Way back in November, my brother managed to get a bunch of us together for a Bull/Jake ride. This was somewhat unusual, actually. While group rides were the norm ages ago, it seems like, for as long as I can remember, all of us that used to ride together a lot, mostly ride by ourselves. It kind-of makes sense during the week, and somewhat on the weekend, if I'm exploring something, which I often do. IDK, it seems rare these days, and it's great when we manage to do it.
The crew was me, Marc, Patrick, John, and Austin. Me and John met over at Austin's place and piled everything into John's truck. I vaguely remember some confusion on the way over, but I don't remember what it was now. Whatever it was, it wasn't too serious, I guess.
We parked at the Jake Lot, and started getting ready. The rest of the crew met us soon after and we hit the trail.
It was November, and ought to have been cold, but it really wasn't yet. The leaves had mostly fallen, and the trail was slow, but it was still pretty warm.
We took the connector over to Bull Mountain, and started climbing. It seems like every time I ride with Austin, I'm recovering from illness, and this time was no different. I was a bit more recovered than the previous couple of times, but still, I was struggling a bit more than the rest of the group.
When we got to the Great Rift, for example, there's a line up to the right that you can kind of punch up and then tightrope along the edge for a while. I'd done it the last time I was up there, but I barely had the strength that day. I got up to the edge, but creeping along it just took too much effort.
Fortunately, everybody else had to walk too...
...so, it wasn't like I was dragging back too badly.
The operative part of that last bit being "too badly". I was dragging back a bit, and we had to regroup a couple of times.
It was still early in the day though, and I did manage to wake up as the day wore on. Or maybe everybody else just got tired faster than I did. Who knows?
We made it up to the top of Bear Hare in good time and began the tricky descent. Bear Hare is rough when it's not covered in leaves, but the leaves add a whole nother level. Austin discovered this firsthand, crashing about halfway down the singletrack section. He was ok, but it was reportedly a pretty hard crash. (I didn't see it) When we regrouped, we asked him the standard questions and checked his pupils. He seemed ok, so we pushed on.
I led down what used to be fire road, but is really just more singletrack these days. At the bottom, Patrick approved of how well had been moving, and I was pretty flattered.
It was kind-of uneventful around the back side, except for the kick up the Whoop-de-dos, which was kind-of tough. Harder than I remembered. But the rest was fine. I wasn't dragging back.
The new trail down to the dam seemed a lot longer than I remembered. Like 3 times as long. It was a little damp and leafy, so I couldn't really rail it like you can in the summer, but it was still a lot of fun.
From there, we climbed up Jones Creek Ridge. I think this photo is from somewhere in the switchbacks, but I could be wrong.
Similar to the dam trail, the descent down Jones was leafy and sketchy, and I couldn't really rail it.
At Winding Stair, we had some decisions to make. How long of a day did we really want to put in? Marc had said he wanted to get in 4 hours or more. If we climbed Winding Stair, there were various options for coming back down that would add all kinds of miles and elevation, but after weighing the various options, it didn't seem like any of us was really up for much more than the standard Bull/Jake loop.
We climbed a bit more, took Turner Creek down and over, hit whatever that new trail is called. Shefton? It wasn't in any better condition than when I last rode it. Lots of downed trees. It doesn't seem to get much use. From there we jogged over to No-Tell, climbed and bombed that. Austin crashed again somewhere in all of that, but I don't remember where. Again, it wasn't a bad crash, but it's generally not good to crash in the back country. Got to follow the 100% rule.
We skipped Montgomery Creek and took Black Branch back toward the lot. Nobody crashed in there. In fact, me and Patrick, again, had an exceptionally good time on one of the longer descents. There's a downhill out there with a bunch of little natural jumps. They're shallow and small, but you're really moving, so you can boost them a bit for some pretty good hang time.
Austin was lagging back a little coming off of Black Branch. He's really fast and strong, but 4 hours on the bike, in the actual mountains, is a long time. Actually, just about everybody was lagging back, while I was still feeling pretty good. Heh, heh.
We picked up Jake and took it to Jones Creek. The water was cold, but we didn't bother trying to keep our feet dry, it was only like a mile and a half back to the lot from there.
Almost immedaitely after crossing Jones Creek, I felt bad about gloating, if even just to myself. I cramped super, super hard as soon as we started climbing. It was brutally painful. Like Steve Julian during ORAMM painful. I pushed through it though, and was pretty well over it by the time we got out of the switchbacks. When we finally got back to the lot, the cramps had passed. I fully expected to lock up again changing clothes, but it never happened.
Woo!
We grabbed some food at El Jinete in Dawsonville. I wonder how many dozens of times I've eaten there over the years...
From there, we headed back to Austin's place and I got the sleepies pretty good. Fortunately I wasn't driving, which is rare. I was fine driving back to my place, but when I got home, I had that whole body tired going and crashed super, super hard on the couch. Fortunately, hunger pangs woke me up in time for dinner, or I'd have probably just slept all night.
