McDowell Mountain
by Mitchell Sprinsky on Nov.07, 2005, under Uncategorized
There are three loops here, long, sport, and technical. I opt to start with the sport loop.
This is some fast rolling singletrack, I quickly pick up speed while dodging the fallen Cholla balls . It rolls great but going into the first turn I am remined the gravel is loose. I quickly figure out that turning into the slide works well for a recovery and I am ripping again.
There’s not a lot of climbing on this loop and aside from the desertscape, it reminds me of home.
I don’t think you can do this loop slowly. It just flows so well.
Towards the end of this three mile loop, there are some huge banked turns. I feel like a bobsledder zooming through them. It’s all over pretty quickly and I head over to the long track which starts off similar to the sport track..
There’s some short climbs on this 9 mile loop. This would be a perfect ride for a singlespeed.
About half way through it’s starts to get a little technical.. Mostly loose rocks on ups and downs. All are very rideable.
Well, except for "the step". I attempt this four times and finally dab up on the last try.
After climbing the South Ridge (the highest point) in middle ring (never thought I would ever say that), it’s mostly downhill from there.
There are some cool features like the double dip. A steep drop into two dips (the picture doesn’t show the angle). Next time I will pay attention to the name. The second dip nearly through the backend of the bike over my head. Luckily I recoverd with some white knuckle moments.
On the last stretch, I was burning down some technical DH with some nice drops. Coming around a corner, I fly over a drop and notice three riders on the side with one bike down. By the time I land and slow down, I am too far to turn around. I never do that to other riders. I wait in the parking lot and give them 15 minutes or I will go looking for them. They come out and I apologize. They say no problem and that they were patching a tube.
OIn the way back to the hotel I think how lucky I was not to have a flat with all the Cholla on the trail and using regular tubes. The next morning, the front tire is flat. The tube has one tiny hole, but I find five cactus needles in the tire. I put a new slime tube in. We’ll see how it works.
