New Year, New Trails

The new year started off right. I actually won dinner at Bonefish as a result of a bet Dynamo made with me! More on that later!

For Christmas Dynamo bought me a new camera just for our adventures! It's a Kodak PlaySport and we tried it out today! It has some nice features including photo, video, image stabilization,wide angle photo capability, is waterproof up to 10 feet, and is drop proof. So, if it falls out while we're riding never fear! Technology is grand!

So, all the photos on this post are thanks to our new sidekick, whose name is yet to be determined. Dynamo doesn't name things, but I name everything! Right now I'm leaning towards "Judy."

First things first...Dynamo snatched my grips so he had to get me new ones for my Spot. He brought me some boring black ones, and of course my response was "don't they have pink?" As a kid there was no sports equipment to be found in pink. Today, you can find softball helmets, bats, bags, and all sorts of gear in pink. They actually want to encourage girls to play sports I guess. So, since it's available I'm going to take advantage of it. No, I'm not worried about looking girly. I am a girl. So, here they are...

We met up with Mountain Bike Mike (MBM) at Pocohontas Park this afternoon. We knew the single track trails were probably closed and soaked, so we planned on hitting some of the fire roads. Before we started our ride some guys rode up to check out the map. They were covered in mud!! They indicated that the single track was too wet, but you could get just as good of a workout on the fire roads. Well, let me tell you...they were right.

We set out to do the entire Fendley Station Loop Trail, which on the map measured about 13.5 miles.

It had some snowy spots...

And, lots of ups and downs...

And lots of mud! That's why I'm not showing some of the views of us climbing because we look like we've been sitting in mud from the back angle!

At a little over 6 miles we reached a point where we had to decide which way we would go. MBM said that we could continue on the trail after crossing over the Lake...

Yes, the lake has some frozen spots even though it was about 60 degrees.

MBM said that we could continue on to complete the rest of the trail (approx 7.5 miles), but he didn't think there was a bridge to cross back over the lake after we reached the other side. This is where the bet came in. Dynamo said that he'd buy me dinner at Bonefish or a restaurant of my choice, if there wasn't a bridge on the other side.

Well, we continued onward into unchartered territory. There were many more ups and downs.

And, after we had traveled over 10 miles total we saw it...

What is that you say? Well, it's the dam on the other side of the lake.

Then, there was the next sign...

So, bottom line...there was NO bridge!

First, MBM crossed...

Then, MBM and Dynamo coached me across...

As I hit dry land on the other side, MBM said "You just got dinner!"

I guess when faced with either pedaling back 10 miles to get to the car retracing the steps we've already taken while trying to beat darkness or crossing the stream and be there in 5 miles, we decided to give it a go! I was a little worried, but the guys weren't. It was actually fun to ride across! My feet got a little wet, but it was a fun obstacle!

We continued onward with more hills and eventually arrived at the car with the cyclometer reading about 15.5 miles! We loaded up the bikes and headed home!

Not a bad ride for the first ride of the new year! We might not have ever ventured on this new trail unless we'd had all this snow. So, we're excited about a new trail that was there all along, but unknown to us!

Hope you've all had a great January 1st!