Pictures by Mama/Chocolate Girl
JULY 4th 19th ANNUAL CARTECAY RIDE
Yesterday, Jenn and I went on the 19th annual, July 4th Cartecay ride with what looked like over 50 of my closet biking friends at the Tanasi trail system. It was a great day full of riding and socializing.
Jenn and Kristen did a 9 mile adventure around some of the lower trails to really get a feel for mountain type riding. They got to experience first hand some technical features and steep climbing. It was great to come back to the parking lot and see their smiling faces, proud of what they had just accomplished. We all know that great feeling of getting past those first obstacles. Kristen seems to really be getting the hang of her knew clipless pedals. Pretty soon, it will be time to get Jenn on some as well.
Our ride started off great! We took the side trails and a little bit of road to the Brush Creek Loop for some flowy warm-up. When I say warm-up, I mean following some 24 hr hammers at an average of over 12 mph. I kept the cadence for most of the loop, but eventually, the weight of the bike caught up with me and I had to fall back some. Brush Creek is some nice flow that just seems to roll and roll for several miles. Leaving Brush Creek, you hit a great downhill back to the road (you have to climb it to get there). My DH was ruined back a stiff link that had to be removed at the bottom, but overall it was a great ride.
Once we got done with the Brush Creek side, we went back to the cars for some refueling before hitting the classic side of Tanasi. On the menu for the rest of the ride was Bear Paw, Chestnut and TR Express. Unfortunately, I blew up…and bad. It totally ruined Chestnut, so I tried to conserve energy for the best downhill at the trail system. Thunder Rock Express is known for being very fast and treacherous. There even used to be nets on the side of the trail to catch riders from flying off into the forest. At the top of TRE, I sat for awhile to regain my composure (legs). When I started, I thought it was going to be another bust, but luckily I got a really clean, fast ride down. It made all of that pushing worth it. Heading back to the parking lot, my legs were toast, and apparently I wasn’t the only one. This was the first time, in a long time, that I have seen this many riders having cramping issues. We must have been hitting it pretty hard from the beginning.
Overall mileage ended up around the 27 mile range, and we were doing it at a fast clip thanks to our lead pack. As we all know, even a tough day at the trail is a great one.
After the ride, we went to get some lunch with friends and then cooked out later to enjoy the 4th. Rain prevented us from going to see the fireworks, but not many of us cared due to the company we were keeping. Great ride…great day…can’t wait to do it again.
