This past Saturday my buddy Mike and I hit the trails on three farms that are owned either by his uncle, his father in-law, or the father-in-law's uncle. Thus we had 100+ acres to explore though, obviously, they weren't all ridable. We started out crossing a cowpen that reeked of cow life and then we climbed a fence to begin our actual ride. The cows lined up in anxious excitement to see what the hell we were about to do on our two wheeled contraptions. One was so excited she jumped up on another and shoved her out of the way to get a better view. Once the cow frackus was settled down we began our first ascent.

It sucked.

That first hill was long and steep and very bumpy (from cow-hooves) and the soil was really loose. It was a real pain in the ass to ride up. I lost all momentum a couple times and getting restarted was no fun either. However, eventually I caught up with Mike at the top and we cross a bit of flat ground before having to go up again (and again, and again). All of our trails on his uncle's property are actually "cow-trails" that are used when the cows move from one pasture to another. Needless to say they weren't in the smoothest condition; a herd of cows, even a small one, can really tear up a trail. We were able to avoid riding where the cows walk at times but when we did we were hugging a tall barbed-wire fence on one side with trees looming in on the other. At one point I was ducking down to get under a branch, hit a rock and slammed my helmet up into an overhanging branch. It was, by far, a better alternate to losing control and getting caught up in the barbed-wire.

Eventually, as we rode, we encountered a second herd of cattle. They actually found us first when we had stopped to rest. Cows started popping their heads around some trees to see what the commotion was. Once they realized it was us they cautiously approached getting to within 50 feet of us before we were ready to start up again. They lined up timidly watching us mount our bikes and then, when we began to peddle in their direction, they freaked out, pivoted poorly, and tried to run for their lives. I felt like a cowboy on the range until my bike got bogged down in some thick mud forcing me to put a foot down and releasing a noxious cloud of cow urine scent from the earth. My shoe was coated in a questionable "mud" substance which was probably closer to a dirt, piss, and manure cocktail. It was nasty and we still had about an hour and a half of riding ahead of us and the temperature was rising.

After crossing through a few more gates as we switched property and finally finding some descents we reached Mike's father-in-laws farm which was timely because Mike was having some technical difficultlies with his bike so we rode down to their house and barn so he could see to repairs. While I waited I checked out their barn of death that was loaded with at least 20 sets of deer antlers and 2 stuffed deer that had not survived their post taxidermy experience very well. Once Mike was done with the repairs we saddled up and began the climb back up the hillside toward a different cow-trail which would connect us with the final pathway back to Mike's uncles farm. While riding on it, through the woods, we scouted out a few areas where we could clear for some new trails and a pump track. While we explored we also found a stockpile of cow skulls which we can only assume were dumped there after past cows had died on the farm.

Finally we began our final descent down a pretty steep (but not difficult) path that had some ruts carved out across them to help with drainage. Unfortuantely I misjudged one of them and my front tire sank down to the spoke level in one of them and I ended up doing a nose-wheelie that turned and then dumped me off so that I slammed downhill flat onto my back. It didn't hurt too badly but my left hip and right shoulder were both feeling pretty rough. Once I reached the bottom (back at the Uncle's farm) I tried to stretch out my hip but it caused a wicked cramp to develop so I decided to hold off on that. I was pretty sure I'd have a bad limp on Sunday but, amazingly, my hip wasn't bothering me at all the next day. Sadly, my right shoulder is still pretty tight though it is loosening up. I have all week to recover I think because it is going to be raining until Friday.

The worst part of the crash was that I had made it over some more difficult terrain during the day without incident and I could actually see my car from where I crashed. I was so close to finishing and I thought I was taking the best path through the ravine but it turned out to be extremely wet and soft. Oh well, lesson learned I guess.

For your amusement I figured I'd let you see what people who are good at Mt Biking do.


This isn't the best quality but the better quality version is at broad band sports but it has a commercial at the start.

#MountainBiking