The hill at Tribble Mill Park that I mentioned here suffered a crushing defeat today as I surmounted its summit. It sounds impressive, but it really isn’t. Most riders probably wouldn’t flinch at this hill, but it whooped me the first time I tried it. Today I made it over the top with only a brief stop half way up. After that I picked up the multi-use track at the bridges and finished a counter-clockwise circuit. After resting for a few minutes and eating 1/3 of a chocolate PowerBar I headed out again to do a clockwise circuit.

After completing that circuit, I rested again and decided to go just one more time and headed out again clockwise. This time as I approached the bridges in the woods, my right calf was starting to cramp, so I parked on the first bridge and got off to stretch. While standing there I was looking at the trails below me next to a little stream and decided to go off-road and check them out. So I backtracked about 150 feet to a little wooden bridge that I figured was the entrance to these trails. I was met with a fork and headed to the left, which was the direction of the stream. I was immediately faced with an enormous mud pit with no obvious way around. I could tell by the tire tracks through it that it presented no problem for a lot of folks, but this being my first off-road experience, I decided not to tackle mud just yet. So I turned around and took the right fork. This was lovely! I was back there for about a mile, pedaling almost the entire way. No one else was around; just me, the birds, and a lizard. O yeah, and one squirrel.

I finally came out back to the road and stopped for about five minutes to finish off the PowerBar and rest. I then picked up the multi-use again and completed the circuit for a total of nine miles. I’m tired, but it was extremely fun. I’m going to have to check out some of the other trails out there.