Tryon Sessions

I've had mixed feelings about Tryon Park.  It's one of the harder parks with a combination of steeper hills and rooty, rocky terrain.  On tougher trails, I'm often already winded or fatigued as I approach the next challenge.  When this causes me to dismount, I think "Eh, maybe in time I'll have the endurance and skill to clean this trail, but not today", and I continue on.  I'm usually more focused on continuously moving, like in a race, and not so much on stopping to session difficult sections.

But at last weekend's muni festival, sessioning was often the priority.   Between that, and Dustin telling me he rode at Tryon a few days ago, I was inspired to head to Tryon for some fun.  Unfortunately Dustin wasn't able to ride today, but I hope we can session Tryon together soon.

The munifest also inspired me to find a way to take more photos and videos on the trail.  I ride with my camera phone in my CamelBak but I rarely want to stop and take it out.  I'm working on a way to have it accessible; probably a holster of sorts.  I also want a way to set my camera on the ground for videoing.  I have a small Joby tripod and today I rigged up a way to mount my phone using an L-bracket and a suction cup.  It seemed to work well and hold the phone securely.

So this afternoon I headed to Tryon.  I had the most fun I've ever had there by sessioning the hard parts.  Maybe right now I can't get through everything on the first try, or when I'm fatigued, but practicing is going to help with that.  I still had to stop to access my camera, but I wanted to test my tripod so I did a few times.  I'd have to stop about 30 times to get all the footage I'd want, but for now this was cool.  I'm extremely happy with my tripod phone mount.

a wooden jump on the Purple trail

I noticed more rock obstacles and general trail improvements have been made since my last visits.  The GROC crew is awesome!  I need to help out some more.

I'm looking forward to heading back to Tryon soon.

Here are two clips I edited together: