HW TRAIL RIDE: THEN THERE WERE THREE

Fall has really cooled off the Gang. Must of had too much good riding this season. Can't believe that the Gang has had it's fill.  I know things like hockey have started and the cold nights(1-2 degrees Celcius) have arrived, but is that  enough to get them to give up on riding their mountain bikes? Seems so.

Three of us decided that an afternoon ride would be a good thing on Tuesday. Off we went, uphill to keep us warm. The Prez  Murdog, and I rode up the old Red Mt. road to Dale's trail and up to the intersection of Red Top and Dale's Trail.  We passed over some funny looking white stuff on our way. White gold, they call it. The ski season is on it's way. Even with the light skiff of snow the trail surfaces were perfect. No dust and super tacky.

Red Top was perfect. Nice to be on the bike again. Linked Red Top to Oflanagan's connector to Larry's and then Mo's. Good thing we brought the lights, because the forest is dark at this time of year. Great outing. Going to try and keep getting out until the snow comes and forces me to snow shoes.

HW NIGHT RIDE: MAGIC SHINES ARE ON-REVIEW

Well we finally crawled out of our voluntary hiding. That Moab sickness and the weather had driven us to the couch and nobody was into riding. I gradually enticed a few of the gang out with the promise of beer and a shuttle.

It was going to be our first ride with lights for this season. We did ride Slickrock at night while in Moab but that is very different than riding single track. So, we decided to take a simple trail and just test out our lights and our eyes. Our choice was Cemetery Trail followed by Bones and then a Tour de Redstone. The first two sound kind of spooky for a night ride but they are classic single track without any technical sections and perfect for working the bugs out of the bodies and lighting systems. Tour de Redstone is just a workout riding around Rossland's wonderful mountain style golfcourse cart path. Don't laugh, the ups and downs on the cart path can get your heart rate up there.

I decided to try out a Magic Shine light system that a buddie had lent me. My first time with a LED type light. My previous system was old style halogen and the light was quite soft and yellow in comparison to the Magic Shine's bright white light.  I think I like the old halogen light better. It produced better shadows and the lenses spread the light in a wider pattern than the Magic Shine, but maybe I will get used to it. I never felt that I needed a helmet light before but now I seem to need another light on my helmet. Must be the focused bright light of the Magic Shine. I think it is all about the lens and the reflector. Maybe you get what you pay for. The light was satisfactory. Might have to work on centering it on the handlebar.  Jury is still out.

Cemetery trail is definitely in for night rides. It flows nicely and seems to go by even faster at night. We had an  fantastic ride. Bones was spooky because of the tall grass and this added some spice to the riding experience.

Caught a moon rise on the tenth hole of the golf course and finished with a new switch backed trail that is part of the Rossland cross city trail network. This growing trail network is very useful and a ton of fun.

Hope to get more riders out as the Kootenay indian summer seems to be continuing.

HAVEN'T BEEN RIDING

The ten days on the road was exciting and gave us a large amount of bike time. We finished with a lovely illness amongst the group, that slowed us down, and saw many visits to the porcelain bike seat both while in Park City and at many rest stops on the way home. I would love to make the excuse of having celebrated too much but that just was not the case. Just one of those travel things.

Anyway, the hangover from the Moab trip and the cold rainy weather here at home has kept us off the trails for a week. We were looking forward to some night riding but the nights have not been too encouraging. Maybe tonight, if it dries up a little. The contrast between the heat of summer in Moab and the swift arrival of fall in Rossland, has got us in a stale mate. No one can move, or maybe no one wants to wreck the feelings left from the riding experience in Moab and Park City or maybe we are just tired, still.

HW OUTING: PARK CITY

Park City is our final destination on this our 20th anniversary tour.  Moab was great as usual, but Park City and it's Park City Carpet trails were very welcoming.  Iit is always hard to find your way around a new place and Park City was no exception.  Much of the signage in the ski area had already been removed, so the two rides that we did were somewhat of a magical mystery tour.

A trail called Mid Mountain provided Saturday,s entertainment.  It was a long swooping single track that traversed 3 different ski areas and provided some  panoramic  views that were already being painted by fall colors due to the 8000 ft elevation and rhe date.

This single track tested our endurance and it lasted for over 40 kilometers; Swooping through aspens and droping into leaf covered ravines provided massive entertainment. It was a very satisfying day.

  Day two led to a split of the gang, some were just too tired to do very much uphill so they went one way and found a great ride and we went another way with some locals and rode some old school Park City trails.  My handlebars were too wide for the trail in many places. A perfect way to wrap up a perfect trip.

Steak dinner for the last night in the cabin, topped off the occasion. 5 AM departure for the home front.

Check out our pictures and video below.