, but was getting pretty chilly. This time, when we got to the trailhead, we went right, and after a brief climb, started the decent back towards the school. This is a way fun descent, and I always ride it faster than I really should. I always end up in a corner going too fast, drifting to the outside, heading towards the trees. The only reason that I haven't ended up as fleshy tree bark is that other folks have no doubt splatted into them and removed the key trees. So, I get away with some pretty bad judgement on that trail.

After a mile of trail, we crossed the road and started sort of retracing our steps on the ski trails. All of a sudden, it made sense to me -- don't take any turns. I just stayed on the main trail, and as a reward, I got a beautiful roller coaster ride to the bottom. Not bad. As others wheeled in, we took our usual spin through the pea gravel, proving that level ground can be very difficult and almost impossible to ride.

Overall, a good ride. Way better than I was expecting. For a moment there, I even thought that we might be transforming an easy ride into a Stupid Ride, what with throwing caution to the wind and heading straight into a soggy bottom. This ride had a good blend of stupid and sane, enough to be interesting. Enough to raise my estimation of the Two Rivers Ride. We'll do something like it next year.