Chicopee Woods

I guess Marc had a good time shredding Dauset the other week, because he texed me last week seeing if I wanted to ride at Chicopee. Hell yeah, I did. Not unlike Dauset, I couldn't remember the last time I was up there.

We met up with Chris Hovatter again, along with Aaron, and his girlfriend Kathryn (Katherine?). Apparently Aaron's last name is Chamberlain. I somehow didn't know this. Sorry Aaron.

When Aaron and Kathryn arrived, they had a gravel bike in the trunk. They'd apparently just bought it off of some guy in the parking lot, prior to coming over and parking next to us. I don't know gravel bikes, but it was some kind of Specialized, and looked attractive to me. I've been wanting to get a gravel bike for a while now, for no other reason than to take it out to Mississippi and do some of Jason Shearer's events. Maybe I should score one off of some guy in the Chicopee parking lot too.

Once we got moving, I didn't get any photos beacuse we were pretty much hammering the whole time, and there is no trail out there that's easy to take a photo on, while you're hammering.

Some random thoughts... I remembered the trails much better than I had remembered Dauset. Copperhead Gap was much rootier than I remembered though. We ran into lots of other riders, incuding Chad Hungerford, who was out there ripping everything on a singlespeed. The Granny Climb out was less difficult than I remembered, which I guess is progress. Same with the Red Trail. The tail end of the system was also a lot different. You cross over the dam now, rather than going down into the wetlands and crossing the creek. That may have been how it was last time though, I just don't remember. Aaron and Kathryn took off after about 15 miles but Hovatter hung with us the whole time, which was really cool. It wasn't as hot as it had been the previous weekend, but it was still pretty darn hot. I remember squeezing my gloves out over and over, and my hands were prunes when I finally took them off.

Other than that, it was just crushing pedals, non stop, for hours and hours. Fighter jets, just like last weekend. Woo!

We didn't eat together this time. Everybody had things to get home to. I honestly don't remember what I ate, so it couldn't have been too important!