Despite the rainy weather of late, I was able to perform some recon for the upcoming Lyons Fat Tire Fest Five. My goal was to analyze the proposed big loop near the mid section of the ride to check for extra trails. I had heard there was more to be found. I was eager to search.

It was raining when I set out, but it was a calm and misty rain. I hadn't heard any thunder all day so I wasn't too worried. The fog was lifting, too. Just another beautiful Spring day. Climbing in the way I did puts put me at about the 60% mark of where we'll likely ride in the fest. It was nice 'shortcut.' The climb is rocky and moderately steep with a few technical sections and a couple of long rock gardens. The trail also follow an old dry streambed for a couple of bits. This was no ordinary dry streambed, though! For some strange reason (perhaps all of the rain), this dry streambed had a solid 8" of water rapidly crashing over the rocks and down the hill. It made the rock gardens pretty interesting, being under water and all...


smooth part of the ride

I made it to the top of my climb, where I connected with my proposed Memorial Day route. After passing a singletrack that dumps onto the main road from way up high,

I vcntured into new terrain. New terrain. One of my favorite things about mountain biking. Sometimes new terrain yeilds fantastic riding. Sometimes new terrain is a bust and doesn't pan out. Doesn't matter. Finding out is half the fun!

Anyway, the rain was still coming down. Gentle but steady. I stopped a couple of times to take in the view. Normally, you can see tall peaks far off in the distance. Today wasn't one of those days. That didn't diminish the veiw, though. The fog was brilliant.



I continued to climb on an ancient jeep road. Thankfully, this road was quite rocky. The rocky road and trail surface of the day kept the mud away.

one of the non rock smooth parts

I climbed up the jeep road for another few minutes. It didn't take me long to get to the end. The end was a closed gate, proclaiming that I had ventured out of the forest and onto a local county road. I had heard whisperings of possible trails existing further up this road so I had to press on. So far I hadn't seen anything. Unfortunately, as I pressed on, two things happened. It started raining harder and I realized that I was running out of time. I called the ride and turned around. I was miles away from the car, but luckily, it was 100% downhill. About the time I made it back to the gate and the start of the jeep road, all hell broke loose in the skies. Thunder started booming overhead and I could see lightning way off in the distance. I wasn't too worried, as I was about to enter a pretty narrow gulch, but you can never be too sure. Just to make things on my downhill more interesting, about half way down (where the trail is in that dry creekbed) it started to hail. Nothing big, mind you, just lots of it! By this time, my fingers were starting to go numb (I was on my 2nd pair of gloves).

Ah the irony of it all... Just when it was hailing the worst, and about when my fingers were ready to fall off, the skies started to clear and the sun peeked out. It's amazing the warmth that the sun brings when it smiles. Feeling it's warm rays on my back was an enlightening experience. To finally top it all off, coming around the last corner, I saw a rainbow. My car was parked just beneath! Coincidence?


the light at the end of the tunnel.