Another Chubb Monday

Greetings, Fellow Members of Jerks Anonymous. Mondays call for something special, such as a good chubb lap. It may not be some epic Leadville Training Ride, such as those embarked upon by Jay Wright or our very own Dr. Roland "I Would Like To Renovate the Handicapped Stall At Work" Sallinger, but it is a good ride that will make you a better rider no matter what. Especially if you're singlespeeding it.

Orin Boyd and myself headed out early in the day with a full complement of trail weapons, with plans on assaulting the weeds and shrubbery that have started to encroach on certain sections of the river flats. For the last 3 fucking weeks, rain around this area has been as seldomly seen as a condom in Criss Angel's dungeon. So when we had a Steven Seagal-sized storm roll through the area last night, we figured it would be just about perfect dirt.

Instead, there were a bunch of mud puddles separated by solid, good dirt. Boyd and I parked off of Lewis Road next to the train tracks, where he loaded up his sheers, gas, and weed-eater, while I loaded up my water, pruners, and zombie-hacking machete. A couple of hours later, and our feets were covered in mud, and there was a lot of overgrowth along the trail that was no longer standing.

After honing my machete-wielding skills, I feel much more confident in my ability to defend myself against certain types of zombies - maybe not the  Dawn of the Dead 'roid-rage zombies that can run 100 miles an hour, but definitely The Walking Dead zombies, which are more at a walking pace. Previously, a machete in my hand during the apocalypse would be about as useless as a shower in the house/trailer of a juggalo.


Anyway, so we headed home, grabbed our bikes, recruited a Jerkward, and headed back to the Chubb Trail. The last few weeks, that at the last couple of dirt crits, it was so hot that I had to do my cool-down lap BEFORE the race, just to keep from overheating. Today was much better - and by much better, I mean around 95 degrees instead of like 110.

We descended down the initial bullshit gravel "singletrack,"  we fell into proper man-train formation, and proceeded to choo-choo down the trail:

I know T-tocs loves man-training moar than anything, so I won't go too much further into detail so as not to make him jealous.

The trail zigged and zagged, and before we knew it, we were encountering the 2nd half of the trail, which instead of being muddy, was just slightly slippery. We would have preferred the trail conditions to require this sign:

Most of the rocks resembled Homer's head in this clip:


The rest of the rocks were sharp and loose, which amazed me when Jerkward and I managed to claw our way up the loose switchbacks leading up to the picnic table:

Note that this is like a 45 degree incline.

We pressed on down the West Tyson side, making sure to NOT TAKE THE FUCKING CHEATER LINES. FUCK. Definitely rode all the switchbacks, shaking our collective heads as we took in the evidence from all the weak sauce riding that takes place here.

Coming to the Chubb Shelter at the West Tyson side, we circled around on the connector trail, filled up on water in the 95 degree heat, then proceeded to climb up the scree wall that is otherwise known as the Flint Quarry Trail. This is section of trail really is kind of like a quarry, or a mine: due to it's poor trail design, where the trail basically goes straight up the hill, any time there is a rainfall, the water rushes down the trail so fast that you essentially get the effects of a mini hydraulic mine.  No tire pressure is low enough to give you confident traction from bottom to top, as it has become so loose and so eroded now, that it is just a gamble.

The return trip to the car was simply fantastisch, and the rock garden provided ample time to get awesome.

Don't forget to come to the dirt crits. And while you're at it, go to... nevermind.

-Casey F.U. Ryback