Slipping and Sliding

It must be something about vacations and flat tires. I've been off all this week and we had scheduled another single track ride for Thursday. I went out to the garage and wouldn't you know it I had a flat tire. After searching high and low for my spare tube we finally gave up and decided to go and buy a new tube. Before we left for the bike shop I checked my tire fore thorns etc... I found a thorn and a tear in my tire, so a new tire was in order. Down to the bike shop we went I grabbed two tubes and a new Specialized Roller Pro. Back in the car FGB was examining the purchase when he exclaimed, "Dad you bought a tubless tire!" which of course requires a special rim. Back to the bike shop to make an exchange. When we arrived I found that there were no Roller Pros only the more expensive S-works tires. The manager was with me and said just take the S-works for the same price. Yea something went right!

Well the drive down to the J Edward Roush trail in Huntington was uneventful and as we passed the picturesque lake we were once again greeted with the excitement that accompanies a single track ride. Upon arrival the park was quiet with only one other vehicle in sight and it was a utility truck, probably on break. It had rained quite heavily the night before so we had called to make sure the trails were open. We headed out from the trail head and I could tell that this was going to be a slower ride. The trail was still a hard packed dirt trail but there was an eighth inch of slippery mud on top. It was like riding on oil. FGB and I struggled to make it up each climb and experienced a lot of fishtailing around many of the sharp turns. At one point my front tire dug in and and my back tire slid out... I started to jack knife thankfully the front tire realeased and I was slingshotted to the other side of the trail... still rolling.

The first ravine was a bit much for FGB with the fishtailing and sliding so he slowly worked his way down to it and then gently dropped in, but still he lost his traction and had to walk up the other side. One hair pin turn left my heart racing. There was an eight foot drop off to the right side and as I leaned into the turn I felt the back tire begin to slide. I thought I was going to pull a CK and go flying into a deep ditch but at the last moment my knobbies grabbed the trail and the bike righted itself. Both FGB and I had to walk it up the rootiest hill as there was virtually no traction on the wet roots and slippery mud face. This was the hardest work out we have had in a long time but it looks like Dirt Magnet has a Dirt Magnet jr following in his footsteps or should I say following in his single track. One negative note I could really sense the humidity as it weighed heavily on my body. I was dehydrating but I didn't feel like drinking. After a two hour ride I had barely dented my water pack and had only drank half a bottle of gatorade. The thick humidity was just brutal. All in all it was another great ride!