Sunday's Church of Dirt, RR tracks, black label, and more!

Sunday started way early as I couldn't sleep. Up at 4am, surfing netty for info on endurance practice stuff. Pretty interesting....need more coffee! After 3ish hours of crossing my eyes and not trying to fall asleep again staring into the screen of abis info. I bail to take beer cans back to Wally World and get oil for the jeep. While waiting Bill Durkee rings me and wheels are set in motion for the day's ride....Yay! SS'ing a lil bit of this and a lil bit of that. Knowing the Banner Bacon Ride is going on this fine morning too, we opt to stay local and get miles in. Instead of bacon and beer.

9am we roll from my place to bust a lap out at Center. Its a 4min ride from my door to the Denmans trail head. Talking while getting there Bill wants to hit Syc and Ewing this morning also. I opt to change his mind as those two trails are on opposite sides of town. Telling him we can do ERT (east side river trail) then hit Ewing. Perfect the plan is set.

Bust a lap of Denmans, hit connector over to Squirrels Nest to cut it short and check out the construction they're doing in the bed of the Raccoon river.

 Up over the bridge Durkee is all but about to crash riding the tracks:) Into Water Works Park and I start to think fuck to much pavement this route, so back over the wooden bridge by the frisbee golf course and we are heading to the Lost Planet for a outskirt lap. Around the Planet and its time for some connector RR tracks to hook up the Homeless Alley levee on the north side of the Raccoon River. Track section is close to a mile and not too bad, although I kinda like riding them most folks don't. On the levee we shoot towards Mullets cruising by all the Homeless camps that litter the banks of the Raccoon on both sides of the levee. Half a mile to the pedestrian bridge at SW 5th st we ride into the mine section......HOLY GOOSE SHIT! It's everywhere! There is no wheeving or bobbing that shit just riding through it and keeping your damn mouth shut. On to the south side of the river and to Mullets!

Past Mullets, back over the river to the north side and I'm thinking of rolling some old quad trail that hooks up ERT from here. NOPE.....HOLY GOOSE SHIT!! Again wheeving and bobbing no good, bail....BAIL....shit my water bottle!! Once again on the south side and we are good the geese seem to only like the northern side. Rolling on the "new" black label to the RR trestle bridge that gets you back...yes back on the north side of the river to whats left of the ERT. There are train cars sitting on our bridge but thats no problem as we have a rideable walk way....just be sure to keep the needle straight or else:) ERT "used" to be an all out quad trail, now the 4x4's are back in there rolling most of it. Still a change of pace for inside the City. Roughly an 8.5 mile lolly pop of twists, turns, sand, banked corners, steep drops, and climbs only made for machine....good fuckin times!

Almost to the back of the lolly pop is this above structure. When I first saw the mates building it last year I thought it to be a sweet killing pad. Tons of sausage (deer) back there for the taking. But today we see that was not the case, its a pad for a 150yrd zip line! The line is too slack right now due to a couple little trees' hanging on it. Some day!

Out of ERT we bolted up 22nd st to head over to Ewing Park, CITA's newest piece of dirt that is in progress. Thanks to Brian Sheesley I had insider info on a "short cut" to keep us off of Evergreen St and Indainola Ave. with more dirt and grass. It's the little things like this that keep that smile of inner City mtbing alive and well. Just past Sheesley's house we cut through a yard and whala Easter Lake's Shore trail gets us over to and under Indainola Ave and right in Ewing Park. A quick lap of the 2+ mile route here and another quick lap of the BMX track we are back on City streets heading home. All in all a great day on the single speed with 38.5 miles in 3:48:00 and some change, need to hook up Syc and the rest of this ride for the Inner City Epic. I'd even be break some rules for a loop of BW in there!



Peace!