skinned palms and explosives

I hit some railroad tracks on my way to class today. Usually when I misjudge a distance and hop into a big metal rail, I un-clip and put a foot down. No drama, and I continue making engine noises and yelling "IMA DUMP TRUCK!" to scare people on the bike path.

But today I was wearing my extra special shoes that occasionally and unexpectedly refuse to disengage from the pedal.

Now I have medical tape for palm skin:

After refusing to grant a frazzled-shopping-cart-pushing-bag-woman passage on the trail until she kissed my boo boo, I went home to watch a Cash Cab marathon and cry.

But my bald guy driving a mini van and asking stupid questions session kept getting interrupted by two bald guys performing a movie length advertisement for the Dodge Challenger:

And I've decided that I must go see it. The Rock grew facial hair just so I, the lowly movie consumer, could distinguish him from Vin Diesel. That's an effort that I won't take for granted.
 

FAST5 (the title isn't really all caps, but it should be) is the ideal movie. Lots of people taking themselves too seriously, going nowhere as fast as possible, and ultimately accomplishing nothing. It's just like bike racing with more explosions. Pure heaven.

Speaking of bike racing and explosions, the first West Virginia race of the year is this Sunday. But I think I mentioned that yesterday in my wildly exciting post about hexagonal tools. In any case, it's all I feel like thinking about. At least it's mostly harmless.

vulture's knob

If somebody tried to convince me that there was a rad trail system next to this soda/cereal/cheese puff field, I'd tell them to dive into a pine tree.


But it's there, and it has descents like this:

The trail is that shale filled rut under the bridge. I rode it a couple times this summer, and it was sketch balls crazy. The waterfall running down the middle of it yesterday was too much. I walked.

The guys that build the trails at Vulture's Knob have done an awesome job. It's a small piece of land, but by twisting the trails around, they've squeezed at least 10 miles of single track out of the place.


There aren't any long climbs, but they're all hard. Steep, loose, and full of tight turns.


The dirt out there is thick clay with some loose pebbles worked in. Even with all the snow that just melted, the trails were nice and tacky. It felt so good to flow through the trees after a long winter.

A few of the downhill sections had turned into rivers. They were looking pretty eroded, so I took it slow to avoid making them any worse. Everywhere else the mud was concentrated into a few puddles.

I tried to ride up one of the bridges, and my rear tire broke free half way up. I got my feet down, but kept sliding backwards. Right before I went over the edge I was able to grab a railing.

I took it easy on the wood work after that. It was slippier than shampoo on a linoleum floor.
 

The Knob is a great example of how much can be done with a few acres of well managed ground.

I even found some dinner there:


Trial guide and directions

I'm going to Mohican today. If you have the means, I highly recommend dating someone who lives next to a bunch of good mountain biking. It's swell.