Bruce doing the drop near the top of the upper
Ridge Trail.
Rode Galbraith twice, once in the morning with Mark, and once at night with Russ and Endo Bobbo. There was an inch or two of snow on the ground and the temperature was in the 20s, with clear skies and little wind.
In the morning, Mark and I went up and rode Bob Torset's new trail, the Elastic Chicken (AKA El Pollo Elastico) for the first time. It is absolutely wonderful -- already one of the best on the mountain -- and it shows most of Bob's Trail building trademarks. There are several big vertical drops (like the Big Drop on Bob's Trail), and several very tight, root-stepped corners, as well as an elevated catwalk.
We were so pumped up by the Chicken, that we decided to make it an "All Bob, all the time," day, ala the "All hits, all the time" radio stations. So we rode down through the Family Fun Center and picked up upper and lower Bob's Trail as our route home. Mark and I were both strong and put on a bit of a show. I passed him on lower Bob's when he spun in an icy root mess, and then I climbed the treacherous Cleft Rock switchback (gotta stay seated and back, I now realize). He got me at the end, though, riding the final killer fall-away switchback to the road, AKA The Big Heave.
Several hours later, Guano, Endo and I rode up to the Fire Ring for the full moon. Russ led us up from the bottom (which I'd never done before). Turns out the trail comes in a little further down the spur logging road that leads to the top of the Elastic Chicken! Another secret Torset move! He and Tom built the trail to the Fire Ring, the Ring itself, and the trail down to the logging road below. This then connects with the Chicken to take you all the way down to Galen Rockenbauer's new extension of the Intestine.
Approximately 2000 combined verts. |
