bullards bar

It’s been a while since the Subaru’s been loaded up with mountain bikes. I’ve mostly been road biking lately. It’s been a while since I’ve gone mountain biking, and when I do go, it’s mostly been alone. It’s good to have the car loaded with three bikes.

Today Geo, Dave and I hit up a trail at Bullard’s Bar Reservoir. I had been there once before with the crew from Bayside Church. I remember fearing for my life. I figured I’m a better biker now, so it wouldn’t be as bad. Nope, by the end of the day, I still feared for my life.

The trail starts out with some climbing. By the end of it, we were pretty exhausted. It’s funny, I do a good amount of road biking, but mountain biking still wipes me out really badly.

The reason why I get scared riding here, is because it’s a bench cut trail that’s been cut into a steep hillside. That in and of itself is not so bad, a lot of trails are cut into a hillside. The problem here is that there’s always tons of leaves on the trail, so there’s very little traction. Wheels slip very easily and the trail’s not very wide, and the penalty for missing a turn is a fall over a sleep cliff.

You’d be falling into a beautiful blue lake though, so maybe it’s not all that bad.

Remember that climb at the beginning which left us exhausted? The trail loses all that hard gained elevation really quickly, down a series of switchbacks. The crappy traction combined with the steepness and tightness of the switchbacks made for a pretty scary descent.

Trail ends 1/4 mile ahead. We didn’t know what that meant…. so we continued on.

There was a big land slide that completely destroyed the trail.

So we ended up riding along the road back to my car. By then we were all pretty tired though, so it was actually a blessing doing the climb back to my car on pavement.

Things I’m thankful for:

• mountain biking buddies
• a safe ride in somewhat unsafe conditions