Sope Creek

Yeah, most of my weekday rides, hikes and runs are likely to be a Sope Creek these days. As such, they're quickly becoming unmentionable. This one was almost unmentionable aside from a few interesting things, more or less worth remembering.

The first is how quickly ripping singletrack comes back to one after a long hiatus from ripping singletrack, or at least how quickly it came back to me after a long hiatus from ripping singletrack. The last time I attempted it I was fighting the bike and the trail. This time I was relaxed and comfortable and it was virtually intuitive. The one thing that I kept having to remind myself of was to lead with my outside foot and wait to let it drop until I swung into the turn. For some reason my instinct was to put it down well before the turn. I did that when I first moved here from Louisiana in 2000 too. It's fine to do when it's flat, but it puts you way off balance if it's not. The rest though - floating over rocks, roots and water, countersteering, nose bumping, hopping downed trees, manualing little wheelie bumps, pumping quick grade reversals, staying back, tricky shifting... It just came to me after a few miles. Ahh, el luxurio.

The other thing worth remembering is how ridiculously purple my left big toe got. It was 34 in the lot and much colder in the woods, but still, I'd neglected my shoe covers. After like half a lap my feet were numb all the way back to the ankles so I spun back and put them on. I think they're good if you start off with them, but I don't think they really help all that much once your feet are already numb. At any rate, I finished the ride and when I got home and took a shower, my left big toe was dark purple under the nail, and over the next few minutes, turned completely purple. On the bottom it was super dark. It was creepy, like in the movies when a shivering guy pulls off his sock and discovers, to his horror, that his big toe has turned black. It was slightly less horrifying because I was certain my toe wasn't dead, but it was still creepy. It took about 15 minutes to return to normal but it did eventually return to normal. That's the toe that got frostnipped like 8 years ago. Whenever I get sufficiently cold, that toe in particular has problems. I guess I need to remember those shoe covers.

Aside from that, I discovered that I need to bleed my rear brake and adjust my front derailleur.

But, aside from THAT, it was a run-of-the-mill weekday ride. Yay.