The day starts with rain. We knew that was going to happen but we didn’t know when. We got up to the rain coming down and made breakfast and drank coffee until it stopped. It didn’t take long, and after it eased up we decided it was time to get ready and make the most of the time we have.
Plan was to roll out of the tiki bar lot by 10. We beat that time and were out before then. We seem to have realized it was clearing up and wanted to take it when it was there.
We met up with some kid named Ish, who Dan coached on his NICA team and lives an hour away in NH now. So he decided to join us for the ride.
We started on Uptown to Herbs then down Kitchel and across the street to White Schoolhouse. We hopped up on Wares Davis and shortly after Ish totally blew up his wheel. He was following me and I have no idea how this happened but it was the loudest thing I have ever heard in the woods.
We rode out and did Good N You, Farm Junk, Sky Dive, then Swan Dive to White Schoolhouse to make a loop out of this side. It’s been a while since we have done that loop and it’s for good reason. It’s not that great.
We go all the way back out to the start of Wares Davis to double back on the start of that trail to the new trail, the name of which I do not remember but I know it begins with the letter O so I will call Ozmodiar. This trail was built yesterday, literally, and it shows. It was incredibly soft and the grind up was really slow.
At the top some of us have lunch.
This trail is really meant to connect the Wares Davis loop with the Harp loop which brings you to some of the original old school trails. I see what they’re doing with this and I can appreciate it. Today was the first try at seeing how this works. This direction is not the ideal way to ride it.
We head down Harp and cross the road to Coronary Bypass which is the way we used to go back to the Bugbee Crossing house. This is probably one of the most underrated trails in the park. This trail is awesome. But it does leave you at the bottom of a hole with only hard climbs to get back out.
So we climb the hard way back out.
Then we do Emma’s Sanctuary which is one of the newer trails in the system and this is another great trail. This side of the park has a lot of potential and I hope they build it up more.
But again we have to climb out of a hole and this is all the way down to the river. This is a hard climb and our legs are starting to hurt.
We run into Mia’s dad here and the group splits up. D & I go with Brian, Dan, and Mitch and we head to Darling Road and take it up to the top of Ozmodiar. We take this down which is the right way to go but it is still peanut butter but will be good one day.
We run out Wares Davis, then White Schoolhouse, then we go up the road and do Kitchel 1 last time to end the day. I get a PR on both the full Kitchel and lower Kitchel.
We stop at the shop and get a spoke to fix D’s bike later. Then we ride back to the car.
In all we did just over 21 miles and just under 3 hours. The Strava link can be found here.
We head to Orange Rind and meet up with Iggy and we all hang out and have a snack & a drink. This place is better situated than the tiki bar.
We then head back to the house and have a hot shower which is awesome. It’s actually chilly today and the hot shower is wonderful.
Then I take a nap.
Then I wash the bikes and fix D’s spoke.
Dinner is on Dan tonight and he makes bacon-wrapped chicken. It’s amazing and the recipe can be found here.
Day 7 in the books and I am getting pretty tired.
Traveling Normandy 