Advocatin'

I originally had relatively big plans for a ride today. After all was said and done, though, I was lacking the motivation to drive anywhere so I headed out from home on the mountain bike and rode to Hall Ranch. I didn't feel like dealing with the masses on the rock garden (and I was beat from the SS ride I did on Sat), so I opted for the more chill Antelope Trail side. As soon as I rolled into the parking lot, I saw our good friend Ranger Kevin Ogrady. He was busy writing a ticket for an illegally parked car. I thanked him for that and we chatted a bit.

Yesterday I had heard the good news that another 2100' of the Picture Rock trail at Heil Ranch had been completed, leaving us with over 4000' of trail already done. Kevin is also the caretaker at Heil (he lives there) and he verified my findings. If we do get a mild winter, it is likely that Picture Rock will be open sooner than later. I thanked Kevin for the good talk. Just as I was pedaling away, the culprit of the illegally parked car emerged, finished with her trail run. As soon as she saw Kevin, she started going on and on about that she was there now and would move her car. After she had already enjoyed her run mind you. Here's the kicker - this woman was with a group of about 6-8 other women. It seemed that, between them, they had taken several cars to drive to Hall and they took up pretty much the entire parking lot. That's efficient.

I pedaled on. It was a beautiful day and I figured it was going to be crowded as hell. It was. Rather than complain about the traffic, I decided that it was, instead, great opportunity to do a little mountain bike advocacy. I smiled and greeted everyone that I encountered, biker or otherwise. I hear a lot about user conflict, but it's pretty apparent that most of it is in the approach. If you slow down to say hello, you'll get a freindly hello or wave 99% of the time. At least that's what I've found today (and any other day I've ridden Hall). After running into several friends and acquantances, i was able to bust out a couple of laps. Again, not wanting to deal with crowds, I went back down Antelope. It was good. After that, I still felt like pedaling so I rode to Button Rock Preserve and back. That was the ticket.

Hope everyone had a great day.

We're still riding Tuesday. Meet up at the shop at 6pm. I have no idea what the weather will be, so we'll hold off on a specific location until we meet up. See you then!