We have, as I have mentioned before, some of the nicest single track in the Midwest in the South Kettle Moraine, near Whitewater Wisconsin. They are well cared for by an army of volunteers and present a challenge for every level of riding skill. They aren't extremely technical so as to present a challenge for the Moab specialist, but still enough of what it takes to know that you have been someplace special.
If you are a beginning rider on a mountain bike, there is a trail with no surprises, just a few rough spots to make it interesting. The other trails offer varying degrees of climbs with rocks to bounce over and steep climbs that will take the best climber to conquer.
Last Saturday my friend Dave and I, meet for a fun ride on the Blue trail. He lives in Illinois and drives 95 miles to do this thing in the woods. I drive 48 miles, about an hour from my house to the parking lot of the Kettle Moraine State Park. The weather was perfect.
The preparation to ride is one of the fun things , I believe, that makes mountain biking more fun the road biking. I mean fun, in that there isn't any of the hard core stuff about training and suffering pain on a regular basis. Here everyone is ready to have a good time.
As you exit the car to start the ritual of what to wear, given the prevailing weather conditions, you look around at what everyone else is wearing. On most week ends when the weather is warm, the parking lot will have thirty or forty cars,suv's and trucks lined up and half that many riders circling around that are ready to hit the trail or just coming back from their first 10 mile circuit.
Invariable, while you are standing there looking to see what is needed for the day in clothing, nearly everyone that rides by says yo or hi or hey. Mountain bikers are family.
Roadies are more introverted. Dave and I are roadies, racers, or at least most of the year we are. We have an agenda that can only be followed on certain terms and they have nothing to do with saying hi or yo - we're not nasty or mean, just tense and eager to get going. Head down and muscles screaming, sweat pouring off out bodies. Now do it all over again, but harder.
Biking racing is a building sport. You have to continue to build on past training, years of it, to accomplish a certain level of proficiency. We have missed a lot along the way over the last ten years. We are now making up for lost time.
Anyway, Dave and I hit the trails after much to do about what to ware. The sun was out and the temperature was in the mid fifties. We settled on only arm warmers and thermal undershirts. Perfect choice for the conditions and the hard work ahead.
We decided to do the Connector Trail that leads to some of the most challenging climbs in the park. We knew this would be fun given that we hadn't been out riding for two weeks and we were more than anxious to get with the program.
We had a grand time. The beginning of the Blue Trail winds though pine forests and hardwood stands that restrict your speed to less than 5 miles per hour but it gives you some quick sharpe turns and rocky climbs, then down into the sand pits ending after about five miles at a park bench atop a twisty little rocky climb.
Usually there are several riders already there when we show up and then more come in behind us, ready for a little rest and good conversation, but then it's off for what's probably the best part of the trail, a long down hill that has several little rollers that are there, I think, to prevent one from gaining too much speed for the conditions. And speed we do -
You learn that the best way to ride this trail is to let the bike do most of the work, you just keep it going in the right direction, that is, on the trail. Down the hills and then up the little grinders and then it's, woosch, down the next rocky, rutted path. This goes on for several miles.
All of the trail isn't rough though, some of it is smooth which allows you to gain some real speed that scares the hell out of you, the consequences of an error in judgment here could be fatal. The trees don't move much even when you hit them at twenty miles an hour.
The Connector is a combination of open field riding and rocky twisty climbs for five miles. At the end of the Connector we rest and eat an energy bar and decide if we want to do the Emma Carlin half of the ride.
This part of the Kettle Moraine is divided into two halves, were we started is the John Muir and the other parking lot on the other side of the park is Emma Carlin. This part is not for the faint of heart. Dave and I opted out this time. The climbs are many and steep and the down hills are very fast and rutted. After the energy bar we turned for home.
The ride back is more technical in that it has many sharpe turns that are poised very close to drop-offs and large log jumps with a lot of rocky off-canter narrow paths. You can't speed through here but it takes a lot of concentration just to stay up right. It's really cool - it's a total ride - a great finish -
The total ride on Saturday was a little over 25 miles. That was more than I had bargain for given we hadn't ridden that much in the several weeks. I was a hurting unit the next day, but I would do it again in a heart beat and will if the weather holds.
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