Riding with the Setting Sun

A narrow window of opportunity presented itself to me Saturday afternoon in which I had an hour to ride.  That is what I love about living within close proximity to the Upper Paugussett State Forest.  In 50 minutes I can bang out a 5 mile ride.

Of course, November 1st means Orange Season goes to DEFCON 4 in this part of the state as evidenced by the hunter sitting on the rock spine.  Good thing I was oranged up and wearing a bell.  On Thursday, I was riding to work at around 6:15 am on Pond Brook road and just crossed over the stream when I heard a shotgun go off.

The ride up the Brody was business as usual, but all the Oak leaves are down making the trails pretty slippery.  I have been thinking about walking the gussy with a hand held leaf blower and it might be worth while to do it this year.  

Lichen

The real fun in today's ride was coming down the Gussy.  I cleaned all the up and overs, the log ride short, log ride huck (still don't have a fun name for this one) but I forgot to hit the three sisters (roller before the log ride huck).  I almost blew chunks in the Wet Spot, did a loop-di-loop on the Blue Cross Roller (rolled forwards and then came back around and hucked off the other side) and then hit the Curb Your Horse Roller (where one of the biggest piles of horse biscuits were a few years ago) after noticing last weekend someone cleaned the leaves off the path to the roller.  It's a great roller.

At the Blue Cross Roller

Other side of the Blue Cross Roller

There is definitely some dumbing down taking place on the Gussy.  After the last roller there is a nice downhill section that has a big turn in it (I think I want to bank this at some point) and when you come out of this turn there used to be an old log across trail that I just started to Bunny Hop this year.  It was broken and moved.  Now, it could have just finally broke on it's own but I don't know.  At the big sweeping turn into the final leg of the singletrack somebody started to widen the curve but it was a bad move because they turned almost 90 degrees back into the trail.  The trick is once you hit the tree you move into the turn, use a little rear brake, whip around the curve and make the final bomb down to the multiuse trail.  I covered up the braid but I suspect it will be back.

I guess this means this guy is hunting in the forest.