Something different, finally.

Yes sir. I finally rode somewhere that didn’t end in "ville". And it was refreshing.

David, a guy I had ran into a few times at Rosaryville was advertising a casual ride at a park called Schaeffer farms in Germantown. It’s an 80 minute drive for me but since casual group rides have been scarce and I’d never been there ,I decided it was about time I had.
It seems everyone that I’d ever spoken too who’s been riding more than a month has been to Schaeffers. I was feeling like the MTB’r outcast.

The ride was’nt until 10am so I wouldn’t have to get up extremely early. I left the house at 8:15 and got there at 9:30. Man there were a lot of people there. Nothing like the trailhead at my 2 usual spots. I vaguely recognized a few people that were milling around but didn’t know any by name. As I’m getting ready, I see a familiar black Suburu wagon pull in. It was RickyD. Hey, well atleast one person I know by name. He ended up going out with our group, but I still cant figure out why. He’s no where near a casual rider. I like watching him ride though, the way he can handle the bike is something to see.

The groups finally gets ready to go out its big. I think like 12-15 riders. Somehow it got divided up the first mile the way they normally do into casual, and the super casuals. I of course, with the super casuals. These trails weren’t anything like I had expected. The only thing I knew about them were that they had a lot of log jumps but with ride around paths. I wasn’t expecting them to be so rooty and twisty. Not so much that I didn’t like it. On the contrary. They were fun as shit. The climbs were really short so no problems there. I was glad I had the clipless pedals too. They always make the roots easier. The one gripe I had was my own stupidity or lack of experience. I haven’t been checking tire pressure a lot lately. I just squish the tire with my hand, if it feels firm, I ride. Therefore I’ve been riding with lower pressure than normal which I found out today is good. Saturday night I’m fudging around with the bike making sure the bolts are tight and I top off the tires. They had 40lbs, I take them up to 55. I shouldn’t have done that. I kept having problems washing out on turns. This ticked me off some cause I was just getting to "trust" the bike on fast turns.

I really will have to go back once the leg heals. The logs are all jumpable or ramped but with me "rehabbing" I didn’t wanna take any chances I didn’t need to. I got a few log jumps in but rode around most of them. I made sure my knee brace was tight all day , just in case, and by the time I got home it had rubbed a raw spot right behind the calf. Oh well, just another price to pay for the ride.