I don’t know about you, but I really needed this long weekend. We had big plans for a camping trip up to the Kingdom Trails, and got up on Saturday afternoon with plenty of time for me to go out for 1.5 and hit a couple of the classic trails right around the campground. However, when we woke up on Sunday morning a steady and persistent rain sent us home early. We just weren’t prepared for dealing with rain.

We had borrowed a tent that was huge and fairly complicated. The rain fly seemed to do very little and it wasn’t long before the inside was soaked. Amongst our crew we had no awnings or anything to hide under for the duration, so heading home early sunday was the easiest and smartest thing to do.

Frankly, even though i had been looking forward to camping, I was happy to be home. George went for a ride and then i got my act together to ride on Sunday. But procrastinated a little bit and made a rash decision that i wasn’t going to do my long ride on Sunday due to timing. So i headed out from the house with just one bottle and no food. Turns out, my legs felt amazing.  I flew up the big climb behind out house and spend the next 1.5 hours exploring a section of trails that is nearly in our backyard, but almost completely unknown to me.  And it was fun. Very flowy, very natural trails and I was enjoying myself so much that I climbed up several times to re-ride sections. Eventually, I got hungry and knew it was in my best interest to save my legs for Monday long ride.

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On monday I went out to do some more exploring. I took the Van Dessel from the house out to Moscow and was going to attempt to connect to Waterbury via Cotton Brook Rd.  I know this is doable, and i researched my route on maps ahead of time. There’s lots of climbing out on this 4th class road. Lots of steep sections interspersed with flat. The Hole Shot did great except for some traction problems when i tried to stand and grind up the steep bits.

Once i finally made it to the top of the climb (nearly an hour) the road ended in an old log lot with no discernable ‘summer’ route forward. I backtracked to the last intersection where I found a singletrack trail headed downhill and decided to go with it. down it went, too steep in some places for me on the cross bike. would have been fun on a full on mountain bike. At the bottom I crossed the river on the snowmobile bridge (see photo above) and enjoyed some lovely singletrack along the river. All of the sudden, I was right back where I started. Somehow i did a loop when I intended to traverse. Really it wasn’t that bad, I got a great ride and am happy to have a little bit more knowledge of the area.

Monday was supposed to be a rest day for me and I thought i would just rest on Tuesday. But i forgot that Tuesday is my ladies ride night. So i’m not resting today. Nor tomorrow. Tomorrow is the first Catamount Wednesday night training ride. It’s supposed to rain and be miserable, i think that’ll be just fine for me. But anyway, rest day will be pushed to Thursday or Friday and hopefully i don’t get too tired. I know how important rest is.