I used my good friend Google Maps to plan a ride. Logan suggested an 8:30am start. Well, I picked my jaw up off the ground, and stupidly agreed. As the day got closer and closer, I wondered why the hell I suggested going off-road already! I had less than a couple of hours on a tandem, and I was going to go off-road? Crazy.
Well, the morning rolled around, and I was ready at 8:30am on the dot. As was Logan. So, we headed off to Bottle Lake Forest Park, a short (quiet) ride away. It was about 10km to the gate, then the panic started. We had ridden the road quite easily, and the tandem thing was starting to sink in, but now we were heading into gravel, potholes, puddles, rocks, trees, wilderness, wildlife!
A strategic decision was made to not ride the single track yet, but get to grips with the soft surface first. I was having difficulty cornering sharply on the road, this was going to be harder again! So we rode the logging roads to the Pegasus Bay track, and turned on the power. Plenty of potholes, lots of deep muddy puddles, random rocks and piles of sand, the occasional tree, and more muddy puddles. We made it to Spencer Park, wet, filthy, and on a bit of an adrenalin high. Brain cells must have shaken loose, as we both decided to do it again. We did bash through some single track when a wrong turn made it do or die, but made it through almost unscathed. Then we almost had a crash (soft surface + me not paying attention) and pushed on. So, about 20km of muddy madness and we hit the road back home again. Bloody fantastic. We got home, slightly drier, but covered in mud, and one step closer towards confidence on the trails.
Lesson of the day - tandems are longer than regular bikes, so when you are riding over a hump, and adjust your pedals to not bottom out on the top of it, do not forget the person behind you will hit it if you start peddling too soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment