Fun with the Trifecta

tri·fecta (trī fekt a) noun: A highly enjoyable bicycle tour of St. Charles County where participants use the Katy Trail to connect three totally sweet MTB trail systems including: Lost Valley, Matson Hill Park, & Klondike Park.

The month of June has been a quiet one for me, Nico Toscani, as I purposely planned it to include only Mohican recovery and super fun party-time action. That is, zero races and plenty of delicious PBR. Mohican recovery did actually take a minute -on one occasion soon after the race I actually DNF'ed a Chubb Lap, retuning to the Lone Elk Trailhead before I even reached the picnic table. This would not be the case for the rest of the month. I set my sights on the Trifecta, wondering how many of its configurations I could domintate with my single-speed mountaining bike.

Three consecutive Mondays in a row I administered a challenge to the Trifecta, just daring it to try and make a fool out of Nico Toscani. I had to up the mileage on each successive attempt:

1) Monday June 16, 2008 - Trifecta (and a bit of The Hamburg Trail)

Leaving from The Mound...

- drop into Lost Valley, ride a CCW Lap starting with the gravel double track climb. 3/4 the way through the lap turn right off the the double track towards the parking lot and cross HWY 94. Head west on The Katy trail towards Matson.

-Up Matson Hill Rd, one lap of Matson Hill Trail and then back down to the Katy Trail. Head west towards Klondike.

-Arrving at Klondike Park, up the Hogsback switchbacks on the East Side of the park, then onto Powerline, Strip Mine, etc on the Western side of the park.

-East on Katy Trail back to Lost Valley, complete the last 1/3 of the lap you began earlier. Climb the double-track out of LV back to The Mound.



On this particular day Gino and I added 6 miles of The Hamburg Trail for some extra climbing.

2) Monday June 23, 2008 - Trifecta PLUS

Leaving from The Mound, a Trifecta PLUS is all the riding as mentioned above, but you complete two laps of each MTB trail system before moving onto the next. This particular ride included an optional accent of Terry Rd > Duke Rd > descent of Matson Hill Rd, just for the smell of it.



This ride was completed solo, somebody please tell me how is my table is moving at 5.5 mph?

3) Monday June 30, 2008 - DOUBLE Trifecta, aka Sex-Fecta

This particular pain train is exacly what it says it is. Dr. Wesley McLaren and The Shop Ministor joined me for the AM Trifecta, which departed The Mound at 9:30am. We were animals, gobbling up the course as if we were all riding with a 34 x 17 gearing. Trifecta #1 was history with a ride time of 2hr 57min, definitley the fastest Trifecta I had ever completed. I was feeling pretty good afterwards, but was wishing I hadn't watched Dr. McLaren slug back an ice cold PBR at the parking lot as I re-filled my bottles with 1/2 strength Gatorade. I was on my own for the PM Trifecta and things started off pretty sluggish in Lost Valley. I was fearing greatly that I would become saturated with weak-sauce and end up walking the towering gravel climb up Mastson Hill Rd. This would not be the case, I cleaned all of the major hills that haunted me and returned back to The Mound to post a PM Trifecta Ride Time of 3hr 2min. Quite a consistent day, I thought.



Thanks for stopping by, stay tuned for the next Team Seagal NON-Race, The Matson Hill Relay Race to be held on Sunday July 27, 2008.

-Nico Toscani