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.

fixing things that aren’t broken

You might have noticed the new header. If you didn't, that last bump in the road was a fluffy little puppy. Start paying attention. There's a small child weeping back there.



But it's a damn fine piece of original art work.



Anyway, I'm changing things up a little. This blog's focus is going to shift from "a blog about bike racing by a goddamn dirty hippy" to "a blog about being a goddamn dirty hippy and racing bikes."



So not much will really change. I'm just terrified that if I keep only writing about bike racing I'll end up disappearing like Thom Parsons, pumping a constant stream of Morrissey into my head like Mahokey, or worse, becoming a Velcro strap salesman like Dicky.



Knobby Meats is a great title and stuff, but I know I'm missing out on hits because people are afraid they're clicking on a rancid porn site. I'm not going to change the address now, but I might at some point. If somebody knows how to have an old url redirect to a new one, let me know. I'll have to do something else with the venerable Meats name.



Maybe I'll start a rancid porn site. That would be a good way to generate funds for this season. Anybody want to let me film them doing it with a bag of expired turkey?



In any case, stuff is going to get more exciting and regular around here (just like my metabolism.) So saddle up and click that little follow button down on the bottom right. That's right, I'm pitifully asking you to boost my motivation to write things.

No post here today, but I wrote a review of my white person bare feet over on the Wilderness Voyaguers blog.

Here's a teaser:

Sexy, ain't it?