Saturday, December 03, 2005

trail...umm...x yeah

so lets call it trail x. a sweet, short, tough, technical, steep, slippery, rooty, phenix city-ish, trail. located somewhere in muscogee county. is it official? of course not. is it trespassing? probably. is it a great ride? hell yeah.

a friend tells me about it last night, for the second time. he tells me originally about a year ago about it, but not how to find it. so i wake up early, like 7 oclock. load up the car not knowing if i'll even find it. get there. ride around. see a "trailhead." turn in, go fast, twisty. drop to my small chainring. a 22t. i go uphill a bit. and turn. its nice. turn again. speed down a hill, then after scrubbing off way too much speed, walk up the other side. the second time i ride this part, i haul ass down, then all the way up the other side. i finish this wooded section. i remember some of his directions... and see something that looks promising.

i enter the woods. the trail is solely located on a steep hillside. very similar to phenix city near the dam. i ride some of the network. this part is not a loop. trails criss-cross like a spiderweb. i finally figure out the planned direction. i ride out of the woods to notice the connector between the first wooded section and the second. sweet.

so i go back. ride the first section. use the connector to the second section. ride it like 4 times. still in the 22t. shit. wussy.

then i start wondering... how could i ride mountain bikes for years in this town, and not know it was there. then i remember hearing of phenix city. i lived in columbus my whole life without hearing of the 'trail of tears.' so... i wonder: how many other trails are around town that nobody knows about?

pedal hard
jg

2 comments:

joseph said...

hey. its a secret. shhhh!!!!

r L b said...

ooooh. new trail eh? well, I lived in Columbus 4 years, had heard of the infamous Trail o Tears on many occasion (the cool ex-mtb girl who used to work at Mikes...and this was before Ride-on, so you know) but was always scared to go on my own...I'd probably have been safer doing than than making my first trip out with Thomas!

" oh yea, theres a little drop off..."