crazy train

Crazy times. Working too much and too hard and playing too much and too hard. Since I have a few races coming up I feel like I should be training really hard but I'm nursing several over use injuries and can feel another case of tendonitis starting so I'm not. Besides, I'm not really feeling very racerish these days so I've decided it doesn't matter. I'd like to do well at the Big Frog but since it is a set course there is a fair chance I could get bored half way through and decide to do something else instead. I'd like to have a lot of fun at pmbar, which shouldn't be hard, and get all the checkpoints. So, I'm not worrying about it. My road bike is waiting patiently for me in the garage for the day I decide to start riding again.

So, Saturday I met some others for a little pmbar training ride. We put 12 cp's in a hat and pulled five: Butter Gap, Bridge on North Mills River, Laurel at Bradley, Club Gap and Saddle Gap. Four of us started and Chris Strout and myself managed to reach all five, sorta. Chris beat me to the Butter cp that ended up not being Butter and back to the trucks. I was wishing for a few more climbs at the end and could have gotten them by climbing up 475B at the end to finish with Black but already 60 miles in that seemed a little unnecessary. Thanks for coming out everyone - it was a lot of fun!





I love Bradley Creek! An amazing trail!


The group all still together at our first cp:


Still together looking for the North Mills River Bridge cp. It would be a lot of fun if this was a cp in pmbar!


Found it!


From there it was back out the entire length of 1206 - which makes for a nice nightmare on a single speed. Charlie Roberts dropped down into his middle ring and we chatted away the 12 miles out to 276.

Charlie managed to clean the climb up Club Gap with just a dab. There was lots of impressive riding this day!


Charlie looking down the Squeeze Box on Bennett:


Saddle Gap:


Down Coontree for perhaps the last time of the year and then Charlie and I bid farewell as he headed home to rest up for a 24 hour adventure race next weekend and I headed for the Hatchery and Butter.


On the way up Butter I started to wonder where the real gap was. Not here:


Or here:


Both looked like gaps, kind of, but didn't really make geographic sense as such. Combined with the new Butter Gap Bypass sign I figured the real gap was a short distance away on the Art Loeb near the shelter. But I didn't feel like going to look for it then so it was right back down Butter and then out 276 for the long spin back to the truck. A fun day in the woods!

Sunday was for the dog and a bushwhack was in order. Out in Turkey Pen on Saturday I'd been looking up at the various mountains and decided I needed to knock those off the list so me and Duma headed straight for Buck Mountain. We started on Vineyard Gap and then took one of the social trails down to the river at Riverside trail.

Buck Mountain as seen from the Forge Mountain ridge. This face looked too steep and vegetated to me but I somehow forgot that when I got to the base of it.


Crossing the river:


A nice spot in a peaceful little cove. From here the bushwhacking really picked up.


Right away the mountain was covered in very dense Rhodo and I was wishing I'd picked another flank to head up. I only had 500 vertical feet to climb but it was tough.


Crawling quickly became the easiest option and in the middle of it I stopped at this nice open spot to eat lunch.


From there it just got worse and several times I thought hard about turning around but didn't. We made it to the top after about an hour of crawling and the only sign of human life we saw was this bottle and beads that someone had placed as a summit marker, I removed it.


For the trip back down we headed down the West Ridge which was thankfully actually walkable and quite pleasant.


Using my compass I aimed for Pea Gap on Bradley Creek and hit the trail within 20 feet of it. From there it was a very pleasant hike back up Bradley and then South Mills to the truck. Next up, Buttermilk and Rich!