Me vs. Tent Caterpillars

It was a beautiful day today so instead of getting important things done I went mountain biking at Sundance. As much as I enjoy riding the various trails around here there is something nice about having a chair lift take you to the top of the mountain and though there are a few uphill climbs, they are very short and I never had to drop to my small ring up front.

So there I was at the summit point of the lift and I drop down to where the trails diverge and I decide to try a different trail than I have in the past and it turns out to be a winner. A little way down I hit a patch of spider webs and realize there were a bunch of caterpillars caught in them. After I clean the spider webs off of every surface of me and my bike I get going again. I soon realize after getting pummeled again and again by hanging caterpillars that these little guys are spinning their own webs and apparently have adapted to getting moved about by latching onto mountain bikers, very coy little caterpillars, very coy.

After about 15 min. I started getting really annoyed at the large number of webs and caterpillars that kept getting lodged all over me, including my beard. It's somewhat odd to feel a caterpillar crawling through my goatee. At one point I was headed through a little canopy of trees and came to a skidding halt when I saw the mother load of silk webs and caterpillars. It looked like something out of Indiana Jones, there was a wall of silk and probably 10,000 caterpillars all over in, on and hanging from the trees. I couldn't find another way through so I just had to duck and avoid as many of them as I could. There was an older guy that came through right after me so we knocked caterpillars off of each other for a minute while he told me about swimming in the pond next to us when he was a kid. We probably looked like monkeys standing there picking bugs off of each other.

Lucky for me the caterpillars were only on the aspens so once I made it to the pines I was able to ride properly again. It's awfully hard to hold a line, dodge rocks and roots and corner at speed while getting hit in the face by big juicy caterpillars. I decided to take other trails after that and didn't have nearly the trouble since most of those trails were in the pines.

I'm quite happy to report that not only did I come home without injury I also managed to stay on my bike the whole 3 hours I spend riding; something I hadn't managed to do on previous visits to Sundance.

Bummer and a Surprise

I was stoked all last week to do some downhill mountain biking at Sundance. They were scheduled to run the lifts on Saturday. When I got there I found the bike shop closed and the lift standing still. Major Bummer!

Since I didn't want to go back home I drove down the canyon to one of the parks and unloaded my bike. I found the Bonneville Shorline Trailhead for Provo canyon and started up. Since I was planning on doing some downhill riding I just had my platform pedals and no my clipless. It really made the rock uphill riding pretty hard. I was able to make it up most of the hills but between my wheel spinning out and my feet slipping off the pedals I had to hike-a-bike a few times up the hills.

The surprise came on the way back down. It was a lot of up and down, but mostly down, fun corners, kinda loosey goosey type stuff.

Spring is finally here

...or at least I think spring is finally here. I think last week was the first week we did not get snow. Since the trails have had a couple of days to dry out I figured I'd hit them today. I rode along the Bonneville Shoreline Trail between Orem and Pleasant Grove, but not nearly as far as I hoped I would get. It seems that my time off the bike has left me without any of the base fitness level that I had built up. It didn't help that 50 yards into the trail I had a pretty big climb that ultimately had me doing a hike-a-bike. I didn't do too badly after that, especially once I got warmed up. It's been a while since I have ridden my bike and it was nice to get back on it. I am still getting used to the clipless pedals on the trail, I've only used them on the road until today. it makes the faster downhills a little more interesting knowing that I may get stuck in the pedals if I take a bad corner.

Sundance is opening for mountain biking on Saturday. I think I'll treat myself to a summer lift pass and head up there a few times a week. I just need to make myself slow down and re-learn everything. I've found that I keep crashing while trying to keep up with the memory of how well I used to ride.

Tomorrow is motorcycle training. It's been almost a year since I have done much riding on my motorcycle and it seems as though some of my skills have waned a bit. I'll be heading up Provo Canyon tomorrow afternoon to get used to carving up the corners properly.

A little ten pin anyone?

This has nothing to do with bikes of any kind. I just wanted to post about my desire to build a house with a bowling lane. I actually expect this to happen, it's one of my priorities. I don't bowl a lot but if it weren't so expensive and neccesary to get a baby sitter I would bowl all the time. It's just so gratifying to throw a heavy ball and knock stuff down, the get scored on how well you knocked that stuff down. This will be an intergral part of our game room. Jen wants skeeball, also a great game.

On a side note the weather looks to be sunny tomorrow so I should be able to get out on the trail tomorrow for a little mountain biking.