Memorial Day Death March
by Mitchell Sprinsky on May.29, 2007, under Uncategorized
Not a single spot to be had and it didn't look like a whole lot of bike racks either.
When Carol shows up she says that it will only be one other, her friend Eugine. Her description of him says that he's a good rider. Uh oh! Looks like I will be riding with two racers today. That usually means I will be suffering on the uphill.
We start up Mount Falcon, a death march climb that I immediately fall behind on by 15 minutes.
It's kind if sad when hikers are passing you, but I make the best of it with some photo ops.
Once at the top we head out onto Parmalee. This was my first time on this trail. I just never thought there was anything else other than climbing and coming down. Wow, was I wrong. What a fun trail! Great flow, in the shade, and awesome vistas.
It seems like all the time I gain on the downhill and catch up to the other two is lost on the climbs. Oh well.
I figured that after Parmalee we'd be heading down Falcon. For some reason I thought Parmalee was part of Lair o' the Bear. Wrong!
We bomb down a paved road into Evergreen. By this time I am very disoriented. How did I get from Mt. Falcon to Evergreen? I didn't even think they were close. I guess I still have a lot to learn around here. We head onto Lair o' the Bear.
Another fun trail with more downhill than uphill, but by the time we reach the peak before the last downhill I am wasted. We're almost all out of water now and I can't feel my legs as I pound down a goo. Back to some downhill, then a ride along a people invested creek trail to Route 74. Now, this is the part that scared the crap out of me. Doing 40+ miles an hour as cars are whipping by me on this very twisty downhill mountain highway was not what I bargained for. The other two took off like bats out of hell on there 1.9 nearly semi-slick tires, while I shrugged along as fast as I could on the 3.5 Kenda Minions. They are not kidding when it says "Super Tacky" on the tire.
We meet again in Morrison and then it took every ounce of energy I had to get back to the car. When I got home I fell asleep.
