Today I decided to venture out a little and take a ride. It's been over a month since the last time I did anything serious on the bike, school and job were slowly trying to destroy me, and I was ready. As it turns out though, poor eating and lack of any exercise will suck the cardio right out of you.
I decided I was going to hit a trail called spring creek in cliff cave park. The trail was listed on the gateway off road cyclist (gorc) and was highly reviewed on singletrack.com as well as only 15 minutes from the house. So away I went, after scrounging threw the unpacked boxes to find any water bottle I could. I should have taken that as a sign to stay and unpack, but eh... riding sounded way more fun. So when I got there and got all my stuff unloaded I found out it was still really freaking cold here and the wind was going right through everything I had on. Must get better cold riding gear. So despite freezing my unmentionables off I hit the trail hard. The the trail hit back, harder. There is a ridiculously technical climb that leads up to the stacked loop single track and about halfway up the 500 foot climb I was attacked by a tree, and a rock, and a pile of horse poo. Thankfully I missed the poo, but I didn't miss the rock, glancing off of it and rolling a ways down the hill. So up the hill I walked... Got to the top and the trail is really well groomed and put together, some fast sections, a few rock gardens here and there and one short sprint climb. I just did the outer loop, I think, but I'm pretty sure I was lost more than once at confusingly marked intersections. But I finished it and rode the hill back to the truck, and missed the tree this time.
Once at the bottom I saw a trail cutting off through the creek and went to check it out, turns out it lead to the parks namesake cave, all closed off for some type of bat. It's apparently illegal to just be within so many feet of theses bats, because there were all kind of signs and game cameras mounted all around the fortress of an entrance. So I looked around a bit, then got cold and went back to the truck.
I'd definitely like to go back up there soon and ride the inner loop, and take the connecting trail to the bluff section, but for now I just really need to try to unpack and figure out what I need to do to get everything situated.
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