Goat Island

Earlier this year, I rode Goat Island for the first time, and spent most of the day out there, trying to find my way around. Some of it I couldn't ride because of standing water, and there was one little bit that I didn't ride for some reason that I don't remember now. It's apparently been dry since the end of the summer though, so this past Sunday presented a good opportunity to check it out again. So, check it out, we did.

I don't remember why, but it seemed to take forever to get on the road. I remember that it was challenging to get a map to print, and then going in and out of the house like 6 times forgetting stuff, and then bailing on the super slow Wendy's drive-thru, and Whataburger getting my order wrong... Maybe there was even more, but eventually, we did get on the road, and it didn't seem like it took very long to get to the trail.

There are like 6 or 7 different "official" trails out there, but really, if you take the trail to the left, and stay left, it makes a lollipop with a figure-8 at the end. Everything else is just shortcuts to the main road, or across the loop part of the trail.

There is an interesting side trail though, that I hadn't ridden the last time, so we checked it out when we got to it.

Basically, an old roadbed crosses a spur of the river and leads all the way out to where there was once a bridge:

Only the ruins of a single pier remain today.

My dad marvelled at how abruptly it ended. If one was trusting, one might keep going on the road where the concrete starts, and just ride of into oblivion. There are no signs, fences, or anything. You just have to know to stop, which to me was obvious, but maybe not to everyone.

Somehow, somebody got a truck back there, and a family was milling around when we rode up. No idea where they came from, unless they had a key to the main gate for some reason.

There was a singletrack loop out there too, but it seemed recently created, and like it hadn't gotten much traffic yet.

I guess that area is Goat Island proper too. It's cut off from the "mainland" by a cutoff fork of the river. We didn't see any goats though.

Back on the main trail, we were moving really fast. In the spring and summer, it gets really overgrown with little grasses, and it's kind of difficult to tell where to go unless it's been mown recently. Early winter, there's no grass, and it's really, really clear.

Most of the way out on the loop part, there are a couple of overlooks, and you can see Lock and Dam Number 2 pretty well.

The lock part is that "box" on the far shore. The dam extended across the river to the near shore from there. There were apparently big iron hinges, for lack of a better way to describe them, extending up from the dam. In old photos, it looks like they could be raised or lowered to control the depth of the water behind the dam. There were doors on the lock that could be opened to fill it or closed to drain it. I don't know where the power came from. Maybe it generated its own power. I haven't dug into it too much.

Here's Dad at one of the overlooks.

Note the caution tape behind him, which was absent at that bridge overlook.

We rode a lap of the lollipop, then took an old roadbed that I hadn't been able to ride last time because of standing water back out. I managed to crash trying to get through a busted up old downed tree, get my bars twisted, and jab myself in the thigh. Thank goodness for Ti spokes. Eventually the old road became a trail and joined the other trail.

My dad could really rip that trail. It's really windy, and I he's better than I am at staying off of the brakes these days. Dallas trails are like that - really windy and twisty. You have to lean forward to get your center of gravity low, and either ease up pedaling to be able to carry your speed without braking, or drag the brake while pedaling. It's a very particular skillset that you can't develop very well in Georgia.

On the way back, we checked out another overlook that I hadn't seen before.

Apparently there's a water treatment plant over there, and this is its spillway:

Pretty cool, actually, as waterfalls are few and far between in East Texas.

Last time I'd been there, I'd ridden a levee road out a good ways, but it was super rough and bumpy, and at the end of the day, I got tired of it and just turned around. We tried riding out on it again, and it was much less bumpy, but it wasn't incredibly fun. When we saw horses ahead we were like nah, lets just call it a day.

And so we did. Fun trail. Not all that challenging, but it has more of a backcountry feel than anything else around.

Rowlett

I'm in Forney today, visiting my parents for Christmas. When in the Dallas Metro Area, one must ride Rowlett, and if one's father is a mountain biker who lives in the Dallas Metro Area, then one must ride Rowlett with one's father. Failure to do so will result in a less satisfying trip, as later one will be like: "Dang, I wish I'd gotten to ride Rowlett with my Dad." A terrible consequence! As such, my father and I rode Rowlett together on the day after Christmas.

I was still a little tired from the drive, as it turned out, but I still had a really good time. I want to say we rode 32-odd miles, which were mostly uneventful.

Lots of excellent trail.

A little bit of road.

Here's my dad taking Tums or something.

Heh.

I say mostly uneventful because, when we first arrived back at the lot, I tried to check our distance on my phone, while riding. I was going a little too slow though, and managed to fall to the left, but didn't get my left foot out in time. Woohoo. There was a trash can there, so I caught myself, but I still couldn't get my foot out, and had to slowly lower myself all the way to the ground to get the force off of it. No idea. My right pedal banged my my right shin and ankle, which seemed like no big deal at the time, but then hurt for 2 days after. My left ankle got really twisted up, seemed pretty bad, but ended up only hurting for the next 30 minutes. Go figure.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. There's this teeter-totter somewhere out there that's weighted funny. My dad has a good sense of it, but I don't, and though I watched him ride it like 5 times, every time I'd hit it, I'd have to stall and wait for it, or bail off of the side, super nose-high. Like I'd always be going too fast, maybe? IDK, it looked normal when he'd hit it. I never figured it out.

Woodstock

I haven't gotten many rides in for the past few weeks. Rain, work, family obligations, the usual. I did manage to clear some of the cobwebs out of my lungs this past Saturday at Blanket's Creek though, and followed it up Sunday with some exploration of the Old Little River WMA and the greater Woodstock area, in general.

I parked at Rope Mill, got changed, threw the bike together, and hit the trail. "The trail" being a little fishing trail on the south side of the Little River that I'd never noticed before. As expected, it led along the river some ways, before just petering out into nothing. Several groups of people were fishing, but it didn't look like anyone was having any luck. The trail was really tricky in a few spots - super off-camber, rooty. In one spot, it was extremely narrow, with a steep drop down to the river on the right, and I kept catching my bars on thorn vines. Sketchy, sketchy, sketchy. There was also this makeshift bridge where my back wheel was just big enough to fit between the boards. No idea how I managed to keep from breaking my derailleur.

Speaking of my derailleur... It had been giving me trouble all day at Raccoon Mountain - just would not shift into to smaller gears in the back, if I got it more than halfway up the cassette. I finally had to release the clutch to make it work. Since then, it's been slapping around like mad, and it's really damn annoying. Worse, I really need to increase the B-tension a bit to pull out the slack in the chain when I'm in the smallest 2 gears, which would only make the shifting worse. I know the issue is a dirty cable, but internal routing makes that a pain to fix. Yay, technology.

I ended up riding south and re-riding a bunch of stuff I'd explored a few months back. The word seems to be out on those trails though, as I ran into 6 more folks out riding them while I was out there, none of whom were Chris, Shane, Avery, or anyone else generally associated with those trails. Though, Avery worked for one of the guys I met. His name slips my mind now, because I'm terrible with names, but I recognized it from somewhere - internet maybe? He was riding with Van Council and Van's son. I definitely remember Van Council from the internet - sorba forum probably. It's always neet to finally run into people that you know, but don't really know.

Approaching Towne Lake Parkway, I met another guy and we rode together for a while. I wanted to explore the woods around the high school, but he had to get back to Rope Mill, so we parted after a quick chat.

The high school turned out to be both high school and middle school. Chris called it Dizzyville after he and Shane spun countless laps there in the early days of the pandemic, when everything was still shut down. Dizzyville it is.

The loop they did wasn't hard to find. It's basically this really obvious trail around the perimiter of the property.

At some point, it devolves into a network of ATV trails and right-of-ways though, which were a little challenging to decipher.

There was an old bridge out there at one point.

I love when there's a trail on one side of a bridge, but nothing discernible on the other. How long since it was last used?

Little spur trails led from the main trail to various ball fields and access roads.

Wolverines!

(that's a Red Dawn reference, for anyone too young to remember)

One of the right-of-ways led to Posey Creek, and it looked like ATVs mainly came from the other side, rode all over the hills behind the school, and maybe strayed onto the main trail occasionally, but not too often. I didn't feel like I had time to cross the creek and go down that rabbit hole, so I turned back there and finished trying to decode the web of trails closer to the school. It seemed like some of them may have predated the school itself, as they ended abruptly at fence lines, or in parking lots. There were old looking arrows on trees too, and trails so disused that the only way to tell where to go was was to look for the corridor and then verify that the ground was slightly harder in that direction.

The Towne Lake Pass Trail ran alongside the road to the school, before diverging off to the east a block or so away.

I took that bad boy east to the Woofstock Dog Park, picked up the Noonday Creek Trail there, and explored it in both directions. Years ago, I'd ridden it from Kennesaw to Bells Ferry Road, and I figured this section was just completed since then. Well, that turned out to be semi-true. It is a new section, and it was completed since then, but it doesn't connect to the section ending at Bells Ferry. Instead, it just ends abruptly at Hwy 92.

I can see the corridor that might connect the two sections on aerial photos, but for now, they are distinct.

I the other direction, it led to downtown Woodstock.

I'd parked in the lot next to that end of it many times over the past few years. I'd to work all day at a client's site in Canton, spin a couple of laps around Blanket's Creek or Rope Mill, then grab some dinner in Woodstock, and I'd inevitably park in the lot right there. It was cool to finally be riding there.

Some park just off the square had some festive decorations up.

A couple of families were taking pictures of their kids in front of the tree.

It's actually getting pretty close to Christmas, but this year just doesn't feel much like it. We'd watched a stream of the Alliance Theatre's Christmas Carol earlier that day, and it was honestly the first hint of the Christmas spirit that I'd felt yet. It was a pretty cool version, actually. They did it like an old-timey radio show, with 3 actors and a foley artist. They elaborated a bit on the traditional ghost stories too. The Ghost of Christmas Future made Scrooge experience his own death, in his actual grave, and the infinite expanse of time that followed - the sun going red giant, and the eventual heat death of the universe! I loved it, it was creepy as hell.

But, I digress.

That little display in the park there really helped, and I had a bit of a smile on my face as I rode up Main Street back to the car.

Back at the park, I saw a guy playing with his little 1 year old daughter in the creek. She was picking up rocks and trying to hold on to a big pile of them. Then she'd throw them into the water. I really miss that kind of thing with my kids. Maybe not exactly that, but spending time with them, exploring our world.

I guess I can still explore my world. I guess that's what I did all day, actually.

More of that then.

Raccoon Mountain

When I was at Mulberry Gap a while back, Mark B. mentioned that he'd be getting a birthday ride together the next weekend at Raccoon Mountain. Was I in? Heck yeah, I was in! I couldn't even remember when I'd last ridden at Raccoon Mountain. Even now, I'd have to look back through this blog to figure it out.

We'd planned to ride Saturday, but rain was in the forecast, so Mark pushed it to Sunday. On cue, it rained all afternoon on Saturday, but it wasn't super hard, if I remember correctly, and it didn't seem like it would be a mess on Sunday.

Sunday morning, I woke up pretty early, and hit the Waffle House on the way out of town for some eggs, toast, and of course, waffles.

It had honestly been a while since I'd even driven very far for a ride, much less out of state, and I found myself enjoying that, just in and of itself. It was early too, and I hadn't recently gotten up early for a ride either. The whole thing was both novel and nostalgic at the same time.

As I headed into Tennessee, there was fog ahead.

Statistically, the most dangerous weather phenomenon.

I couldn't remember exactly how to get to the East Overlook, so I'd just googled "Raccoon Mountain" and it sent me to the Racoon Mountain Campground and Stables (or something like that), which are actually on the west side, and not actually on the mountain itself. I'd definitely never approached the mountain from the west before, but it looked like there was some way to do that, so I followed some road up around the north side.

It was even foggier there.

But, soon enough, the fog turned weirdly blue, and then I rose right out of it. Whenever the road made it possible to look over the side, I could see the tops of clouds down below me.

Awesome.

At some point I passed a big turbine or something, and then later this giant valve.

I honestly don't remember if that was below the fog, or above it, but I took the photo after that fog photo, so I guess above it?

Raccoon Mountain is strange. It's basically a big battery. When power is plentiful, they pump water up to a giant reservior on top of the mountain. When power is scarce, they drain that water backwards through the pumps, which also serve as turbines/generators and produce power. I think it's seasonal, but I don't really remember. There's one like it in Georgia too, near Rome. Rock Mountain or something. It's smaller though, I think.

At the East Overlook, I got a really good view of the fog.

You can usually see Chattanooga really well from there.

Mark, Aaron, Chris, Daryl, and Marc all showed up shortly after I did. I'd actually passed Aaron and Chris on the drive up and not known it was them.

I expected it to be cold, but it kind-of wasn't. Not terrible at least.

Instead of a typical cycling bib, I've been trying out chamoisless, full-length tights, for several months now, even back when it was still warm. They've been working out pretty well, with the exception that I've managed to rip a hole in the crotch of every pair.

The first pair were a pair of super old running tights, like literally 10 years old, or more. So, I figured it was just their time. But it was suspicious, because I'd managed to rip a hole in my PBR bib in the same spot. The bib was also worn out though, so I figured it was coincidental, but not unexpected. Then I ordered some cheapies on Amazon, and promptly tore through them, in the same spot, in 1 ride. Well, they only cost $8, so... But, the last straw was ripping a hole in the exact same spot on my old REI back-up bib. Yeah, it was old, but I hardly ever wore it. I eventually discovered that the way my seat post grabs the rails creates a little notch that fabric can catch on. It's not a big problem on the road, but get off road, where you're gerching all around on the seat, and it apparently gets caught often enough to tear up whatever you throw at it. Only on the right side, for some reason though. No problems on the left.

To manage this, I cut a chunk out of an old road tube, then split that, wrapped it around the front clamp, tied it together, and stuck the knot up between the seat and the seat rails. In theory, it should make it impossible to get the fabric of my shorts caught between the rail and the clamp, and also just create a softer surface to grind the fabric against. I did this while I was in Texas, but I only got in a few easy rides on it there.

Also, right before I left for Texas, I'd ordered a pair of Pearl Izumi chamoisless, non-thermal Attack Tights from REI. Same fabric as the shorts/bibs, but no chamois, and they were full length. I'd been looking for exactly that for a while, and finally found some. None of the Atlanta stores had a pair, but there was a pair, in my size (large as it turns out) in the Plano store, so I ran up there and picked them up while I was in town. They worked pretty well in the 80's. I wasn't sure how well they'd work out in the high 30's, but I was about to find out.

So, I was rocking the afore-described tights, my new Mulberry Gap jersey, my Craft base layer under that, my new Pinhoti Hand-Ups, some Wal Mart socks, and my old-and-busted Garneau shoes. Oh yeah, the socks. It turns out Wal-Mart sells some cheap-ass "AND1" socks that are slightly tight when you first buy them (on me at least), but conform after several washings, and are at least as comfortable, marginally more durable, and block wind as well as any cycling socks I've ever worn. I don't know about weight, but I'll probably never weigh them.

It was in the high 30's at the time, but I felt really comfortable. Of course we weren't moving yet, but I was optimistic. Everybody else was bundling up, but they looked overdressed to me.

We'll see.

Eventually, everbody was ready to go, so we took off, out of the lot, to the north. I had no idea where we were going, but it all looked kind-of familiar.

Before long, we rode up on some fenced area and everybody sat around debating whether to keep going, or ride the expert trails on the other side of the fence.

Ahh, yes, the infamous Chunky section. Last time I'd been there, there was no fence, and the time before, John had broken his frame. I was happy enough to keep going, but three of us were on enduro rigs, or at least trail bikes... non-UL-XC bikes like mine and Mark's... I forget what Marc was riding ...and as such, it was wrong to pass up the gnar, so we headed off into it.

Almost immediately we came upon the first drop, and everybody milled around on top, trying to decide whether to risk it or not.

I suffered from no such indecision. There was no way I was dropping off that. It wasn't the height. There's a drop that tall at Blankets. It was the angle of the slope you had to land on, the chunky rocks in the landing zone, and the speed you'd gain in the air. If I look at an obstacle and it srikes me like: "oh yeah, I'm confident I can do that" then I might. Otherwise no. Hard no. This was a hard no, and I felt no shame about it.

Right about then, a crew of 3 other guys showed up, and one of them rode off the drop, seemingly confident. He went off, right as I was mid-sentence about how John had broken his frame on a similar drop. His suspension bottomed out, and his bike made the most wretched cracking noise. The timing was perfect and I was able to finish my sentance with: "...sounded about like that." And, boy did it. The guy rode it out though. No crashing. John hadn't crashed either though. His buddies weren't having any of it, and our guys decided against it too.

Wise choice.

In my absence, two new trails had been constructed - Live Wire and High Voltage. We ended up dropping down off of the mountain on Live Wire, and it was full shred, top to bottom. Rocks, roots, rollers, bridges, little drops... And it was still damp from the fog that had only just burned off. Slip management was the name of the game. I imagine that trail would be amazing when it was dry, and even more amazing if you knew it pretty well.

At the bottom, we paused to regroup...

...and Aaron suggested we take a right and drop down to the river. "It's right there."

And so it was. And, with the fog lifted, we got a nice view of it.

I remember a turkey vulture flying around, and trying to decide whether it was a turkey vulture or not. It looked too big, and its head looked too dark. But, it was just a trick of the light, I guess, as I eventually decided that's what it was.

We backtracked a bit on Live Wire, and picked up High Voltage heading west around the north end of the mountain. It was a gentle climb, at first. Mark kept assuring me that it would get super tough soon. I imagined that climb in the middle of P6, or maybe P3 switchbacks or something. Then, it would get steeper for a little bit, and I'd wonder if that's what he meant, or if it was going to get even more difficult. Turns out, the latter. Eventually, you climb right up the side of the mountain. There were a series of really technical switchbacks up there that rival the ones on P3, and there's one with pavers laid into it that is easily as steep and long as the steep chunk of P6. So, I should have imagined both, I guess. Right after that super steep chunk, Aaron and Marc passed me, and dropped me so hard that it was upsetting. John and I used to joke about doing that. It's a good race tactic. Don't just pass someone, drop them so hard that it's upsetting. It usually works really well, but I remember trying to do it with Eddie Wimberly at Dauset once, and it turned into an epic battle that lasted several laps until I finally, barely edged him out, right at the end. ...But I digress!

Little, by little, it got easier to climb, and eventually we ended up at the top of the mountain again. We'd passed some folks going the other direction at the bottom, and then a few more going the other direction at the top. I wondered if Mark had chosen the sadistic direction on purpose, whether it was actually tough in either direction, whether it was just more fun to descend Live Wire, etc. I'll have to ride it the other way some day and find out.

At some point, we ended up on familiar trail. There was some ledge that you could drop off and end up between two boulders. Once again, it wasn't the height of the drop, it was the speed you'd pick up into chunky rocks and a blind curve. Aaron, Chris, and Daryl rode it though, and made it look pretty easy. I walked it, but still managed to almost crash just getting wide in the curve at the bottom, below the sketchy rocks. No idea.

There was a fairly tall downed tree that I managed to hop a minute or so later though, and some tricky rock slabs that I had no trouble with, so I felt somewhat redeemed soon after.

When we got back to the overlook, you could see Chattanooga.

Yes! That's how I remember it.

Awesome that I got to see it both ways.

So that was the first round. Round 2 would consist of more familiar trails, though I was fairly certain I wouldn't remember them well enough to certify them as familiar.

This time we actually rode the Chunky section. Nobody rode off of that drop, but there were lots of rocky slabs with really technical lines onto, between, and off of them, and a few small drops, but nothing I didn't feel confident riding.

At some point, there's a little spur that leads down to an overlook.

We all took a group picture, but Mark has it, and I prefer Night Watchman style group shots, myself. Even, if everyone's back is turned.

I remember that we rode some stuff, looped back on the Small Intestine Trail, which looks all small-intestine on the map, but in real life doesn't feel all that twisty, then rode some of what we'd already ridden, skipped looping back again, and kind of generally rode all around the top of the mountain. We eventually made it back to that drop with the sketchy run between the boulders. There was a way to just ride down it at one end, that Mark showed me. I managed that, and I also managed to not almost crash at the bottom.

I was definitely starting to flag. We ended up at some multi-way intersection eventually. Chris and Aaron took one way back, while me, Mark, Marc, and Daryl took what I guess was a longer way. Maybe that was before the drop. IDK, all I know is that it went on forever, I cratered like a mile out from the car, and felt like I'd really gotten my money's worth when I got back to the lot.

Done.

Mark joked about having been faster than Aaron, and Aaron joked like: "Breaking News. Elderly gentleman on UL XC rig edges out younger, more attractive rider on enduro bike..." and it just kept going. Later that evening, they were texting the group with more of it. Apparently Aaron has the KOM for Mountaintown from Buddy Cove Gap to Gates Chapel Road, and he lords this over Mark, though Mark has more local KOMs of his own. Heh... Boys.

Nobody wanted to eat together, because COVID, so we split up and headed home. I vaguely remembered getting some good ribs on the way out of town once, and figured out that it had been at Sugar's Ribs. They still existed, and were open, so I hit them up for some brisket and cornbread, only to find that it was evil jalapeno cornbread. I'll have to keep that in mind.

And that was it. The drive back was uneventful, and I slept really well that night.

PaCO Mixed Loop and High Shoals Falls

A few weeks back, Billy and I finally got together for some MTB action. We'd been trying for weeks, but between holidays and family stuff, it had been quite difficult. Eventually though, it all worked out, and we made it out to the Paulding forest for some miles on the mixed-loop.

The so-called PaCO Mixed Loop is actually a collection of various loops in and around Paulding County (PaCO) and the Paulding Forest, in particular. There are plenty of roads through the forest, both old-and-abandoned, and still-used, but most of them are (AFAIK) closed to bikes and horses, and only open to vehicular traffic during hunting season, for the purpose of hunting. Years ago (2014?) I had a discussion with some set of folks about that. I think it was the county and the DNR, but it's fuzzy now. They had to research the actual rules, and it took quite some time to figure it out. Basically though, bikes and horses can't ride roads behind gates, but anything else is fair game, including state/county roads, of which there are many, and many are gravel. If you string them together, you get a mixed loop - that is a mix of pavement and gravel. Thus the PaCO Mixed Loop. I didn't name it BTW, I just learned about it from the web page of the organization formerly known as Pauding Sorba.

You usually start the loop at the Rambo Trailhead on the Silver Comet, ride out to some road that crosses it, do one of three increasingly larger loops, and then ride back on the Silver Comet. It can be anywhere from like 25 to 75 miles. I've done all of these loops, and they're great fun, especially in the middle of the summer when you almost run out of water over and over, and your second bottle of Gatorate is guaranteed to start to ferment in the sun.

We were having none of that though. There's actually a good place to park and start, about 1/3rd of the way around the loop - High Shoals Falls. I'd never parked there before, but it always looked encticing. Yes. That would be our starting point, and we'd skip all of that Silver Comet nonsense as well.

It actually took us a little while to find the High Shoals lot. There are signs that point toward it, but there's no sign at it, and you're just expected to recognize it, which is tricky because there's a cemetery there and it's easy to think it's just the lot for the cemetery.

We figured this out though, got kitted up, and after a quick nature break in the woods behind a different cemetery nearby, got right to it.

The north end of the loop was how I remembered it. We were doing the shortest of the loops, and really, an abbreviated version of that even, so we didn't go all the way up to Cartersville. Rather, we rode some pavement and gravel for a while, then rolled into the community of Braswell. And, when I say community, I mean, hotel, convenience store, sherrif's office, and not much more.

Part of the route that I take, which is slightly different from the prescribed route, leads past what used to be an old, abandoned hall of some sort. It reminded me of a roller-rink, but I was never really sure what its intended purpose was. Well, it's been renovated since, and is now the Braswell Mountain Music Venue.

All right!

The route is pretty rough around there - old rutted roads, downed trees, and a jaunt up over some railroad tracks.

Down by the tracks, at the end of this seldom-traveled gravel road, there was a table set up, with a semi-permanent roof over it, and a bunch of campaign signs promoting various republican candidates. It seemed super random at first, but our best guess became that the property to the right was probably a deer lease, the table/shelter was some kind of sign-in, and the ads were there to promote the candidates to the various hunters.

Mmm, hm. Sherlock Holmes.

I was discouraged to find that a significant length of the road leading up over Brushy Mountain had been paved since I was last there. It was certainly easier climbing, but I think I liked it better when it was dirt.

Part of Yorkville Pass was still gravel though, so we enjoyed that.

On Hwy 101, you hang a left, then bear left at Darlene's Pizza onto some other road. Gold Mine Road maybe? There's an extended downhill there where you can get compltely spun out on a mountain bike, and like halfway down that, I heard an ominous tearing sound from behind me. Rrrrrriiiipppppp.... I turned around just in time to see Billy hit the pavement at full speed. If you know Billy, and his crash history, you can imagine the terror that gripped me.

He'd caught his tire on the edge of the pavement, and could just bump off into the grass for a second, because it was right in the middle of this big rut.

Fortunately, he seemed uninjured. He had some road rash on his hip and thigh, but everything else was fine. He'd torn up his arm warmers and shorts a bit, and scuffed up various parts of his bike, but his head hadn't slammed into the ground, and he didn't get too twisted up in his bike or anything. Signs pointed in the direction of good fortune. We stopped up the road a bit and I checked him out a bit. No dialated pupils. Full range of motion. His hip hurt a little. We had to readjust one of his brake levers, I think.

Ok though, amazingly, we were good to go.

On the various roads leading back north, I noticed that some of them had been full-on paved. Last I'd ridden them, they'd been BST'ed, but now it was black top.

Near another crossing of the same tracks we'd crossed earlier, there was this old house, that I'd seen several times. This time though, it was totally burned out.

We joked about how that had insurance scam written all over it. Long ago, it was a cute little country cottage. Then they built a railroad right next to it, but not on the actual property, so no luck getting the railroad to buy up the land. Demolition by neglect ensues, eventual fire, insurance claim. $$$

Maybe. I don't know enough about insurance fraud to know whether that's plausible or not.

The roads north of that were still gravel, almost all of the way back to the car. On High Shoals Road, I couldn't remember which way to turn, and, after committing to the wrong direction, remembered that I'd experienced that same confusion in the past, and that we needed to go the other way. Billy was all "I think it's the other way" right at that same moment, which was pretty helpful in making the decision to turn around. It had seemed wrong to him too.

Yep. Just down the road, we saw signs for the falls, and pretty soon we were back at the car.

It was getting slightly dusky, but we both wanted to go check out the falls, so we changed clothes and took a quick walk down to it. We could hear it, so we were pretty sure it wasn't too far away.

Not too far away, indeed!

Awesome!

There were a few other folks down there. A couple that looked miffed about how many other folks were around, some guy playing guitar, his girl, and his kid, and a whole crew of drunk locals who'd climbed to the top. They were hollering and chunking rocks down periodically. I saw two of them slip, two different times too. This did not seem safe, but nobody fell, and nobody got hit with any rocks. Hey, have your fun.

I don't remember what else we did. I remember eating dinner by myself, so I probably just drove him home and grabbed something. Yeah, I need to make time to journal when it's all still fresh in my head.

Mulberry Gap

Ginni's retiring this year, but because of the current COVID situation, they can't really throw a big retirement part for her. I imagine that probably suits her reasonably well though. It's nice to be lavished in attention, but it's tough to spend any amount of time with anyone in particular. Bascially, instead, we were encouraged to drop by for part of the day, ideally around or after lunch, hang out a bit, give hugs, and then give others their chance to do the same.

I don't remember the specifics, but it was difficult for me to make it up there. I think maybe I'd driven back from Dallas the day before. Yeah, I know I could look up the dates and figure it out, but... lazy.

I did make it up there though, and it was wonderful to see everyone. I realized I'd only been to MGap one other time this year, and that was to drop off my old bike.

I gave Ginny all the big hugs she could handle, and got to talk to her for a while, ask her about her plans, and so on. She's headed down to Florida. Everything's all set up. She'll still be up at MGap for a few weeks I think, but this would likely be the last time I'd see her, until she comes back to visit. Basically, she's following Diane's lead, and it's worked out pretty well for Diane. It's always an unexpected blessing when I go up there for some event and Diane happens to be there. Hopefully Ginny will be back up as often as Diane has.

I just happened to be there when a bunch of folks I knew were also there. Mark, Marc, Jen, Monte, Daryl... I forget who else. Lots of folks. Of course, Kate, Andrew, and Diane. Though I didn't know Diane would be there, so ta-da! Unexpected blessing!

While I was there, I made a run through the shop. Glen's totally out of jerseys, and I've just been wearing two base layers on top of each other for weeks now. My Hand-Ups have gotten extroardinarly raggedy too. So bad, that they catch on my levers and shifters when I move my hands around. Unacceptable! Similarly though, Glen's out of them in my size. Fortunately, MGap sells Pinhoti themed Hand-Ups and Mulberry Gap themed jerseys, so I took advantage of this ideal situation to replenish my gear drawer.

Mark brought Ryn with him and it was cool to see her. I think it's been about a year, and she keeps getting bigger and taller, like kids do.

For some other reason that I can't remember, I couldn't stay too long, so I hit the road after an hour or so. Football game, maybe? Whatever it was, it was weird, because I've now been to Mulberry Gap twice this year, and neither time did I ride or hike. Tragic. Maybe next year will be better.

Cedar Hill

The day before Thanksgiving, my brother and I tried to ride at Cedar Hill. When he lived there, he used ride it every weekend. I've ridden it a few times - once before he moved there, once again, with him when he lived there, once again with my Dad when it was like 112 degrees outside and we'd already ridden Big Cedar earlier in the same day. I want to say that was in 2012. It had been even longer since John had been there.

Since the start of the pandemic, state parks have been very careful how many people they let in the park at once. You have to get a pass, and it's only valid for 1 day. Also, the parts of the park where people would gather together are usually closed outright. No problem though, trails are not such parts, and we were able to acquire the passes online. Excellent. We were excited, and drove out early that morning.

And, when we arrived, the trails were all closed. Apparently it had rained there overnight, and that's all it takes to shut things down. Man. I kicked myself for not checking the Dorba site. I checked it on my phone, leaving the park. Nearly everything was closed.

Now that I think about it, I think all of that happened before we went and rode that gravel loop that I described in the previous post. Yeah. Fuzzy memories.

At any rate, that night Daniel was back in town, and we all went to this place Sherlock's and sang Karaoke. You'd think that'd be risky during a pandemic, but they were impressively careful about it. I sang Folsom Prison Blues, The Devil Went Down to Georgia, and Are You Gonna Go My Way. These I pulled off. I then tried You Shook Me All Night Long, which went about as badly as you can imagine. Daniel sang 3am, Walking in Memphis, and Pour Some Sugar on Me. He killed all three of them. It was awesome. John's girl Sia was there with us too. I can't remember her first sone, but she sang whatever that was, and Hotel California, and was better than me at both of those as well. It was a great time, but we didn't get to bed until like 3AM.

...and then me and John were back at Cedar Hill the next morning, hoping to get a ride in before the Thanksgiving festivities got underway.

It went about as well as the gravel loop the day before. I managed to set a few PRs, but also felt like I was struggling the whole time.

Here I am, chasing John across some prairie.

And, for some reason, more open prairie.

At a lot of trails in Dallas, you wind on singletrack through the trees, then pop out on a prairie for a while, then head back into the trees, over and over.

Here's some of that singletrack.

John led for the first lap, and I led for the second. There's like 1 little kick in the middle of the trail, and it was easy the first lap, but I blew up climbing it on the second.

John had to fix something, at some point.

I don't remember what.

Neither of us really remembered the trail. John used to know it like the back of his hand, but it had been too long, and things had changed a bit. Honestly, it was kind of novel to ride there, and fun for nostalgia's sake, but it wasn't as awesome as we remembered. It's super, super, super twisty and rooty. Just incredibly technical. That's kind of fun, but it's tough to ride for hours. You can't rip and flow. The second half of the trial is better than the first, as far as that goes, but even it's a bit confined. A lot of the trail is below grade too, and just getting eaten down into the ground more and more each year. You can tell that they're trying to keep it sustainable - thus all of the twists and turns, but up in the trees, it really needs longer, shallower runs, with reversals, and the soil there is just really soft. You'd have to keep the grades really shallow. Worse, really, is that the lines of sight are extremely limited, and it's a popular hiking trail, so you end up not wanting to rip, lest you run up on a hiker too quickly. That happened a few times, and I felt pretty bad about it.

Ugh. Fun-ish, but probably won't ride there again unless someone specifically wants to.

Oh yeah. On the way out, we saw this DIY waterpark, and got a photo of it on the way back.

"I told the kids we were going to the waterpark this year, and damnit, we're going, even if I have to build one myself!"

Something like that. Corrugated pipe strapped to a stack of pallets. I'm not sure that's even a legitimate above-ground pool. Whatever's going on there, I applaud the effort. I hope it turned out to be safer than it looks!