Taste sweet.
After weeks of chainsaw madness our trails at Pocahontas State Park are nearly able to be re-opened
after Isabel's tantrum. Yesterday we finished clearing the last mile of blown down trees with an all
day work session. We've gotten quite good at wielding the saws. My friend Mark and I even tandem cut
a 20" suspended log simultaneously dropping a 6 foot section to the ground. The only trail we lost
was a 'most difficult' trail we called "Little West Virginia". It's about a mile long with lots of
rock gardens and logs to keep up our skills for the technical riding of WV during the winter. We are
going to completely redo the section using everything nature has provided for technical riding
opportunities.
Today we took the bikes out for a 'test ride' and it was like riding a new trail. (Well some of it
was 'new'😉 but we were able to salvage nearly all of the original lines and flow. With 10 miles of
trail packed into 100 acres there is very little room for reroutes. We rode everything forwards, and
for an unusual treat, backwards since they are one way only trails. My friend Scott took his newly
aquired Intense Tracer out for it's first real ride since he built it up. He was in love with it
being his first 'high end' bike. He obtained the frame off Ebay for $700 which is a very stealthy
black sans decals.
I have to admit I didn't think we'd be riding there this soon after first viewing the destruction.
But as we worked the 'problems' became less and less unsurmountable. It's kind of like coming up on
a new section of technical trail and 'dissecting' it and systematically working it out until you can
fly through it on a bike. We looked at some sections today we avoided at first and now think, heck
we can clear that out.
Look out Harlow we're coming over to Powhite soon!
Mike