Chapter 9: A Trip Up O’Connor Creek

I learned two things from this Tuesday’s ride: eat a good, solid meal before going riding and that the O’Connor Creek ride is really properly a winter ride.

There were ten or eleven of us.  We got going a little after 7:30 and took off up Jones Road.  We got up to the end of Jones Road and then went on up O’Connor Creek trail and found mud and mosquitoes in great abundance.  I also discovered that not eating a big meal before a hard ride is a really, really bad idea.  I bonked going up the hill to Old Murphy Dome Road and had to walk most of it.

We got up to the top after about an hour and a half.  I was in a serious state of bonkage going up to the powerline trail and hence do not remember anything real clearly from Old Murphy Dome Road to the finish.  We chugged on up to the powerline (that hill was the final nail in the coffin for me) and then cruised over to Moose Mountain.  From there we took the gnarly downhill section line to the subdivision roads and then down back to the cars.  For me, most of that went by in a blur.  I do remember very clearly my front fender coming loose on the way down Moose Mountain and the nut holding it to the fork started rubbing on my front tire.  I chucked the fender somewhere up on the access road going down Moose Mountain.

We got back to the cars somewhere around 10:10 or so.  Total distance: about 15 miles.  Worst hill: the end of O’Connor Creek trail.  Best descent: Moose Mountain.  Time spent pushing the bikes: probably around 30.

That’s my report for this week.  See ya next week!

Liam Wescott
a/k/a The Doug Ryder
FCC Historian