I headed back to Webster Park this afternoon to ride the trails I helped clear the other day. After doing that work there's been a place in my middle back that's been bothering me. I must have lifted a log with my back and not my legs. The area around one vertebrae has been sore to touch and painful in certain positions. It's gotten better over the past week and I suspect it will not bother me at all soon.
That injury didn't cause me any problems during my ride today, but my lower back did get fatigued as it often does on technical trails. Having these "new" trails mostly clear was nice, but riding them straight through without stepping off will take some practice.
I found one of these little pirate bags with plastic jewels hanging on a pine tree in Webster Park. I wonder who left it there and why. It was clean and the jewels were in a sealed plastic bag so I brought it home for my 3 year old. She was excited.
Tonight I spent a few hours in Webster Park clearing some of the downed trees I found annoying a few days ago. I doubt the park or county would encourage rogue trail work, but hopefully it's no big deal. I only used a small bow saw and that made the work a bit difficult. A few big trees will require someone to come through with a chainsaw. If someone did have a chainsaw they would have done the work I did in a tenth of the time, but I'm not sure when or if that will happen. So I'm happy to have done it.
I'm not sure if I'll try to clear any of the bigger trees on this trail. Maybe I'll just point them out to the park people. I also noticed some other opportunities. With the rain we had earlier today, it was obvious that this trail has a water problem. There are a fair number of mud pits. I wasn't really looking for solutions, but I did see a few places where the trail could easily be shifted a few feet to higher ground. I don't have any immediate plans for that work.
I turned my GPS on late but I hiked in the same trail as I hiked out.
I went back to Webster Park this afternoon to try to hit some more trails that I knew were there but didn't have a chance to hit two days ago.
I'm excited to find some really awesome trails that have a good deal of roots and technical hills. Most of these were in areas of pine trees and the needles and roots made for a fun and challenging ride.
The only problem was there were many fallen trees and every 30 seconds I was dismounting. If these trees were on the ground they might make good obstacles and be worth leaving alone. But most if not all just need to be cleared. Maybe someone will get in there and clean things up.
It must be every year that I venture further into Webster Park to try to sort out the tangle of trails and find some good routes. Webster Park is a confusing place. Normally I start from the Whiting parking lot and generally ride a lollipop shaped route through Webster Park. I often add on the Midnight trail, another lollipop, to the south, and extend my ride to the north on some other trail, but along the way I pass a lot of optional trails that I don't yet have mapped in my mind.
Today I did some more exploring. I don't think I rode on any trails I've never been on, but hopefully I made a little more sense out of the confusion. I'd like to be able to find another loop or two to add to my options. I didn't take good notes, but with my GPS data I think I'll be able to ride next time with some purpose.
At one point in today's ride I failed to dodge a low hanging vine. It happened to have thorns, caught my ear, and sliced the edge nicely.
Without a mirror or camera I couldn't see the damage on the trail, but I dabbed it with a tissue as a rode. Hopefully it will heal up and not leave me horribly disfigured.
The Schlumpf geared unicycle hub was one of the items on an episode of the How It's Made show. I don't find the manufacturing process particularly fascinating for this product, but it is entertaining to imagine the people who will see this. Most probably only know unicycling as something done by a kid on the driveway or clowns at a circus. The footage of Kris Holm should impress them, but then the concept of a geared unicycle has got to be kind of mind blowing.
I took a vacation day to attend a local muni gathering at Whiting. And it wasn't just me, Dustin, and Mj!
A group from the University of Rochester's Strong Jugglers decided to organize a muni ride. It's rather common for jugglers to learn to unicycle. While many of them hadn't ridden on trails before and didn't have proper muni equipment, they gave if a try and were pretty good.
Mj and Dustin were able to join in too. All together we had 11 riders!
There were a whole lot of 20" wheels which are generally too small for muni, but that's what jugglers often use. A few of them had narrow road/gym tires. I was pleasantly surprised these wheels held up fine. No one got a flat or hurt their uni, though we generally did stay of the more tame trails.
I was genuinely impressed by every rider. A few riders demonstrated some better muni skills and I was impressed. Sarah, the one who organized the gathering, has a KH20 and has some good skills. She was able to side hop up (aka "peck") some significant hills. Another girl had ridden some muni before and seemed right at home. I saw a lot of good effort and positive attitudes from everyone.
After riding at Whiting on the Blue and Orange trails, some of us heading into Webster Park and rode some more. Overall it was a good time and we all had fun out there.
I rode this afternoon at Whiting and Webster Park. It wasn't a very long ride at about 7.5 miles, but my knee didn't bother me at all.
I rode my 24". Wow, after riding my 29er for a while, the 24 seems much different. It was better for climbing, though I'm still not where I left off last year.
I rode through some of Webster Park I don't ride as often. Pretty fun. I think I'm gonna do some more riding in there and add some more trails to my mental map. That reminds me, there are some 4x4 posts throughout Webster Park at certain trail intersections. I may have mentioned this before, because I saw them towards the end of last year, if I recall. They still don't have any signs on them. I assume they are part of some improvements planned in the Webster Park Master Plan, but I'm not sure what the status of that is. It's been about a year since I last heard anything.
That injury didn't cause me any problems during my ride today, but my lower back did get fatigued as it often does on technical trails. Having these "new" trails mostly clear was nice, but riding them straight through without stepping off will take some practice.
