Decided late last week that since I had a morning hall pass that we'd try a ride that I hadn't done in a *long* time - the Tour of White Ranch.
Rounded up the usual suspects, minus Morryjg (he had to work on his......... bathroom??!?
) and headed up to a 7:00 a.m. departure. Actually it was more like 7:30. 
Temps were cold. Something had moved in overnight and the temp was around 35F when we took off. Jackets, long finger gloves were all employed for a significant portion of the first hour - as the air *and* ourselves warmed up a bit.
The climb up Belcher Hill was actually not too bad since it was so cool. I was generally used to it being HOT on that climb, which is pretty brutal since it's south facing and has precious few trees. Once we got to the upper parking lot we regrouped and decided to do the Rawhide Loop out to the northern edge of the park.
The first part of Rawhide was a screaming fun downhill with loads of water bars - each of which had a 1-2 foot drop on the back side. And some of which were angled about 45 degrees from the direction of the trail. I did several inadvertant "rail slides" down these......
We encountered a little bit of mud near the bottom of this hill and saw some snow - but a week of decent weather had made short work of the 2+ feet of snow we'd received a couple weeks back. The rest of Rawhide was a fun traversing singletrack with short descents & climbs with lots of rocks and roots to make things fun.
We looped back toward the parking lot & climbed the last pitch of Belcher Hill to access the Mustang loop - what a blast this trail is! More waterbars than Rawhide & they were *much* closer together. And higher. Some were probably pushing 2-1/2-3 feet coupled with the fact that below some of them the trail was an unrecognizable washed out mess. Damn was that some fun riding.
The bottom section of Mustang was even more fun, with a luge-like trail in the gully dropping over small boulders & crossing the tiny creek a number of times. Ascentrek raved about how nice and "flowy" that section was. Good stuff.
We climbed back up Belcher after having gotten to the end of Mustang and took a quick tour around Roundup. Then we intersected Maverick and did another nice screamer downhill to join up with Longhorn. The Longhorn trail is the quintissential White Ranch test piece - very steep, loose with water bars, water-diversion "jumps", rock chutes, and loose & steep switchbacks.
All I can say is thank the Gods for disc brakes. I'd have lost the ability to squeeze Vs on this ride by the time we got to Longhorn. We dropped all the way into the little Longhorn ravine and pushed our bikes out to the junction with the new "Longhorn Bailout" trail that climbs gently back to the Belcher Hill trail. Back to the cars by 10:45 and in the coffee shop by 11 sipping quadruple espresso.
When I got home I ate pretty much everything I could get my hands on. Leftover carbonara, leftover homemade pizza, 5 pancakes, and a bunch of chips with habanero salsa.......
I'm still full <burp>
Oh - and my buddy with the GPS gave us the news: ~16 miles with almost 4000 feet of climbing. Oh - and Ascentrek did the whole thing on a 38 lb Bullit.
Nitty gritty details on the trails: http://www.co.jefferson.co.us/ext/dpt/comm_res/openspac/whitemp.htm
Now if only I could keep this up once a week I might eventually get in some semblance of shape.
-S.S.-
Rounded up the usual suspects, minus Morryjg (he had to work on his......... bathroom??!?
) and headed up to a 7:00 a.m. departure. Actually it was more like 7:30. Temps were cold. Something had moved in overnight and the temp was around 35F when we took off. Jackets, long finger gloves were all employed for a significant portion of the first hour - as the air *and* ourselves warmed up a bit.
The climb up Belcher Hill was actually not too bad since it was so cool. I was generally used to it being HOT on that climb, which is pretty brutal since it's south facing and has precious few trees. Once we got to the upper parking lot we regrouped and decided to do the Rawhide Loop out to the northern edge of the park.
The first part of Rawhide was a screaming fun downhill with loads of water bars - each of which had a 1-2 foot drop on the back side. And some of which were angled about 45 degrees from the direction of the trail. I did several inadvertant "rail slides" down these......
We encountered a little bit of mud near the bottom of this hill and saw some snow - but a week of decent weather had made short work of the 2+ feet of snow we'd received a couple weeks back. The rest of Rawhide was a fun traversing singletrack with short descents & climbs with lots of rocks and roots to make things fun.
We looped back toward the parking lot & climbed the last pitch of Belcher Hill to access the Mustang loop - what a blast this trail is! More waterbars than Rawhide & they were *much* closer together. And higher. Some were probably pushing 2-1/2-3 feet coupled with the fact that below some of them the trail was an unrecognizable washed out mess. Damn was that some fun riding.
The bottom section of Mustang was even more fun, with a luge-like trail in the gully dropping over small boulders & crossing the tiny creek a number of times. Ascentrek raved about how nice and "flowy" that section was. Good stuff.
We climbed back up Belcher after having gotten to the end of Mustang and took a quick tour around Roundup. Then we intersected Maverick and did another nice screamer downhill to join up with Longhorn. The Longhorn trail is the quintissential White Ranch test piece - very steep, loose with water bars, water-diversion "jumps", rock chutes, and loose & steep switchbacks.
All I can say is thank the Gods for disc brakes. I'd have lost the ability to squeeze Vs on this ride by the time we got to Longhorn. We dropped all the way into the little Longhorn ravine and pushed our bikes out to the junction with the new "Longhorn Bailout" trail that climbs gently back to the Belcher Hill trail. Back to the cars by 10:45 and in the coffee shop by 11 sipping quadruple espresso.
When I got home I ate pretty much everything I could get my hands on. Leftover carbonara, leftover homemade pizza, 5 pancakes, and a bunch of chips with habanero salsa.......
I'm still full <burp>
Oh - and my buddy with the GPS gave us the news: ~16 miles with almost 4000 feet of climbing. Oh - and Ascentrek did the whole thing on a 38 lb Bullit.
Nitty gritty details on the trails: http://www.co.jefferson.co.us/ext/dpt/comm_res/openspac/whitemp.htm
Now if only I could keep this up once a week I might eventually get in some semblance of shape.
-S.S.-
He should have been riding with the heavy stuff. 
