Went for a great ride today. Saw a little yellow bird that I can't really identify and he was kind of a b@stard about sticking around so I could look at him (see me? No, I'll fly away. Now I'll come back- now do you see me? Now I'll disappear). Also a swan and a redwing(ed?) blackbird (not rare- but pretty!)
Also, some frogs of some kind (unless beavers sing) were going crazy in the beaver pond. Really quite loud.
Oh, and the title. Long ago we had a trail called Matt's Trail (by Matt, Mark, Jim, maybe Forrest, and I- I'm quite sure that no one else ever even heard this name). This was I think back in the time when we felt a little more exploratory. At least speaking for myself, this was true. I don't really feel like leaning back and plummeting from rocks like I used to. (though I must add, the rock to which I refer has been either removed or buried, and gravel trail put in its place).
So, with my newly realized riding motto in my head (I don't want to do battle with the trail- I want to ride on it. And I don't like getting off the bike to carry it up things or over things), I did a tiny bit of exploring in the other direction from the artist-formerly-known-as-rock-plummet, and found two nice little loops. One of which involved a rickety old up-and-over job over a rotten log (see above parenthetical statement). After some poking around, I realized that the rotten log was so rotten it could be kicked apart. I was able to make a new line (without ruining the old rickety) by piling rocks in the V of an un-rotten fallen tree.
One more note, and I'll show you my drawing of the trail. A unique feature of these little loops is that they pass between the reservoir and a dirty, copper-colored, opaque little lake, into which a pipe spews liquid at a good clip. Perhaps it just stirs up the dirt on the bottom, but it looked awfully... unclean to me.
So, without further ado, I present to you Matt's Trail: V. 2.0.
Oh, and Mark, you'll be sad to hear that "motocross", the trail where you performed your amazing front flip off a rock, seems to have been destroyed or abandoned. There's a giant pile of brush/wood near where it used to begin, but large piles of dirt block the trail.
Now his SON is a pro cyclist, and won the pink jersey at the Giro D'Italia on the first day. This isn't about feeling old so much as it's about roots. The next generation isn't born- it's in power. Taylor is serious business. Here's his Bicycle Manufacturing Corporation Time Trial bike.
