Springtime….

Permalink | No Comments (0) | Share This

Springtime in Naples, NY area happens to be my favorite time of the year. The trails are just getting into perfect conditions, weather is coming around and the legs are primed and ready to go for any situation.

Wednesday was a great day to skip out of work early and head down to the Hollow with Casey, Jer-Bear and Hanggi to get some Finger Lakes Trail riding in. We rolled out from the Hollow onto some of the roads from the Rambler.

Trail conditions were perfect for the ride, I’d hit some of the trail
sections once before, and some stuff was new also. All in all it was ripping fast and a blast to ride. We managed to make it up over the valley and head to where Casey is working on some new trails in Bath. A place called Mossy Banks, its a nice little park and is going to be a sweet place to ride once the existing trail network is expanded upon.

After we climbed up to Mossy Banks to enjoy the view, we ripped it down into Bath to pick up Taylor and his crew from the local shop. Taylor is rocking one of the new Trek 96er’s and it was pretty sweet to see the ride in action. We hung about the shop for a bit, refueling and awaiting the arrival of the gang.

We rolled out of town together, with a decent size crew and headed back to the hills. Unfortunately, we were on a tight time table to get back to the hollow before darkness rolled in. We dropped the Bath crew off at the top of the climb and the rest of us prepped for some nice dirt road downhill racing, and tailwind action back to the hollow.

Thursday, I was back to some local action. Hitting up for the local road ride from the GBC on the wheelman route. I was still rocking the paragon, whilst everyone else was on the roadies. Luckily this wasn’t like a few weeks ago where everyone was out to rip each others legs off and it was a fairly moderate ride. I managed to hang on the whole time to the group, but let them all go when it was time for the townline sprints. After that ride, I decided it was time to fix up the roadie.

I spent the better part of Friday washing, cleaning and replacing parts on the bianchi. She needed some TLC very badly. I’d totally neglected the bike throughout the better part of winter and even most of last season. I’d lost the love to go out for a long road ride and just enjoy the country side. Now it was time to get her back in action, and get some of that speed and acceleration that I’d been missing. It would have to wait until Saturday afternoon though. For Saturday am was “Dawn Patrol”

Out of bed at and met at 5am, Saturday morning so we could put tires to dirt down in Naples at 6am. The plan was for us to ride Ontario County Park and Cutler area for about 3 hours, then Mark would head to the shop for work around 9, while I grabbed some more trails and rode the 30 miles back to Geneva. We arrived perfectly on time and decided to hit the new trail that The Trail Building Collective had built up along the ridge on Naples Creek. It’s a sweet little section that climbs up over the bluff of the Creek and even through some old terraced vineyard terrain. We ripped it up and readied ourselves for the climb up to OCP.

Our task was the seemingly never ending Griesa>Oakley>Gannet climb up to the park. We took it at a nice moderate pace and made it up there in time to catch a few shady characters who were playing out in the woods. Casey and Hanggi were marking out some new trail sections at OCP, so we stopped and had a chat with them for a bit, then headed off and rode some of the newly built sections. The new stuff is awesome and once it gets really worn in OCP is going to be quite the mecca for riding. Dang, hopefully all my secret training grounds don’t get out

After ripping about the new stuff, we railed it down the orange FLT trail. Marky tried to stick it to me with his 5 + inches of travel on the descent, but the superfly wasn’t having any of it and we railed the descent together. I love that descent, just rippingly fast and flowing, can’t get enough. Trails were in such great shape that I actually cleaned the pallets section (a collection of chopped pallets put in a very muddy section of trail, with huge wheel eating gaps between). Over to Cutler, staying on the Orange Trail and onto the Hardcore 24 course. We had to push it hard through that section as time was getting tight. A few new trees down on the trail, but in all that place is still in great shape. Mark and I pushed it down the road to the backside of Naples for the old-road descent. Ripping down that old fire-road, I managed to tear a huge gash in the sidewall of the acx’s. It was one of those tears where you could hear all the stans just explode onto the trail. I checked the tire and it was a nice 1″ gash, no fixing or booting that thing. I rolled the rest of the descent easily on the flats and back to the car. There would be no more riding on the Superfly like that for me.

It was all good though, because I was able to get home and get back to working on the roadie. In fact, I managed to get it all together and get out for a nice 3 hour ride later that evening. It was nice to have some speed. It almost felt effortless compared to riding the paragon on the roads. Plus it was also nice to have the extra hand positions.

Sunday, I pulled her out again for a ride in the never ending 30mph wind, never even bothered me. Just enjoyed the fact I was outside. This of course was after I spent the morning with Mom! (hope all the moms out there had a great day!).

Tomorrow night kicks off the Farmall Tuesday Night Series. I’m ready!