There’s a line in the song “That’s Life”, made famous by Francis Albert Sinatra, that goes “riding high in April, shot down in May,” that could be rephrased, for local mountain bikers, to go something like: “riding high in April, May and June.”
Let’s go back to the second, and very warm and sunny, weekend in March when a friend and I rode the Maston Allotment loop. Three-quarters of the way through the ride we encountered about a quarter mile long section of loose sand. “Well,” my friend commented, ” it looks like the end of the riding season here.”
Then the rains came and with them some extraordinary April, May and now June riding.
In the past two weeks, the Maston loop has been as good as it ever has been. In fact the friend mentioned above and I have had several of our fastest rides (not because of us but because of the firm trail) ever on that loop in the past month.
Meanwhile, Phil of Phil’s Trail fame checked in this week to say he’d ridden Horse Ridge over the Memorial Day weekend and said the dirt was as good as it gets.
The litany of rave reviews could go on forever. So suffice to say, that while it’s been one weird wet spring, the silver lining to the cloud of damp has been some of the best spring mountain biking I can remember in this area.
Hikers and trail runners are in agreement. The rain has made the trails perfect for them. Trails that will remain somewhat moon dust free much later into the summer months than normal.
Imagine being able to ride, run or hike one of your favorite winter trails well into summer and having those trails devoid of nostril clogging, eye irritating, body dirtying moon dust.
Carpe diem. Get out and do it. Our local trails will never be in better shape.
