the wild rocky singletrack of Michaux

Friday and Saturday I spent some time in Michaux exploring the single (and other) track scattered haphazardly through the forest.

Saturday I rode some crazy hard trails--imagine a field of rocks of roughly two to three feet in diameter--shear edges, sharp corners--with a bit of dirt sprinkled about here and there. Frankly, I impressed myself with my technical riding prowess (except on the downhill parts, where I'm a certified wuss), and was able to clear quite a bit of terrain that I had no business clearing.

During one section I slit a pretty decent size hole in the sidewall of my rear tire. Bam! Tube explodes. After fixing that I hurried to catch up to a guy that passed by me while I was down. A Mountain Biker of Michaux, he was pretty familiar with the area and told me a bit about some of the trails. (Then later I schooled him on a few extra nasty stretches of uphill trail...and then he schooled me on the downhills.)

Later in the day, again riding alone, I made an abrupt turn uphill accompanied by a chain-grinding down shift, and again: Pop! Except this time my chain.

It feels kind of cool to break a chain like that...except that then you don't have a chain.

Fortunately I wasn't too far out and almost directly above my car. It took me about a half hour to coast/scoot/walk back.