Saturday, August 1, 2009

Lake Bryan Bust

I set out at early-thirty for Lake Bryan. Two goals for the day. Five hours riding. Work on my turning skills. If you've been there you are certainly laughing at that last goal. Oh my I had no idea what I was in for. The sign forbode my fate...



I've heard people complain about this place. But the folks I heard the complaints from are... well... to be delicate... whiners. Not about this place! It blows. It's turn-after-turn-after-turn. It's turn pedal twice turn. Repeat for miles. I undertand that my intestines are like 30-feet or something when stretched out. These trails are like intestines. Folded back and curled back and forth on itself.

There are tons of sharp 90° turns that dead into a tree. The trail's laid out with a tree on just about every apex, and one on the exit overshoot. So, you can't cut the turns. You can't late apex 'em either. You just have to go slooow. This is the first time in looonng time I come away from a ride with a single-digit average speed. Ugh.

It's just like Memorial Park. With LESS flow. I didn't think that was possible. It is. Like MemPk, tons of trail routed up/down the fall lines. Complete with the erosion that comes from that poor routing...



Ugh. I could stay in town and ride trails like this. Might be an OK place if it were local. But no way worth the drive.

To be fair. Someone's spent a lot of time cutting these trails. I appreciate that. But some of the routing just makes me scratch my head. WTF? And I don't know diddly about trail building. But even I can recognize some really stupid stuff. I ride my bike because I like to go fast. There's just no way to go fast on these trails. I can't imagine "racing" out here.

After two-and-a-half hours of frustration I realized that I wasn't getting any real fitness benefit. My HR was barely elevated. I'm just turning, turning, turning. I headed home. Writing the day off as a bust.

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