High School Reunion Ride

I had a strange ride last night.  One of those rides where you find your head clear and thinking about a lot of things as you shred along.  Like why in the hell don't I ride these trails more often? and Am I really this much stronger than when I rode these trails everyday years ago? and Holy crap how are my tires hooking up on these wet roots?!

For some reason I have neglected the trails in and around Plymouth lately probably due to my increased involvement with CNH NEMBA and their presence being a bit farther South.  I don't think I rode trails in Plymouth once last year and maybe only once the year before that.  Not sure why, things just played out that way.  I had the good fortune of hooking up with Paul Y. who has ridden in this area for many years and has a good present (as well as historical) knowledge of these trails.  This ride with him was just what I needed to get these trails mind mapped again and ready to go.

Things have changed a bit over the past 10 years but the trails are in great shape and really fun.  It felt like a reunion of sorts.  All the lines coming back to me, memories of rides past flashing into my head as we cruised along.  We spent a lot of time in those woods and it was cool to relive some of that stuff while re-exploring things.


There is some free-ride stuff in there now.  Built on the side of a hill that is lap-able with a few lines available and some decent features built.  Many of the old trails still exist very close to their original form with maybe a reroute here and there.  Other trails have faded with time.  It was cool to find out that the trail we used to just call the 'Monkey Bridge Loop' was actually called 'Sponge' unfortunately that is one of the trails that has faded a bit since some of the features were damaged and never rebuilt. (perhaps I shall bring it back?).  Our 'Training Loop' is actually 'Twin Towers'.  Its funny remembering how that trail used to whup us fairly well (hence training loop) and now its barely a blip and I'm hammering a much larger gear than I ever was in the past.  We also got on Schweddy Balls, Lazy Boy, Sitter and Crosstown.  I was also informed that some of the trails across Texas Hill Rd are back as well as some new trail work going on over there.  Very much looking forward to exploring over there again.

Oh and Maxxis Ignitors at 20psi grab wet roots like its their job.  Couldn't believe it.  The rain actually worked out to our advantage.  It was looking pretty miserable at 5:15 but by 5:30 when we hit the trail the rain had stopped.  Things were slick but manageable and the rain knocked the bugs down and we actually had a really enjoyable ride.  Things were so dry up here a lot of this moisture lately has been getting sucked up quickly and there was hardly any standing water or mud bogs anywhere.

I'm thinking quick lunch rides up there this summer is going to be a must as well as cherry picking some after work rides and maybe bringing our Thurs ride up this way more often.