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Tonight was the regular Wednesday Night Group Ride at Stony Creek, but instead of the normal 6:30pm meeting time I met up with some others at 5pm and headed over to do a lap at Bloomer. Except for not knowing my way around and getting lost a few times I had no problem with most of the riding, except for what is known as the Ridge Trail.

That up there is part of the Ridge Trail, which seems to be a bunch of very narrow, winding, tight, bench cut trail down a ridge. Looking down on it I felt quite intimidated and didn’t want to risk falling. I ended up telling everyone else to go on ahead and walking down, then riding the last bit of it. These trails were making me wish that I had hydraulic brakes, because it seems to be a bit difficult to apply my front brake light enough to keep from locking the wheel, but heavy enough to keep speed under control. Rear brakes are almost useless here because of the incline.

Later on while at the top of a section called The Snake, on a particularly steep / tight right hand turn I fell and just happened to land knee first on a rock. I wasn’t able to stand for a minute or so, then had to walk my bike up to the top of the hill and just stand there for a while. I ended up cutting my knee and bleeding quite a bit, but the part that actually hurts is my knee cap itself. It’s already feeling better, so I imagine in a few more days it’ll be just fine. That’s part of riding a bike off road, though, eh?

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So, I’m likely going to have some time off of work soon. During this time I think I’d like to try and ride 100 miles in a day. I’m curious, though… Are these 100 miles typically done in one go, or is a break (say, for dinner) acceptable?

I’m thinking that I could probably do a ride up to Lake Orion, back by my house, then out to Metro Beach and back in a day if I’ve had a couple lengthy warm-up rides in the week prior. This should, if I’m thinking right, put me at just about 90 miles. It would not be difficult to tack on another 10 after that.

With my house being in the middle, it’d be a convenient place for me to stop and consume a large pile of food before heading back out. Is this what typically considered acceptable?

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Today I decided to head out to Stony Creek and do some more bike riding, but also take along my pruning shears so I could cut back some of the vine / bramble overgrowth on the single track which catches on clothing and slaps people in the face. Two or three hours were spend riding around, stopping, cutting, then moving on to the next bit.

There’s a particular part right near the top of The Snake, a winding generally uphill climb where one has to go next to / under a very large shrub which is overgrown enough that I had to lean far forward in order to keep from hitting / scraping my head on the woody growth and its occasional, large thorns. I cleared a nice passageway through this, and on a test ride back through the area I didn’t notice the area I’d trimmed, but I did notice that I no longer risked hitting my head.

I didn’t do any trimming in the last half (aka back nine / final third) of The Rollercoaster because I normally find that area too fast to easily stop on my bike and go back to cut things, so I think I’ll try and head out there another day on foot to trim it.

Other than the cutting it was a long (18.4 miles), but uneventful ride. I came across quite a few people going the wrong way on single track without helmets, friendly hikers, and someone who shouted at me for going the wrong way because I’d parked my bike facing up the trail (although off to the side) while trimming an area in The Pines.

Oh, I also need to remember to lubricate those shears. The whole time I was cutting they were making an awful squweeCHIRP sound. That’ll happen after a shower and before I do the electronics work discussed yesterday. I’m stinky enough that it’ll likely corrode the solder.

Here’s the photos I took today. Unfortunately I didn’t think to take a before / after of some of the more overgrown areas which were cut back:

· The cheap Fiskars pruning shears which I used to trim back a bunch of growth on the single track at Stony Creek.
· Grown crystals of salt (and other things) on my CamelBak.
· A sign indicating that the skills park at Stony Creek is closed. Its grand opening is tomorrow, 17-Aug-2008.
· The stone table in an Asian style in with the Sheldon Estate in Stony Creek Metropark.
· The Sheldon’s old tennis court, now filled in with plants. This is right behind the stone alter.
· In Stony Creek, looking through the rows of trees at the stone alter near where the Sheldon Estate was.

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