Thursday, 4 August 2016
In more temperate locations, I typically rode a "birthday ride" today. That meant a mile for each year of my age. But 65 miles isn't something I'm ready for today, even at 90°F this morning. So I'm expecting that ride to take place six months from now, in February. Today I took a morning ride into the Goat Trails, and I started at 8 a.m. to the trail head through the golf course up to Gene Autrey Trail, then south to Rimrock Plaza.
This ride had a sense of exploration, a chance to see how much additional trail had been attacked by heavy equipment. I hoped that the Lone Heart and Stone Man monuments were unaffected, but my hopes were undone. The grading has obliterated both monuments and smoothed out some of the climbs as well as leaving a dirt layer on most of the trail. I only looked up the doubletrack east and west of the Stone Man, and even those sections may have been graded, though more lightly. It seems to me that the doubletrack is now less fun uphll and more treacherous downhill.
I hope to organize a maintenance group from the regular riders of these trails, and I'll begin to gather their names from the Strava.com statistics of the trails.
My way back on the Goat Trails stayed on the doubletrack until I got to the Merry-Go-Round. From its southeast corner, I took off on a short singletrack that drops to a mid-point of the Second Climb. After reaching the roads, I followed the bikeway that parallels East Palm Canyon to El Cielo Road.
Ride conditions
Temperature: 90°F at 8:28
Precipitation: none
Winds: not recorded
Clothing: Teeshirt, ankle socks, double shorts, quilted full-finger gloves
Bike: Trek Fuel/EX mountain bike
Time: 1:02:04 for 9.61 miles
Heart rate: 129 bpm HRave, 154 bpm HRmax
Bikeway users: not recorded
Playback of the ride
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