Castlewood ride on 12/13/14 by Captain Ahab.
Ever since the Castlewood 8, TeamBOR has been really quiet. I think everyone has put more focus on family and work. I have been focusing heavily on working on my home and hadn’t trained at all what so ever. I had even stopped my nightly dog walks, which resulted in a backlash of puppy bad behavior of destroying all our pillows and some of our bedding. Therefore, I am pretty out of shape, I also have been sick and I wasn’t really looking forward to the ride Saturday morning. I also had so much to do I didn’t even know if I would make it. Each night I tried to accomplish something to free up the morning half of Saturday. My wife kept urging me to get out and train, which is unusual. I even mulched my entire yard twice in complete darkness with my head lamp on. My neighbors probably think I am nuts by now. I then debated on what to ride and decided on making it an even harder ride by bringing along my 26er 1x9. That would end up giving me some regret.
We were originally going to ride Forest City in Saint James, but no one had enough time so we sent out a last minute change and invite for Castlewood at 8 am. Kevin, Dave, Mickey and Imade an appearance and in typical BOR fashion we shot straight up Lone Wolf with no warm up. My legs were immediately on fire and I could tell I was going to have a rough day. We flew down Lone Wolf and to my surprise the log crossing was removed. I love crossing that thing and was a little upset. I could go into a long rant about making the trails too easy, but I will stop myself. We next hit Grotpeter’s uphill where I went into a coughing spasm and couldn’t hack up my phlegm. The more I tried the more I thought I was going to vomit. I think the guys really wanted to see some projectile puking since they started encouraging me to throw up. I held it back and dropped back in the group and slowly climbed Grotpeter. We then hit the Roller Coaster and I was too weak to jump the log crossing and Dave reminded me of how last time I had cleared it on a fat bike. I started complaining a lot about how I felt and decided that I would just complain all day; I am Ahab after all. Coming down the far side of Grotpeter we found a bird dog that was running crazy with an extremely long leash attached. We followed him to the road where we ganged up on him and caught him right before he would have got hit by a car. I took him to the nearest trail head and tied him to a dead tree, which he promptly pulled out of the ground. Mickey and Kevin rode back up Grotpeter to find the owner and Dave and I tried riding with the dog back up Grotpeter which was no small task since this dog’s front end alignment was pulling to the right so hard. We finally got him back to his owner and rode back down Grotpeter.
Next we hit some of the River Scene Trail and Stinging Nettle to Cedar Bluff. I was glad to see that some of the stupid logs that were put on Cedar Bluff as a deterrent to not ride the low side of the trees in the rock garden had been removed. I can now ride the trail again without stopping to walk around the trees. At the top of Cedar Bluff, by the bench, we put in a small amount of our required pushups, and headed downhill catching Mickey on video riding the trail as if he had a million times,even though it was his first. We then made the last climb and descent out and headed to Bluff View via the Al Foster after saying goodbye to Dave. On Bluff View my legs were screaming to stop but I just dropped behind and rode slow. We caught a glimpse of “Senior” screaming as he went downhill and I again reminded myself not to do that anymore cause he sounds like an idiot even though I know he is having fun. We rode to the bluff and took some pictures and then headed to the top trail head. I was relieved for the return downhill and backtrack to Al Foster. We said good bye to Kevin, and me and Mickey rode up the Zombie. I was going incredibly slow now and had to start walking some as I didn’t have anything left in my legs to push the 1X9. Mickey was still riding really strong and waited for me to catch up at the end of the trail. The Zombie will be an awesome trail once it is finished. Being short on time, and me being short on energy, we disobeyed the turnaround sign and bike-whacked back to the concrete Rock Hollow Trail. We rode Al Foster back to the Nettle and back to the cars. I had 32.5 miles on the odometer and my legs felt terrible. The ride was a wakeup call to start training again. I stayed some time talking to a rider that just finished up a short ride and we discussed each other’s day. He also reminded me that it is not about how far you ride; it is about getting off the couch, getting a ride in no matter how short, and having fun. I wish I had caught his name to invite him out with us.
Please correct me on the new trail names if I am incorrect, as the signage isn’t up as of yet.
Note: There was no notable defecation in this blog…sorry...although my legs did feel like do-do. - Ahab