I woke up today to the sound of rain. I headed out for breakfast, which took over half an hour of waiting along with everyone else that was rained out. It then took an hour and a half to get my food, and by then the clouds were breaking up to the west. It stopped raining at around 12:30, and by 1:00 I was in the parking lot of the Slickrock bike trail, which is for bicycles and motorbikes. It’s not super difficult, but there are some steep climbs, and with wet tires and sand, they were sort of dicey at times. I took my time, and riding out to an overlook, I stopped for a bit and talked about health care with a large group of mountain bikers that showed up just after me. One guy was saying there was no way he could afford a prostate exam and colonoscopy, since his health insurance won’t cover it. Another guy has a family member that will be making monthly payments for a surgery he had for the rest of his life. Crazy! 60% of the flights I do are for routine angiograms, and have even flown someone with a broken thumb! I was off the trail by 5:00, and I didn’t ride anything after that. Todd hates following the little white paint mark that indicate the trail, and after a while, I did too. You would blast up a steep climb, then the trail would take a sharp turn to stop you from flying off a ledge, but when you’ve got a good head of steam on, it can come as a surprise. I had a little trouble in three spots. One was a wet, sandy rock ledge that you had to hit at 45º, and after the front wheel went up, the back end would whip out, sliding along the edge of the shelf. I took me four tries, but I just gassed it and made it. When I came back to that spot on the way back around the loop, there was about 5 guys trying to get up it but couldn’t. I pointed them to an alternate route that would be easier for them. I went up it just to be sure it would work out for them, plus they were blocking me from going through the little bottleneck, but it was a water filled minefield of slippery boulders. Them going down it would be easy, but it was more a matter of gassing it and hanging on for me to go up. The next was a super steep climb, and I almost looped it over since it was so steep, and the last one myself and the bike landed in a deep water filled bowl. Todd, do you remember the switchback that we did the little work-around? I was at the bottom of the alternate route we found, and I turned 90º to start up the slope, and the bike stalled (still running crappy today, but I just came inside from fixing it), and I fell into a deep hole, with the bars and my legs totally submerged. With nothing more than water filled boots, I ripped up the hill, which is not far from the end of the trail.
Tomorrow I am meeting a guy from Sylvan Lake and his dad to ride a few places I’ve never been.
Pictures from the day.
