With a chance of pedaling.
I was able to make it out to South Kettles today. The weather was perfect. Mid to high 70′s, sooper sunny and it felt like the humidity was non existent. I felt like my legs were rested up and the hotline said that all trails were open so I made the trek and brought out the SASS. Once there I half thought about making it to the Emma Carlin trail and doing 2 loops there before heading back. That was big talk.
I think that most of the other jaunts on the connector had some form of the ‘main’ blue loop closed off due to rain. Today the odie read around 7.5 miles just to get off of the Muir. So that sucked up about 40 minutes worth of time. I got out to the open field section of the connector and wondered if the ‘Connector Curse’ would give me a free pass or if I’d have to work to keep the chase on, I didn’t want to find out so I hammered out the 32×16. Out of all the times that I’ve been out through this way since Malibu’s mishap I never stopped to burn any pictures off of the area where it happened. Today would be different.
The trail was dug in and the surrounding foliage was mowed down around it. Really reminiscent of sections this place, where good driving makes a big difference in the open sections. That’s when I start to see the rise where it all took place. In the past I just burned through this section at the speed of sound and just poured out a quick squirt from the water bottle for the downed Homie. I knew that I’d have to be fast if I wanted some pics. The curse doesn’t tolerate insolence.
That’s it. All gnarly and nasty. It’s like looking at a tire rubbed guard rail on a tricky corner where many a motorist were caught unawares. That last pic was taken from the top and you can see the yall marks from where bikers were woken up from their day dreamt haze. So I go click, click, click and GTF out. Made it out to the Emma burned around her loop there and the legs didn’t feel like such big talkers anymore. I grabbed the return connector and headed for home base without seeing more than 4 bikers on the trails. The low down looked like this:
24.64 miles traveled in 2:22:32 with an average pace of 10.4 mph and an RPE of roughly 6.5. Cost was a few vitamins, 4 cliff bloks, 2 water bottles of H2O and 3,150 calories.
One of the stranger moments of the day (SMOM-Strange Moments on the Muir) came when 1 of the 4 MTBers I passed on the trail came over to make small talk in the parking lot and I was getting ready to wrap it up. Conversation was predictable; weather; bikes; trails; WORBA, blah, blah, blah. Then the SMOM.
” Hey we’re parked on a road by the connector. You think that you got a power bar or something that you could spare. Anything. we could use it.” I threw him some vitamins, and orange Hammer Gel, 1 remaining bloks and a Chocolate Brownie Clif bar……………Bon Appetite.
