Trail Trolls at it again......

There's only one way to do trail work at Thomson....

It has been a fairly relaxing weekend even though each day consisted of hard work.

Saturday, I finally got off the couch and went for a ride after 2 weeks of sloth. What a beautiful day to be riding! The temps were pretty chilly at the start, but the sun was shining and it warmed up nicely at the end. Jesse and I had discussed taking it easy and exploring some roads I want to incorporate into a WBL route, so we gathered at 8am at the Perry Welcome Center so our ride wouldn't interfere with the regular group ride that day at 9am. Tom H. showed up as well, so we had an enjoyable ride discussing various topics. The bad news of the day is that after only 2 miles of riding I'd determined that my knee pain from 2 weeks before was back and notifying me that nothing had changed during my rest period. I pushed on even though each mile meant more aggravation. I pushed nearly 10 miles one-legged to keep my knee from hurting further at the end of the ride. I think we ended up with over 54 miles in 3.5 hours. Not a great performance, but the goal was to ride easy and enjoy the day doing what we love the most. I have an appointment with Dr. Wiley for this Friday to investigate further what is causing the current issue in my knee. I think I pushed too hard during 6 GAP and pulled a tendon and didn't recognize this fact since everything was hurting that day. I can say that this is not the same pain I had before surgery in July, and it feels like a tendon or IT band is rubbing against something that is causing the aggravation.

Sunday, the Trail Trolls were at work again at Thomson. After hearing about and watching friends get hurt on several terribly eroded spots at the trail and after too much discussion and not enough action about re-routes the last year or so, I met Mark D. at the trail one afternoon and discussed changes that need/should be made. We decided on some major modifications that will improve the trail system, but these changes also mean the flow of the trail will be forever altered -- but in a good way. The latter also means some people will be pissed off, but conversely it means more people with lesser skills can still ride and not fear death at every turn. We're not "dumbing down the trail" as voices from the peanut gallery have shouted. To that I say, "Ride faster! Thomson can take everything you have to offer and will beg for more." The #1 reason for mods is to get rid of the damn erosion so we don't have to work ourselves to death maintaining the trail system. And given that so few people actually show up and voluntarily work to maintain the trail, I decided to seek approval and begin the work myself. My loving wife decided she would join me on re-routing the trail at specific places, but I don't think she knew exactly what she was getting into. And, without her there was no way I could have done it alone. We began around 9am and by 3:30 pm we had called a few people for back-up to help finish what we started. We didn't find anyone who wasn't busy, so we trudged onward with our goals. We did complete the re-routes, Diana got to ride both of them before we headed home, and life was good once again.

Diana stated that the trail flows very well and you're on the new sections before you actually realize it. So.......................my devious plans of making the trail more rideable as well as needing less maintenance worked out in the end.

Let's see who throws the first stone..........
Sorry, but this little guy says it all!!