Wow, tonight and the first hours of today a gusty wind
and some rain got free play over our part of the woods. Still when it
dried out a bit around 11am I jumped on my Litespeed with the intention
to do a few hours of singletrack riding. Luckily my secret Meerdael
loop has just that in its first 25K or so. The forest floor was wet,
wetter than I imagined it would be. Yet I persevered and was thoroughly
enjoying the singletracks, slippery and wet making for a good technical
training as well. About 15K in the ride , things became suddenly very
dark and it started raining again. My good fortune fairy was with me
because I happened to be within a few 100 metres from the Mollendaal
shelter. This shelter was filled to the brim with big-eyed girlscouts
but I managed to squeeze myself and my bike under the overhanging roof
just the same. They were Dutch and were doing the Red Bloso route on
hired Trek mountainbikes , starting from the Kluis where they were
camped. I explained to them that we were close to the highest point of
Mollendaal, so from now on it would be more or less downhill for them.
That cheered them up a bit.
When the rain ceased I bade them
farewell and got back on my tracks. The fresh rain made things even
slippier and I had a few narrow escapes. Good thing my Schwalbe Nobby
Nics 1.8 dug in really good so they helped me to keep the rubber side
down.
The
sun burst through and the sight of a wet forest with sunrays stroking
the leaves and evaporating the rain is really a joy to behold. When I
got home I had two bikes to clean, the Litespeed obviously but also the
Hilset had been getting some rain these last few weeks and was
developing a dirty look. I took the best part of an hour to clean them,
in a way expressing my thanks for the faithful services they have been
giving me for quite some years now. Rubbing them dry and coating them
with beeswax to really make the titanium shine and they are ready for
new trails.
Ride Stats : 32.5K and 310 heightmeters in 2h01mins
6348/58190
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