Well that solves the plane part of it. I was feeling a little off and unmotivated yesterday evening, well at least the start of it. the temperature started to drop and the wind picked up just before I was planning on heading out. The thought of heading to the trails crossed my mind but my hands and wrists are still bothering me a little from the " more than I should have moved at one time" pile of limestone screenings last weekend. The road it must be and of course this was filled with a few repeats in my head "I don't wanna!!" I didn't feel like thinking about traffic and I also didn't know how far my current lack of enthusiasm would get me.
A quick thought and I grabbed a mountain bike, a couple bottles and music and I made my way to Coldwater with a thought of the rail trail in mind. No cars, no trucks, no trains, no hills??? It was actually the perfect route for me for the day since there was absolutely no thinking needed. Turns were pretty much minimal and I found myself slowly getting happy and having a little bit of fun with it. I just kept going and going. Of course I deep down knew that I had a tail wind and would at some point need to deal with that. Later.
The whole time on my way south I kept looking around hoping to find some random hidden trail that lead to the ultimate piece of single track. Ya, it didn't happen, I continued along and in what felt like no time at all I was coming into Orillia, no time being just over an hour. The gravel trail changed to pavement and I went from nothing on the trail to runners, walkers and roller bladers. I decided not to do what the Shake N Bake twins do and scare the crap out of the other trail users with race pace intervals. I did find my little piece of single track though, it lasts all of 22 seconds.
Hit the far end of the trail, and turned around, hucked a double in the skate park as I made my way by. I also got my first taste of the head wind. A few minutes later the pavement disappeared and so did the other users, the wind did not. I also started to notice that the sun was getting a lower, I've always wanted to chase the sun and that is exactly what I would be doing riding in a north west direction.
So my mind was not fully shut down on this ride and lucky it wasn't, as I was motoring along I noticed something in the trail way up to head. It was moving, at first I thought it was a cat, as I continued towards it I noticed that it was heading towards me. That's one big cat!!! Wait that's not a cat.
I came to a stop, it came to a stop. We both just stared at one another, Mexican stand of. I scrambled to get my camera out to take some evidential photographs in case it attacked and killed me and left my left over body parts at the side of the trail. A few seconds later I think he sensed that camera and became photo shy.
Of course I went in chase. Hello Mr. Porcupine. I did keep my distance though since he had more quills than I did spare tubes and I was still a good distance from home.
No I didn't attempt to pet him. I didn't chill out with him for to long as I started to get a little chilly. It was getting cold fast and I still had a solid 30 minutes to get home. The excitement was gone for the rest of the ride. Rolled into the house at the perfect time, my hands and feet were just starting to get made at me and my stomach was running a close second with a craving for dinner. 3 hour ride with almost no interruption like stop signs. A grand total of 550 feet of climbing which meant my legs were turning the whole time. I was pretty happy with the ride considering only a few hours earlier I was content to sit on my ass and watch a movie and just look at the bikes instead of riding them. I'll use that route again.
No comments:
Post a Comment