What a day! I set out for Shelby Farms around 9:00 this morning. Once I arrived (via rail-trail!), I did a quick lap of Tour de Wolf. Awesome fun time!!!! It’s sooooo much nicer riding a badass MTB instead of the CX rig. I could have done laps all day, but it was time to move on…

After that, I rode across farm road and under Walnut Grove to the Wolf River Trails (I did my best to stay out of the “no bikes” sections). At one point, where the trail dog-legs across a levee, I made the mistake of entering the next section of trail (a steep downhill with sharply angled dirt banks on both sides) at an odd angle rather than straight on. I somehow caught my front wheel on a small fallen tree on one side of the trail, then lost my balance as the wheel slid down the embankment.

Left ribs, meet tree.

Did you know that your ribs can bend pretty damn far and not break?

I had no idea.

In case you’ve never compressed one side of your ribcage inward, just think of a baseball-bat type sensation. It actually knocked the wind out of me pretty badly, and took a few minutes of just sitting on the side of the trail to catch my breath again. There’s a bit of an abrasion there now- I’ll be sure to post a photo if it gets some nice color to it.

Anyway- I got back up and continued down the trail. Once I got to Germantown Parkway, I went under the bridge and headed towards Greys Creek. That trail is a lot of fun to run on, but it’s pretty lame for riding because the 4-wheeler people have made giant ruts in the trail. So, after about a mile, I turned around & headed back. The remainder of the ride was uneventful. I ended up getting back home around noon for some much needed lunch!

After a little food & rest, I loaded the bike in the car and drove up to Nesbit Park (a.k.a. Stanky Creek). Once there, I rode the White and Yellow trails a couple of times. I felt good! I’d kept the suspension lockout on during most of the Shelby Farms ride, but released it for the rootiness of this trail.

I would have ridden longer, but alas, it was time to get home, clean the beast, and return it to its rightful owner at Bikes Plus. All in all, it was somewhere between 4 and 4.5 hours of riding total. With the exception of the tree-beating, I had a great time. I can’t wait to try out a few more and make a purchase!

Yesterday afternoon I stopped by the shop to pick up a sweet 29er demo bike. I originally planned to get it for Saturday, but I figured since I’d already planned to be off of work today that I’d avoid some trail traffic by taking it out before the weekend.

So after learning about how to adjust the suspension (holy crap, there are a LOT of adjustments!), I wedged it into my roof rack and headed home. It took a while to get everything set up comfortably. Even though it’s a bit big for me, I ended up swapping the stock seatpost out for a Thompson setback post (luckily Ryan had one in the correct diameter on his CX bike) since the straight post required the saddle to be precariously clamped to the very front of the rails. Because the bike is kinda on the big side, I also lowered the handlebars. I felt pretty weird with them perched above the saddle.
When I took it for a test ride on a short stretch of rail trail behind my house, I was surprised when it felt sort of awkward and loose over the rocks… then I realized that the tires were inflated to what had to be the max possible pressure! Oops. I let a good deal of air out, turned around, and went over the same stretch again, this time to find the ride totally different. Ah….. nice!

So now I’m just waiting for the sun to come out & warm the air a bit before I head out to Shelby Farms. After that, I’ll go to Herb Parsons, Bartlett Park, and Lakeland Trails. Being in good shape is nice. I imagine that taking a bike to every trail in town would be somewhat impossible for a lot of people, but I’m looking forward to the workout :)