Reconnaissance

After several tough months of riding and racing, I feel like I can use some rest and relaxation. Although I enjoyed bagging big mileage rides on those long and cold spring days, and to some extent I kind of miss them...it's nice to be able to take some "fun rides" without being concerned with getting enough miles in or training hard enough...yada yada. So, this week I backed off a bit, but still squeezed in a few shorter "reconnaissance rides" out in the Blue Hills. The goal on these rides is to find places and trails that I haven't been on or seen before. Here is how these rides typically go:


You start out riding down something like this...

Then you might jump on an ATV trail or a logging road...

You'll run a few of these things over..

Find some water that happens to cross the road...

Obviously you ride across/though it...and maybe even jump in for a swim...

Further down the trail it probably thins out and becomes less used, but you still hope that it goes somewhere...

Then you see some more water...

Maybe it's not very deep and you're ambitious enough to ride the actual creek bottom for a while before jumping back on the trail...

...and if you've done things right, your ride home probably feels something like this...

Gosh, life sure is tough up nort'a Highway 8 der...don't cha know?