Old Line Sunday at Castlerock

Greetings, Team Seagal Minions! This blog and our team are both about education, as stated before. Education, current events, and historical preservation. But more on that later.

You know, anyone who has ridden mountain bikes for a while in St. Louis, such as anyone on our team, may have the tendency to view Castlewood with a certain "meh" attitude. That is, since it is essentially the most accessible trail system to the city (and much of the county) and since it is a well-laid out series of loops, on which it is hard to get lost. They're the local stomping grounds. Yours truly has ridden there since grade school, which means that for people like myself, there are no surprises, and can seem a bit tired. If someone moves a single rock, I'll probably wonder where that rock went.

BUT, that doesn't mean the place isn't plenty of fun, when going with the right mindset. And the right jerk.


For this particular Sunday, Nico and I decided to take advantage of the remaining snow, and crush out some miles before the "thaw" part of the freeze/thaw cycle reared it's sloppy, un-baller head. That meant getting to The Jerk's House early. Which meant getting up even earlier in order visit the "Brown House."


Having successfully received Energor's brown fuji gift to me, I headed out and arrived to find him having already been preparing a tasty meal of his favorite - crowns - and a delicious egg/rye/pepper cheese/hummus sammich:



After sitting in his breakfast nook and putting those foods into my face, I stepped over to put our plates into the sink where I turned around and noticed a beautiful sight: A bin full of amazing empties that have been crushed by the Jerk Himself.

We then wasted no time in transferring ourselves, and our shit out to the place to be seen on a nice day like today - the pavilion lot at the 'Wood. Nico also waste no time blastin' his nips for the whole park to see:

The sun was shining, threatening to cause problems, so we un-blasted our nips and sallied forth. The trail was frozen with a harder surface than Criss Angel's lap while playing Santa at the boys home on Christmas Eve:

Our two-man man train choo-choo'd around the stinging nettle loop (where we noticed the cable-roots having been cut out, making the "narrows" section more easily ridable) and curved our way back to the Blue Ribbon. Jerkscani piloted me up the first counter-clockwise hill, which brought us to a newly-discovered overlook, which is nothing less than a gift that has been bestowed upon us from Energor himself.

Continuing down the trail:



Our euphoria was growing faster than a jenkem high as the trail unfurled beneath our tires. Something dawned on us, that we have been riding past all this glorious yet forgotten trail, and we made a decision - to transform "just another Castlewood ride" in "Old Line Sunday." In the spirit of historical preservation, and in light of all the BULLSHIT switch-back cutting on the Chubb Trail, we decided to do our part to preserve the old, historically significant lines for future generations by riding where the trail use to go (note the old being ridden and the new line off to the side):


Forgotten trail is all over Castlewood - you just have to look for it, 10 feet at a time.

We had to see some of the other sights, like the 1980's mansion of the future:Things that are sure to be in that mansion:
-a red Ferrari Testarossa and/or a Lamborghini Countach
-a mountain of cocaine on a desk
-very tall ferns
-leather couches
-an intercom system
-a large, deep cut-out in the wall where the big-screen projection TV used to go

To which I say:

After 2.5 hours, a visit to the blorffs were not a bad way to finish Old Line Sunday:


The year is starting anew - many things happening and stewing. For example, Death By Hills is not far away, and we expect to see the return of the New East Coast Syndicate crossing over from the eastern to the western shore - he must already be on his way, as I can already smell his newest tubeset.

-Casey Fucking Ryback

P.S. 23!