Forecast Schmorecast

Sometimes you just have to tell the weatherman to sod off (sorry British/Olympic fever).

We had had this trip to KT on the books for months but coming into the home stretch the forecast wasn't looking all that hot.  The trip unraveled a bit with some having to bail and others not willing to risk the weather.  I was a bit worried that we would indeed get washed out but I rolled the dice and went for it with Adam and Jake confirmed to ride out the storm with me.

Turns out the weatherfolks didn't have this one all that figured out at least for the Burke, VT area.  It did end up raining pretty hard Friday afternoon for about 10mins but other than that we were treated to a pretty decent weekend.  The rain stopped Friday by around 2 or so and we were able to get out riding by 3pm or so.  I actually really like riding in light rain or just after a rain.  It does a number on your gear but the added challenge of slick roots/rocks and corners makes riding real interesting and fun.

We ended up getting almost 13mi in before we called it that evening, ripping around the Darling Hill side getting loose in corners and having a blast.  I even took some video on Troll Stroll, a new one at KT and already one of my favorites.  I tried the helmet mount for the first time.  Don't really like it at all.  Makes my helmet bounce around quite a bit and the angle doesn't show much detail and really flattens trails out (even worse than usual) but it is easy to setup for quick shoots here and there.

Troll Stroll - Kingdom Trails VT from Kevin Orlowski on Vimeo.

I also tried to get some pics in order to make a photo sequence shot on Old Webbs.  But the shots I got didn't quite turn out how I wanted them to.  I underestimated the view I would get with the fisheye and I don't think the end result would have been worth the Photoshop work.  I'll probably try it again at some point though because its easy to attempt and maybe one of these times I'll get something I like.

Saturday was gorgeous.  Forecast was fairly wrong on that one.  We got a morning run on the Burke Mtn side and checked out Lower J-Bar.  Fun stuff but probably more fun on not my bike.  We snagged lunch back at the campsite and then did another afternoon ride over on the Darling Hill side getting some things we missed on Friday.  We decided to call it a bit early Saturday so we could head over and check out the Trout River brewery.  I highly recommend it, cool local operation; the beer is great and even the pizza is pretty good.

Mike showed up and we followed up beer and food with more beer and food back at the camp.  Good times were had.  Sunday we all decided that Lake Willoughby was the best way to spend our time so we shot up there to take a dip and admire those epic views.  We salvaged a pretty damn awesome trip from a less than promising forecast and it was pretty good prep for the NH100 to boot.  That's 3 straight weekends in VT with a serious amount of awesome.  Hashtag YOLO.