Goat Island

No trip to Dallas would be complete without riding Goat Island.

It had rained on Monday, but by Saturday, it was finally dry enough to risk putting tires on natural surfaces. It was an especially safe risk in the floodplain of the Trinity, where there is plenty of sand to help counteract the clay, and as fate would have it, Goat Island is located in one such floodplain.

All right, lets ride.

As that afternoon/evening, we intended to help my brother Daniel move into his new place, my Dad and I made it over reasonably early in the day.

The trails were in fine shape, only a little bit of mud here and there, but in this photo, if you zoom in, you can see how even sandy blackland clay wants to cake up on your tires.

That was about the equilibrium amount for his tires. It didn't cake up any more than that. My Dad rides Maxxis Aspens, which have fewer and more spread-out knobs than the Ikons that I tend to ride. His are the superior tire for that area. Mine caked up slightly more than his. It didn't affect grip, but I could feel the weight.

I want to say we just did one big lap, and it was kind-of all business - we didn't stop and see the sights. We were a bit pressed for time as it was, and didn't want to introduce additional delays.

It was still a lot of fun. Ripping through the woods with my Dad is still one of my favorite things. I just didn't get much in the way of photos, and it was a fairly uneventful ride.

We did get home in good time, grabbed some food, and made our way up to Daniel's new place. There, we assembled beds and furniture, hung TVs, and moved stuff around in the house for the next 8 hours. Despite the effort, it was great to see Daniel again, and I hope, a few months on now, their new house feels like a home.