Mountain Biking Amongst the Trees
The last time I rode my Motobecane 700HT mountain bike was February 9th of this year. Riding it today the trails look a lot different than February. As summer winds down the trails are green, thanks to rain this year. Several places on the trails have been worked on along Woodland Hills Drive south of Cotswold Drive and just north of it where the brush had almost taken over the trail. One spot that needs work is along Northpark Drive west of Hidden Pines Drive. Dirt has been washed over the concrete trail and the overhanging trees hang low enough that I had to move off the trail to get past.
Biking in the shade helped to reduce the heat but there were places where the trail was out in the open like the dirt along the drainage ditch from Northpark to Kingwood Drive and Appalachian Trail. Yesterday when I was getting my MTB ready I aired up the tires to 60 psi. On the concrete and asphalt trails this was okay but on the rough hard dirt trails I bounced around a lot. Knobby tires are ideal for concrete and I think I have some that around quite so knobby. Might be time to change them out.
I passed many people on the 19.57 mile long ride. Some walkers, joggers and bikers. Almost all of the bikers were on mountain or hybrid bikes without helmets. A couple of times I came around a bend and met oncoming bikers moving at a good clip. No collisions thankfully.
Riding my MTB was a good change of scenery and pace. I may try this on another Sunday soon. Riding a MTB uses my muscles slightly different and the hand positions are not as varied either. My body is more attuned to road biking now.
The clipless pedals on the MTB have a different feel from my Ultegra road bike pedals. The right pedal has one side that is very hard to unclip from. I try to rotate that to the bottom but it seems to sneak back on top. I tired to have a spill before I got out the driveway when I clipped my left foot in and then unclip it right away while the bike moved. I forgot to close the garage door. Apparently I need some practice on the MTB. I waltzed around the driveway getting unclipped and went to close the door.
Look at the weather slides below to see how hot it was.
Wrapping up the week I rode 255.9 miles, move August up to 581 miles and the year to 4793 miles. This is the highest weekly mileage this year by 13 miles. I need 264 miles to reach my August goal of 845 miles.
Links to Garmin Connect and RideWithGPS.
Click to enlarge the image below.
