Month: January 2012

Here’s a photo from down in the Seasonal Loops at River Bends during today’s ride. The creek is wider than ever and wasn’t worth riding at these temperatures, so I carefully walked across the bridge that someone had fashioned from a few old logs using the bike to help balance myself. With the logs being a bit wobbly it was rather interesting; I probably should have just ridden through the water.

This ride at River Bends happened when I was on the way home (by car) from a ride up at Addison Oaks and Bald Mountain – North Unit with a friend. He and I met up at Oakview Middle School to be between the two parks, rode over to Addison (where he hadn’t been in 10+ years), did a lap there, then went over to Bald Mountain and rode a lap of the east part of the North Unit (red trail). The weather out there was absolutely fantastic, with sunny, blue skies, not much wind, and a nice line down most of the trails. While a little more snow may have been fun, it’s hard to ask for better winter riding weather.

If you’re interested, here’s the lot of the photos that I took today:

· Roger’s Vassago Jabberwocky at Addison Oaks after the last of the initial climbing.
· Looking at the flaky, asbestos-like snow on the trail at Addison Oaks.
· Roger walking up Fall Line Hill (Telemark Hill) at Addison Oaks.
· Roger standing in front of Prince Lake as we rode the top of the levee.
· Me (Steve) standing on the levee in front of Prince Lake at Bald Mountain State Recreation Area while out riding with Roger.
· Heavily rutted single track at River Bends, likely caused by people riding muddy trail just before it froze.
· Mukluk leaned on an impromptu bridge in the floodplane / seasonal loops at River Bends.

With the unseasonably warm weather that we’ve been having in Michigan today was the first properly snowy ride that I’ve been able to go on. Jeremy Verbeke and I headed up to Stony Creek, parking at and heading in through the hole in the fence, and rode a full lap of the trail, including all of the single track and a bunch of two track in the southeast part of the park. Today’s 18°F, little wind, and slightly cloudy skies was as perfect of winter riding as one could ask for.

The trail conditions were perfect, with a good layer of firm, packing, tacky snow on almost everything and no mud. There were some notable frozen ruts throughout The Pines which were clearly the result of over-anxious riders during the last few weeks freeze/thaw cycles, but they weren’t anything that I can see being a problem long term. Most of the trail was in great shape.

Riding, while hard, was otherwise uneventful. Despite snowing riding (and Jeremy’s first time out properly riding in snow) neither of us fell, nor were there any close calls. This was a really nice ride.