The Surly Mountain Biking Thread

[TwiceHorn 31438]

Good ride, mostly, at Boulder.  Too hot to push it into a 10 or 20 miler, but the first 3/4 or so was nice.  Pretty good clip, negotiated some features/obstacles that I expected to have trouble with given a longish layoff.  Also, it has significant portions of uphill that aren't the climbout and I managed that without seizing up.  Good shit.  Ultimately, the heat and humidity got to me.

 

Most notable part of the ride, coming down a rooty descent, some prime Alabama blacksnake and I surprised the shit out of one another.  My first instinct was not to roll over it, second was to avoid getting bit, if it was a bitey one.  I didn't stick around to figure out what it was, but it was black with no easily discerned pattern, a couple of feet long and thick.  I thought I saw a pit viper head.  So either a moccasin or a molting black indigo.  Neither of us wanted much to do with the other.

I walked the climb out.  First off, wasn't feeling it at all after about an hour, second it starts with some limestone slabs and chunks.  I geared way down with the idea of at least starting it, but spun out immediately on the damp limestone and said fuck it.

[Braff Zacklin 13553]

Nice to see you were able to get on some dirt, @TwiceHorn, but this Fear of a Black Phallus thing has me questioning your movie choices.

Seriously, though, hang in there. Dunno how you guys handle heat like that, especially so early in the year. We generally don't hit 90 until June, and suffice it to say 95 here most definitely does not feel like 95 there.

Just got in from a big ride. Took some pics and will post any that came out OK. Sorry, still haven't tinkered with the GoPro.

[wd40 1976]

8 hours ago, Your Mom said:

I had too many chores to beat the heat this morning, but I just went for a walk in the neighborhood to check on some things.  Good god it's miserable out there.  When my kids leave the house I'm headed somewhere cooler.  At least for the summers.

 

did Crystal (aka BFE) Falls, today.  fast and flowy, with surprising elevation for the area.  a bit of a hike to get there, even for me in '59, so clipped off some exploration to get back to work.

 

[Braff Zacklin 13553]

23 hours ago, Braff Zacklin said:

If forecasts are accurate and this warm, sunny weather holds, our upper trails might be ready to ride by the weekend.

So I lied. Other than a couple of snow-filled sections, pretty much everything was rideable today.

If these pics look a lot like the ones posted on 4/25 of last year, that's because I took them at the same locations. Apparently, I am a creature of habit.

From the lower saddle, about 1,400 feet above town:

Same location, but looking toward the right, from whence I came:

From the top of the climb, about 1,650 feet above town. The previous vantage point is the knob directly below, and you can see some climbing switchbacks to the right:

The snowfield I had to "hike a bike." Only about 20 yards worth--not bad compared to previous years. Snow will be gone in a less than a week if current conditions hold.

View from another climb much later in the ride. I take a pic here every spring.

 

[TwiceHorn 31438]

What kind of grade/elevation gain is that, Braff?

I'm trying to figure out what the dreaded climb out at Boulder is.  It looks like 100 feet in a half mile, which gives an average grade of 4%, but with goodly portions of 7-9%.  Trailforks and MTBproject don't seem to show it.  I take my data from alltrails, which I think is measured from my phone, so a bit off.

There's what appears to be a shorter, steeper section before you hit the climb out part that's not as bad.  Hell, I even did that without much complaint today.  I think it's just the unrelenting steep nature of it that kills. Also about half or a third of it is in the sun. Even people in pretty good shape dread it.

[Braff Zacklin 13553]

I vaguely recall crunching the numbers last year but no longer have it top of mind. I think it was something like six miles of continuous climbing at an average grade of 5.2 percent.

Unfortunately, GPS tracking has been unreliable this spring. Many of the tracked routes from recent rides include random straight lines, mis-plotted turns, or (as was the case with the first 11 miles of today's ride) sections offset so that the software can't even recognize which trail you're on.

Distance figures have been sorta accurate, but elevations have been completely borked. For example, Strava credited me with nearly 5,900 feet of climb today, but the actual total was probably around 3,500 feet.

Not sure what's causing it--Strava, Verizon, or the birds in orbit.

[TwiceHorn 31438]

Cripes.  That just doesn't sound like fun.

Wonder what's up with the GPS.  We get problems in the woods sometimes and it's kind of inherently inaccurate.  But I only get that kind of massive error when something's wrong with my phone.

[TwiceHorn 31438]

Fuck, the landowner has closed OCNP due to coronavirus.

It's the other most likely trail to open.

[KuЯdt 248]

18 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Most notable part of the ride, coming down a rooty descent, some prime Alabama blacksnake and I surprised the shit out of one another. 

But it ain't too gat damn beaucoup.

[TwiceHorn 31438]

8 hours ago, KuЯdt said:

But it ain't too gat damn beaucoup.

It was tres beaucoup.  I'm curious as hell what it was.

I think it was sunning on the far/down side of a rooted ledge.  I came bombing down the previous ledge and saw it and it was furiously "essing" (S movement).  Pretty sure it essed backward to the right as I went left.  It was kind of a testament to letting your instinct guide your ride.  The descent wasn't terribly difficult, but not the kind of thing where you would think you'd want to make quick line adjustments, snek or no snek.

Edited April 9, 2020 by TwiceHorn

[TwiceHorn 31438]

Welp, since Oak Cliff NP off the table, I decided not to ride Boulder two days in a row.  It was cooler yesterday, but overcast and humid.

Was planning to ride Boulder again today because sunny and high of 70.

But apparently it rained in Souf Dallas.

Furk.  No trails open today.  None over weekend.

[TwiceHorn 31438]

Well, hell.  A trail an hour away is open.  Normally wouldn't consider driving an hour but here in the time of coronavirus, I might.

[TwiceHorn 31438]

4 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Well, hell.  A trail an hour away is open.  Normally wouldn't consider driving an hour but here in the time of coronavirus, I might.

The trail in question is Sister Grove Park, in Princeton, which is east of McKinney.  Fun little trail.  Very flowy in the woods with some nice descent.  Also very rooty and has those curious Collin County "trenches."  Present in both the sunny/grassy sections and in some of the climbs and descents, so they make really lowbrow, narrow chutes that make for unpleasant side pedal strikes.  The climbing to pay for the descents was unusually gentle, but rooty af and those trenches made it challenging at times.

Partly due to the descent and partly to an unusual fearlessness on my part, went pretty fast for a new trail.  I'm usually in the 5-6 mph range on a new trail, this was 6-7.

Too bad its so far away.

[Ths71 472]

The trail in question is Sister Grove Park, in Princeton, which is east of McKinney.  Fun little trail.  Very flowy in the woods with some nice descent.  Also very rooty and has those curious Collin County "trenches."  Present in both the sunny/grassy sections and in some of the climbs and descents, so they make really lowbrow, narrow chutes that make for unpleasant side pedal strikes.  The climbing to pay for the descents was unusually gentle, but rooty af and those trenches made it challenging at times.
Partly due to the descent and partly to an unusual fearlessness on my part, went pretty fast for a new trail.  I'm usually in the 5-6 mph range on a new trail, this was 6-7.
Too bad its so far away.

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[Your Mom 4805]

That looks fun as hell.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TwiceHorn 31438]

Most of the wooded trails in the metro are so tight and twisty in most places that it's hard to get much flow without endangering your shoulders, elbows, hands, and the rest of your body.  This one is just right.

I had mentioned it several pages back, but something about the dirt in Collin County (they also have more grassy areas it seems), lends itself to the trail tread become really rutted in deep, like a foot or more, and narrow.  Can be nearly impossible to pedal in.  Even some of the climbs (and descents) in the trees were really rutted in to make chutes.

At one point, after cruising for a couple of miles, I had a pedal strike in one of the chutes that sent me out of it, then back in and I was just out of control and had to stop.  It was one of those stops that just kind of wrecks your shred.  I was kind of starty-stoppy the rest of the trail.  Still had a blast.

Edited April 11, 2020 by TwiceHorn

[Braff Zacklin 13553]

2 hours ago, Ths71 said:

 

 

This is awesome. Were you the one flying? Even more awesome.

[Braff Zacklin 13553]

So my first attempt to GoPro a ride was a bit of a disaster. For starters, camera's FoV was set to "wide," which resulted in a fisheye effect that would make a hardened sailor seasick. It's now set to "linear" with hopes this will lead to a more natural view.

Second, can't find a PoV that works climbing/seated and descending/standing. I blame the GoPro Chesty mount as it won't allow you to secure the camera flush to the chest. It's either titled with a heavy downward bias or, flipping it, a heavy upward bias. Don't think anyone needs to see that much of my knees.

Third, battery life is very disappointing. Fifty minutes of raw video @ 1440p/60 fps used up 62 percent.

Finally, the four-minute cropped video is 1.70 GB and would take several hours to upload. I knew this would be a problem before diving in because my service provider heavily restricts upstream bandwidth. Maybe there are some export settings that will minimize file size without too much degradation?

Overall, was very impressed with image stability and image and sound quality. Nifty piece of hardware.

If @Your Mom, @KuЯdt, @wd40, and anyone else with GoPro experience would like to chime in with some advice or admonishments, I am all ears (well, eyes, I guess).

[Your Mom 4805]

The battery life sounds about right.  I carry a spare for longer rides and I try to keep most clips around 10 seconds or so.  On the chesty mount, I flip it and then tilt it forward.  I generally have a tendency to to have it pointed too far down.  What I think looks right often ends up showing half my top tube, my knees, and no horizon.  Once I figure it out and correct the mount angle it always looks to me like it'd be pointed too high but the footage comes out better.  

On uploading, not sure if the 7 and 8 operate the same or not.  My old one (Hero 3 I think) required a cord and took FOR.. E.. VER to upload to a computer.  The 8 is so much easier.  On my phone or ipad I use the GoPro app.  Connect the app to the camera, through it's own wifi, view media, then a two-step upload process.  Selecting and saving each clip saves it within the app ( I guess onto a cloud or something... I don't know).  Then selecting those saved clips and saving them again puts them onto your device.  All done through the camera's wifi connection.  No cords, and no internet connection necessary.  Uploading to Youtube definitely takes a lot longer than getting them onto my device.  I don't know much about export settings.  I switched to Google Fiber a while back and it all goes a lot faster now than my old connection did.

Edited April 12, 2020 by Your Mom

[Ths71 472]

This is awesome. Were you the one flying? Even more awesome.

No, but I wish. Guy is a DORBA member.


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[TwiceHorn 31438]

6 minutes ago, Ths71 said:

No, but I wish. Guy is a DORBA member.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Wasn't going to say anything, but noted that the youtuber's initials might check out with your username.  He's got a lot of "surveys" of the trails up.

[wd40 1976]

I'll take "Cool Shit You Find on the Trail" for $600, Alex

Spoiler

Spoiler

what is not a badass dumpster?

 

'that's the one!'

 

great ride today with the old crew (at a distance, of course).  started off sketchy, down a long, wet and ledgy descent, but traction was fine, after that.  sun dried it up, quick.  3rd day riding in a row.  

lots of n00b hikers out on the trails, these days.  everyone seems to be unusually respectful, but I imagine that has way more to do with minding the covid gap than anything else.  one old lady got way off the trail and held her hand over her mouth and nose as we passed.

on the gopro setup, for me it works best hanging upside-down and all all the way til it stops against the chesty plate.  puts it at roughly a 45* angle to the plate.  so if I'm standing full upright, it's shooting mostly sky, with maybe my throat/chin in the top of the frame.  

if your riding position is very upright, then you can add a knuckle between the plate and the camera to give more room to rotate it more parallel to the plate.   I seriously doubt that's any mountainbiker's normal body angle, though.  maybe if you're seated with the dropper post slammed all the way down.

I used to run the camera rightsideup with the extra knuckle in there to push the bottom of the camera out far enough to get the same angle, but it's too clumsy, and on very steep terrain, where my body is near parallel to the ground, it would max out and still shoot mostly top tube.  flipping it and taking out the extra knuckle lets me swing the camera up for long downhills (Angel Fire) when I'm parallel to the ground a lot.

[KuЯdt 248]

@Braff Zacklin, I also mount the camera upside down on the chesty.  As YourMom said, it's hard to get that angle right and a lot of times I have it pointed down too far resulting in the knee view.  The correct angle does look like it would be pointed too high, but that's what works best.  Just takes some time to get used to it.

The file sizes are going to be pretty large.  No getting around that especially for longer videos.  I think the last one I did was 3GB, and it was around 4-5 minutes.  But I'm also on Google Fiber so not an issue for me.  You could record at 30fps instead of 60 and see if that reduces the size some, and perhaps improve battery life.  I don't think 60 is really necessary unless you plan to do some slo-mo.

As for FOV, I've always used SuperView.  I took the Hero7 out yesterday and rode the same section using a different FOV each time (SuperView, Wide, and Linear).  Still like SuperView the best.  On the Linear setting, it seemed to dull it down and make it hard to really tell what's going on.  I linked the video below and you can decide for yourself.

One thing I liked about GoPro Studio, was it had a setting for removing fisheye.  I haven't found how to do that in VideoPad yet.

 

 

 

 

[wd40 1976]

this is no place for science!

I think I'll try super view, next time.  I think my old gopros had either wide, medium and maybe one other (zoom?).   medium had the most vertical range, which was good for mtb stuff to show more trail.  the fisheye thing still bothers me, but SV does show more of the trail and seems a little more 3D on passing objects, which I do like.

I doubt VP has any image correction for fisheye.  seems like gopro studio, being proprietary to the camera, knows the radius of the fisheye and can do the math more accurately.  but that's just pulling thoughts out of body cavities.

VP does have stabilization, but you end up with jiggly black borders of the frame as it tries to keep the image centered.  the internal camera stab is 10000% better, even though it operates on the same principle.

not sure why, but your FOV test would only play in 720p.  thought my ipad was acting up, but no.  mine still play in 1080HD.

finally, I'm curious what you thought of the FOV/image quality on my videos before you made the conscious investigation.

[TwiceHorn 31438]

Fairly minimal rain this past weekend.  Some good wind last night.  And sunny all week.

Some trails gonna open in the big D this week.  I think.

And temps under 80.  Woohoo!

[Your Mom 4805]

4 hours ago, KuЯdt said:

@Braff Zacklin, I also mount the camera upside down on the chesty.  As YourMom said, it's hard to get that angle right and a lot of times I have it pointed down too far resulting in the knee view.  The correct angle does look like it would be pointed too high, but that's what works best.  Just takes some time to get used to it.

The file sizes are going to be pretty large.  No getting around that especially for longer videos.  I think the last one I did was 3GB, and it was around 4-5 minutes.  But I'm also on Google Fiber so not an issue for me.  You could record at 30fps instead of 60 and see if that reduces the size some, and perhaps improve battery life.  I don't think 60 is really necessary unless you plan to do some slo-mo.

As for FOV, I've always used SuperView.  I took the Hero7 out yesterday and rode the same section using a different FOV each time (SuperView, Wide, and Linear).  Still like SuperView the best.  On the Linear setting, it seemed to dull it down and make it hard to really tell what's going on.  I linked the video below and you can decide for yourself.

One thing I liked about GoPro Studio, was it had a setting for removing fisheye.  I haven't found how to do that in VideoPad yet.

 

 

 

 

I just recently found that section of trail.  It's the best best of the whole network.  I always start near Brodie and hit the sections behind Bowie HS first.  If I'm going that far west I usually pop out along Slaughter to 1826 and do the Slaughter Creek Trail loop instead of Bear Lake before heading back home.  I'd only been over to Bear Lake once and only on the east side of it.  That west side, 4 Ledges, is awesome!  I gotta hit that more often.  I wish there was a better way to get there than Stroller and Boneyard.  I hate that windy section up 45.  

[KuЯdt 248]

2 hours ago, wd40 said:

not sure why, but your FOV test would only play in 720p.  thought my ipad was acting up, but no.  mine still play in 1080HD.

finally, I'm curious what you thought of the FOV/image quality on my videos before you made the conscious investigation

I thought your videos looked like ass and you should feel bad about yourself!  Kidding aside, i thought they looked ok but didn't really consider it much.  What I do know is that your vids are usually high on the gnar factor but the videos don't convey that as much.  I know it because I can recognize it but someone not familiar with that type of terrain may not.  I'm not sure if a whole lot can be done to improve because a lot of it just has to do with the GoPro effect.

I blame the youtubes for the 720 thing, 1080p works for me when I view it.

[KuЯdt 248]

15 minutes ago, Your Mom said:

I just recently found that section of trail.  It's the best best of the whole network.  I always start near Brodie and hit the sections behind Bowie HS first.  If I'm going that far west I usually pop out along Slaughter to 1826 and do the Slaughter Creek Trail loop instead of Bear Lake before heading back home.  I'd only been over to Bear Lake once and only on the east side of it.  That west side, 4 Ledges, is awesome!  I gotta hit that more often.  I wish there was a better way to get there than Stroller and Boneyard.  I hate that windy section up 45.  

Agreed, that's my favorite area as well.  The way I usually get there is by going through Circle C Metro, then popping out the SW end and take Phoenix up to Spruce Canyon.  Go through the neighborhood and take the trail from the back corner of Magenta Lane (takes you to those little jumps) and on over to Stroller Roller.  After you pop out of SR, take the road into Grey Rock golf club.  There is a trail on the right maybe 20 yards in.  take that and then take the first left (and keep staying left) and you can then meander your way on over to Bear Lake.  I don't like Boneyard either so I avoid that trail.

[Braff Zacklin 13553]

Thanks to the advice of many in this thread, I was able to get my camera mounted so that ascending and descending footage looks proper (i.e., not staring down my knees or up my nose). I also switched to Linear FoV as SuperView isn't available @ 1440p/60fps (my only options are Wide and Linear). There might be some resolution/framerate that enables it, but for now, Linear is a huge improvement from the fisheyed footage I took a couple of days ago. I might also scale back to 30fps to prolong battery life and mitigate upload times.

Anyway, without further adieu:

As you know, I like to talk, so just skip to the 5-minute mark if you want to see me get super steezy.

[TwiceHorn 31438]

Well, I figured a trail or two or three would open today and furiously refreshed dorba.org until after noon.  Then I gave up and did other stuff.

Later on, I discovered that Boulder and Sister Grove had opened, but a bit late to start.  Texas Land Conservancy taking OCNP off the grid is a bummer.

Tomorrow I will have a decision to make.

[TwiceHorn 31438]

Went to Boulder, the parking lot was full and there were another 20 cars parked on the street, putting around 50 people on the trail.

Said fuck it and headed home.  Checked Dorba and Rowlett Creek was open.  So I went there and pounded out some muddy miles.

Boulder is almost as far southwest in Dallas County as you can go, Rowlett is almost as far northeast as you can go.

Should have just gone to Sister Grove.

[TwiceHorn 31438]

Made the haul out to Sister Grove again.  Nice ride but a little short.  One of the loops I rode last time was closed and I didn't feel like getting on the last loop, which has some "expert features."  Mostly because a lot of it is in the sun.  It was cool today, low-mid 70s and kind of breezy, but for whatever reason, riding in the sun is a bit of a beatdown to me.

Also, took a pic of trenched trail.

I picked this view because it contrasts what normal grassy trail looks like in NTX on the right and the Collin County trench on the right.  It's not the greatest example of a deep trench and the photo flattens it out more.  I am continuing to ride in the trenches, unlike a lot of people, despite the disconcerting pedal strikes.

[dingleberryswitzer 2724]

Anyone ever ride the madrone trail at canyon lake?  Think I might give that a try soon as I can. 

[TwiceHorn 31438]

Got out to Katie Jackson a/k/a Collarbone Park today.  Was a little chilly at first (mid 50s) but a pretty decent ride.  Little muddy in spots.

All of the urban/suburban creeks are a lot cleaner since the distancing and with the recent rains.

This is basically at the intersection of George Bush and the Tollway.  Usually its a storm sewer.

 

They fixed the connection between the yellow/north loop and the red/blue/black south loops by digging in along the fence.  Left this little nugget:

That's not quite 780mm. And, it's a two-way path.  Some fair exposure to the right of the pic in some places, too.  But, whatyagonnado?  Better than nothing. (As noted upthread, you used to have to come out of the trail area onto the apartment sidewalk shown to the left and then drop back in to get between the loops, but the apartments fenced themselves in).

Edited April 17, 2020 by TwiceHorn

[Braff Zacklin 13553]

Nice creek shot.

You're a better man than I if you can hit that gate with speed. I'd just roll up to it, almost come to a stop at that first root, turn the bars sharply left, hook my right grip behind the tree, then turn sharply right to pull me past. Technically, not a dab, but not very heroic, either.

[TwiceHorn 31438]

14 minutes ago, Braff Zacklin said:

Nice creek shot.

You're a better man than I if you can hit that gate with speed. I'd just roll up to it, almost come to a stop at that first root, turn the bars sharply left, hook my right grip behind the tree, then turn sharply right to pull me past. Technically, not a dab, but not very heroic, either.

Well, this is the first time I laid eyes on it, so I came to a complete stop, walked up to it, stuck my bars through, and waddled through it.  It will be many attempts before I roll it at any speed.

And, since it's narrower than my bars, I don't think there's any heroism gonna be involved, ever.

[Braff Zacklin 13553]

OK, after much trial and error, I did upload a couple of YouTube vids from a ride earlier this week, but I haven't worked out all the kinks. For one, I wore my hydration pack the day these were recorded and didn't realize the bite valve and tag end of the sternum strap were periodically bouncing around in frame. #themoreweknow

Second, think I mounted the camera too low. Had it upside down, with the knuckle also turned down, which means the camera was at navel-level. I'll try wearing the mount higher and flipping the knuckle so that the camera is roughly sternum level.

Also, the image stabilization on these later GoPros might be too good. Seriously, everything looks like buttah.

Finally, the first video was only 50 percent longer than the second, but the filesize with the same export settings was three times larger. Not sure what was going on there. Unfortunately, my upstream bandwidth is heavily limited, so I had to scale down the quality of the first vid to 1080p/30fps. Apologies in advance.

Anyway, for real-real this time, here's what I got:

 

 

 

 

[TwiceHorn 31438]

Nice.  I don't see any huge problems with the video.

Is some of your climbing interspersed with descents or is it all-up and all-down?

[Braff Zacklin 13553]

Thanks.

To me, the "belly cam" makes it seem like I'm always sitting, although I'm standing 60-70 percent of the time in the first video and 99 percent of the time in the second video, so I'm hoping repositioning it will fix that. And I know the "GoPro effect" flattens everything, but I think the belly cam made it even more so.

As for climbing, it depends on the route. Once the snow is gone, you can ascend uninterrupted for nearly two hours if you really want, and more at places not too far from here.

But you don't have to. The top of the twisty trail in the second video is just a gully washer about 400 feet of elevation above the trailhead; the bottom is about 200 feet.

One of these days, I'd like to do a video from the top of one of my favorite climbs all the way down to the trailhead. Would have to mooch a friend's access to upload that cuz it would take more than a full day to upload with my shitty service provider.

[Your Mom 4805]

That twisty descent looks like a blast!

[KuЯdt 248]

Vids look good Braff! Beautiful scenery from those trails, and gettin steezy on that twisty one.

[Braff Zacklin 13553]

Thanks to both of you. However, I assure you nothing I have ever done on a bicycle would rank as steezy.

It's a fun descent but too twisty and too much up-and-down for flow, so you have to pedal or pump like mad to maintain speed. My legs are burning by the halfway point.

Gonna tackle a more ambitious ride with some friends this afternoon (we're finally back in the 60s after a week of snow, rain, and freezing temps). I'll mount the cam higher and see how it turns out.

[TwiceHorn 31438]

Six rides in nine days.  Time on my hands and also making up for lost time.  

Rain fairly probable tonight and tomorrow.  So I shall rest in accordance with the Lord's mandate.

[wd40 1976]

cool vids, Braf!   everyone gets to learn about the camel dong dangle the hard way.  it's like an initiation ritual for mountainbike youtubers.

I have to say, I've been getting a lot more saddle time since this whole SIP thing started.  more of my friends are on more flexible schedules, so we can knock out lunchtime rides.  Sunday south, catted around on Wednesday, got thumped on Thursday evening, (went fishing on Friday) and did Crystal this morning (superview test video uploading, as we speak).

[wd40 1976]

flowin' with the Leanderthals.

 

[Braff Zacklin 13553]

Awesome, wd! That looks so fun. The scenery on that climbout at about the 2:30 mark was over the top.

And you know I love the track, too. Super chill. Perfect background music for some flow.

[Pescado_Rojo 19416]

I need to learn that trail. It’s close to the crib, and I ride WilCo too much because it’s right next to my house. 

[KuЯdt 248]

Nice one, wd.  Is that a public trail or a Freeride 512 thing?  I've been getting a little bored riding only the southie trails lately, but it looks like some of the other trails are about to open up again.  However, I might want to go explore some other trails like this one that I've never ridden before.

[wd40 1976]

Thanks.  and thanks for the superview tip.  I think I do like it better than linear.

Crystal is semi-public.  Crystal Falls subdivision contracted with some pros to build it.  there's no pay or sign-up or anything like that.  it's definitely not Freeride512.  more family oriented, I guess you could say, but there are a couple side loops that require a little more focus.  it connects to a trail owned by Travisso subdivision that ends at 1431, but that trail is closed due to new road and utility construction.  CF is an out-and-back, about 9 miles, round trip.   

best part about CF is it rides very well in wet conditions.  there are a few spots that are permanently wet.  on one of the side loops (to the left of the big mulch field we jumped onto from the deadend road) there are a couple wooden bridges that are like ice when wet.  otherwise, no mud to speak of and good traction.

Edited April 19, 2020 by wd40

[Dbeasy 15042]

Thanks.  and thanks for the superview tip.  I think I do like it better than linear.
Crystal is semi-public.  Crystal Falls subdivision contracted with some pros to build it.  there's no pay or sign-up or anything like that.  it's definitely not Freeride512.  more family oriented, I guess you could say, but there are a couple side loops that require a little more focus.  it connects to a trail owned by Travisso subdivision that ends at 1431, but that trail is closed due to new road and utility construction.  CF is an out-and-back, about 9 miles, round trip.   
best part about CF is it rides very well in wet conditions.  there are a few spots that are permanently wet.  on one of the side loops (to the left of the big mulch field we jumped onto from the deadend road) there are a couple wooden bridges that are like ice when wet.  otherwise, no mud to speak of and good traction.

Wait where is this? I live in this area but don’t know where it is.