Chris had some free time Last Saturday, so the fooligans gathered out at the Ditch for some pedal time. The weather wasn’t ideal – Hurricane Felicia had just passed, bringing some heavier-than-normal rains in her wake – and I was coming off a cold from the weekend before. Since we all hadn’t been riding for an extended period, nobody was averse to an easy Ditch ride. Root, Jeff, Sara, and Chris were already there when I pulled in. The ground was a little on the damp side on the climb up Government Road. There wasn’t a lot of deadfall, attesting to the lack of heavy winds associated with Felicia, but there were a couple of new large broken live branches across the trail – one was along this climb, and another out at the end of the Ditch. I was feeling hot, but considering the humid weather, I didn’t feel that it was unusual.
We took the turn down the side loop at the mango tree. I bobbled the drop a bit, having to tripod to keep on the trail. Odd – wonder why my balance was off? The trail conditions were nice and firm. Jeff had a bit of tire-spin at the big root-over, and ended up going super-grab ape-swing on the next tree to keep from going into the streambed over the bars. Quite a good, acrobatic save. After climbing back out to the road, we went out along the Ditch. Here the conditions ere a little less than ideal. The stream crossings had standing water, and there was a puddle at the landslide area. Out toward the end of the trail, the surface conditions were downright soft in the shade – not quite soupy, but around in the cake frosting texture. We bypassed the upper trail loop due to the heavy cane grass overgrowth and just backtracked along the Ditch. I had been feeling pretty good for the most part, but right at the end, I suddenly ran out of power. It was nonetheless a good ride with good company.
I packed it up early because I had a dinner to get to. The cough that my cold had given me the week before was now back with a vengeance. It lingered all week, so I went to see the doctor for some Zithromycin today. Bronchitis is not your friend.
Pictures here
D = 10.41 km (6.47-miles), Vavr = 11.7 km/h (7.3-mph), Vmax = 31.9 km/h (19.8-mph), T = 53-minutes
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