Flying Blind

Yesterday morning, a handful of us played hooky or took the day off and rolled out of Greensfelder at 7:30am. If you recall yesterday morning, the temps were in the low 40's and the wind was brisk. Fearing not the troops (Pierce, Grothoff, Melies, Struckman, Peiffer, and I) staged at the Muckerman Shelter for a few hours of singletrack bliss. I took the lead and led the gang on the race loop. Little did we know the leaves were completely covering the trails making our navigation something more akin to heading off for a ride through the woods. Funny how the absence of a sight line really throws off your desire to bomb an otherwise fast trail. Furthermore, when the singletrack would appear the leaves made for minimal tread bite and therefore, sketchy lines.

Most of the ride was without injury or mishap, although Matt G did take an ejection seat ride at the expense of a leaf covered rock outcropping. No harm, though. JP fell at the hands of a root that was hiding rather sinisterly in the corner just below the shelter. He was riding at a good clip directly in front of me when his pedal caught and he shot skyward. Unfortunately, so did his bike and let's just say his saddle found it's home in a rather forceful manner. Again, he was fine, but the nose of the saddle looked a little down.

Most of us ran our s/s bikes and JP was a good sport to stick to similar gearing for most of the ride. Climbing was a little tougher due to leaf-induced lack of traction, but who's complaining when you're not working.