Forced a Ride

I haven't been riding for three weeks because of weather and work.  Mostly work.  Today I forced myself to get out and ride.  That's kind of lame because I'm supposed to be enjoying this sport, not forcing myself to do it.  But I didn't have any real destination or goals, and riding the usual trails holds only so much excitement.  Not to mention the sport is a big workout and after a three week break that can hurt.

There has been some recent trail work at Bay Park West lately so I decided to go there.  I've referred to BPW as Big Punishing Workout, so it didn't make a whole lot of sense for me to go there, but I figured I'd take breaks as needed.

Photo: A new fence to keep the mountain
bikers from flying off a cliff

At the start of my ride I felt like I was having trouble balancing.  I quickly discovered I had a low tire pressure problem and not my brain.  I didn't have a pump with me so I kept riding, hoping I'd be able to get used to it or find a mountain biker with a pump.  Thankfully within my first mile I encountered a mountain biker doing some repairs on his broken chain.  He let me borrow a pump and from then on my unicycle rode nicely.  That was a lucky break because I didn't see any other mountain bikers for the rest of my ride.

I actually rode fairly strongly, making a lot of climbs and technical sections.  But it was hot and I didn't need to push it, so it wasn't my longest ride at BPW.

I saw some trail improvements, like regrading and a safety fence at a turn along the edge of a cliff.  Nothing too exciting, but positive improvements nonetheless.

Unicycle science - Why so many wheel sizes?

Roland explains unicycle wheel sizes in this video.  I thought it was well produced.

Trail Work at Four Mile Creek

Work has been busy and we've been getting so much rain.  Those are my excuses for not riding since the race two weeks ago.  Maybe tomorrow.

I also haven't done any trail work so far this year.  But this morning I went to the monthly Friends of Webster Trails work day at Four Mile Creek Preserve.  We cleared a new trail on the east side of Salt Creek.  Most of the ~10 people were cutting vegetation away and raking.  I took the job of chopping out the ankle-twisting sapling stumps.

At the end of out work we hiked to Salt Creek where a group has been working for over a week on a new bridge.  It's coming together nicely.

It was good to get out and help with the trails.  I should have taken some pictures and mapped the trail with GPS.