Category: weather

Here is a dead raccoon which was occupying 2/3 of the single track mountain bike trail at Addison Oaks. Thanks to a conveniently located rake I had no problems moving it off the trail, leaving only a moist spot on the trail. This ride through Addison Oaks was part of a trip from Rochester Mills to Lake Orion, over to Bald Mountain, through to Addison Oaks, back through Bald Mountain, then town the Paint Creek Trail back to Rochester Mills.

Knowing that some other friends were riding the Macomb Orchard Trail to Richmond and back, after getting back to Rochester I headed out the MOT to meet up with them, and did so seven or eight miles later. After finishing up the ride with them and being sure that Danielle wouldn’t mind driving me back to my car, I then rode home for a total of 61.83 miles. Seeing as this included quite a bit of single track, I’d say that this is one of the longest rides I’ve done. Last year had some similar length rides, but none of those included as many segments of proper mountain biking.

For another odd photo, please see this one which shows some latex gloves and a rather oddly stained cylinder that appeared to be made out of wood. This was found along a section of the Roller Coaster in Stony Creek while having a brief hike there yesterday.

After work I headed over to Stony Creek to ride a bit, but when I got to the parking lot it appeared that a storm was getting close. Still, I headed off into the trails, periodically reloading the DTX National Weather Service radar. It turns out that the storm was moving in faster than I’d expected, so I had to take a shortcut out of the Roller Coaster only 10 or 15 minutes after starting and hurry back to the car.

A ~20MPH ride along the two track back to the car was filled with blowing dust, leaves coming off of trees, a freshly downed branch in the path, and people who were (for some reason) heading outbound into the trails. Thankfully I made it back to the car just as the large drops started falling and was in the car and leaving the parking lot as the rain really started to come down. All thanks to having a smartphone.

Of course, now that I’m back home and typing this, all the rain has passed and the trails are likely perfectly damp. Ah well.

After last night’s ride around Stony Creek and today’s jaunt through River Bends, my bike is nicely muddy. Interestingly, all of the mud on there came from two track flooded paved trails and not any of the single track.

Now that I’m home I just have to sit around a while longer until I stop sweating, shower, and shave. Two bike rides in my legs are a bit filthy, and I’m sure there’s quite a stink coming from my various regions.

Later today should be interesting, because there are straight line wind / tornado-type weather coming. Looks like it’ll be here in about two hours. This could get exciting. Good thing I’ve got a bunch of stuff to do in the house.