I went riding this past Saturday at Patapsco State Park. Hit the Avalon loop from the top of the park and ride. Did exactly three hours solo. It’s more peaceful alone. Not to mention, I can chill out and concentrate on my technical skills. Don’t have to worry about blazing by all the trail features at lightning fast, hammer-head speed. That’s how most of my friends ride. I think I only have three or four friends that like to get air, wear baggy cloths, and have bikes that travel more than 5 inches. Going alone allows me to concentrate on all mountain riding. I’ll practice logs, skinnies, lips, jumps and hucks. I’ll double back and do ‘em again. And again. And again. Fast is cool, but my focus is on being a solid all-around rider. Technical skills are a must, so I need my time to practice.

Not sure how many of you ride Patapsco State Park, but there have been a lot of fallen trees across the trail over the past few weeks; the yellow trail loop in particular. All the blown-down trees have lines around them, but the flow of the trail is completely screwed up. You can’t get in a rhythm.

As I came across my second blown-down tree on the yellow loop, I got super frustrated. So I stopped, parked the bike, dropped the Camelbak, and started to clean up the blown-down mess in order to begin creating a log crossing transition.

This particular blow-down was complicated; two trees feel about a foot apart. It wasn’t as easy as finding some small logs to stack up because the gap between the two trees also needed to be filled.  These logs also had lots and lots of branches and vines around them; so it was about 15 minutes of work just clear them off. I got done cleaning them off and began finding logs to create the transition ramps on each side. As I was doing this, another rider came down the trail, realized what I was doing, and immediately parked his bike to help. His name was Tyler. He was a student at West Virgina and home for the weekend. He lived in Elkridge, MD near the park. I was thankful for his help. Tyler rode a Jamis and had the same fork and shock set up as my Ellsworth Moment (Fox DHX Air 5.0 & Fox RLC 36). Tyler was a freerider. 

While we were working on this log crossing together, at least four XC riders passed the section of trail of we were working on. They slowed to see what we were doing, never stopped, said “thanks” and kept riding. Now…..I think it’s cool they said “thanks.” However, had they stopped, our half hour trail maintenance session would have taken 5 minutes. It left me wondering if the all mountain / freeride guys share a common mentallity in that helping to keep / build cool features makes for better trails for all of us (XC riders included).

Before you get your panties in a muff, I have nothing against XC riders. Hell, my style is XC half the time I ride. You just gotta put yourself in our shoes at this moment. It does make one think. Here are two riders, dismounted, huffing logs in each hand, getting passed up by potential helpers wearing head-to-toe spandex looking surprised to see two doods working to solve blocked trail. Feel me? Draw your own conclusions.

After about 30 minutes, we finished the transition. At this time, Tyler mentioned he had a flat, and that he was putting more and more air into the tube every five minutes to get back to his car. I always have extra tubes, so I gladly gave him one even though it was my last one. I figured that he was cool enough to stop, so it meant he’s cool enough to get my last tube. The trail Gods would get me back to my truck safely in return for the good deed done on the trail.

At the end of the day, it was a doap ride. I met a cool rider, helped improve the trail, sharpened my skills, and got to be on my bike for three hours straight. Man….life rules, don’t it?

Pedal Hard.

Tyler Repairing His Flat With My Last Tube

The Completed Log Crossing Transiton