One Cannot Contain the Clarke-ness

Starting gate.

Three of us met up early morning at Parker's house to meet MJ at the North Welcome Center at LBL. Being April 1st the joke was on Parker: I was on-time and he'd slept in. Fooled you!

Starting sinewy stretch of singletrack.

Clarke-ness has harangued me for weeks to take him up to LBL. Finally the day had come where I could skip away for the whole day and ride bikes in the woods. I love the North/South trail at LBL. Yeah it has become beat up over the years thanks to all the bad storms and flooding, but it still rocks. It is a 30+ mile point to point trail that flows up and down and around the coast. Totally different vibe than your typical mid-TN trail loops.

Lush and green with purple and yellow flowers in abundance.

It also has very diverse topography. Green forests, pines, dry and loose, rocky and loose, rocky and wet, and open field. The trail never disappoints even when it's beating you down or your able to beat it. It's a gold-mine of riding opportunity.

Dry and brown.

Clarke-ness is a recovering Cat1 roadie who is rediscovering his roots (aka mountain biking). We are helping him through the steps of acceptance, such as learning that the statement "we're meeting at 9am to ride" - which would mean an 8:57 roll-out to a roadie - means: "arrival sometime after 9am" to a mountain biker.

Dosing up at Dose.

We're also helping him realize that it's the journey not the destination that makes the day's adventure great by stopping off for good coffee and stocking up on gas station treats along the way to the trail head (why do you think we're always late? duh).

Loose white rocks.

He likes to go fast. Everywhere. Fast up hills. Fast down hills. Fast on the flats. Fast, fast fast. Which is great, when you're in Cat1 roadie shape. Riding with 2 knee injury recovery-ists left the Clarke-ness off the front alone a lot.

Leafy.

MJ did a great job keeping up and ahead of him from time to time. I got a few licks in too, but mostly we just rode and let him fly away off the front. Simply, you can't contain the Clarke-ness.

The hammer drops.

It was the first legitimately hot day for us. 86 degrees and sunny. It felt pretty brutal compared to the 60-70 degree weather I've been riding in lately. Usually at sun up or after sun down is when I've gotten to ride the past several weeks. Getting to ride during the heat of the day left it's mark on me a bit. I'm not used to sweating yet this year. The hottest day of the year always seems to fall on a day we attempt to do a long day at LBL. It affected each of us to a degree, but it didn't stop the fun.

Several new bridges have been constructed over the creeks/ravines where the flood washed the old planks away. There were a few trees down and lots of debris on the trail from recent storms, but other than that, the trail was in immaculate shape. Fast and very flowy.

The Clarke-ness inspects his bent hanger.

One of the many small branches littering areas of the trail took it's first (and luckily only) victim 12 miles into the ride. Clarke's rear derailleur cage and lower pulley got twisted pretty badly and went into his spokes. Luckily it only affected one spoke, which didn't break, and a quick trail-side repair got him running again for the remaining 20 miles.

Stick 1, Clarke-ness 0.

Another bonus of the day was getting to ride with good friend and recent world traveler, Parker. It's been ages since I've hung out with him, let alone spent a good day in the woods riding and chatting with him. He's had a lot of turmoil going on in his world. Bad Cancer shit. It's good to see him smiling and enjoying being out. It's also good to see him still loving the hell out of his MootoX RSL. Epic days in the saddle are always better when Parker is around.

Parker exiting one of the many new bridges.

I wish we'd ridden longer, but I'm glad we finished up on the earlier side of all-day. It's been a long week of burning the candle at both ends and I couldn't wait to get back home to the farm. Once home, I immediately took the dogs out back for a run with the bike since some amazing friends had come over and mowed our front and back yard for us. The yard looked great and the recently cleared tree section out back was a hoot to ride through with the 4 dogs in hot pursuit.