322 Miles of Riding to Do One More Show

I went out with the WR-250FY on the ol' Pachaug rock pile this past weekend.
Both days this time, too, as the weather was good for Saturday and Sunday.
For a change.

Also for a change, prior to the weekend's riding, I'd reviewed the NETRA route sheet and decided to incorporate some sections of trail I hadn't ridden in a long time.

On Saturday, I added a couple of miles to my loop with a section of trail that I'd been riding right past all this time.
It's an official part of the Pachaug Enduro Loop, but since I don't use the official NETRA route sheet whenever I ride out there (since I have my loop memorized), I simply never realized the turn off the paved road onto this trail was right there.
I am glad I found it, though, as it comes after that neat pine-needled section that I like, the same section where I stopped to clear a couple of trees the previous weekend put down by some low-life punk coward enviro-retard who thinks he owns the place and feels that he has divine right to set booby traps for other people to get hurt by.

Since this new section of trail is just after the pine-needled section, it, too has good dirt (compared to most of the rock pile trail sections), whoops, tree roots exposed, neat turns, uphills, downhills, and more than a couple of natural jumps where, if you hit them fast enough, you can catch some decent air.

All-in-all, I will certainly keep this section of trail in my rides out in Pachaug.
The ride on Saturday was good, and even though I felt a bit tired and lacking my usual sense of coordination and balance at the start, by the time it was finished, I felt better and had a decent time on the bike.
Saturday's milage was 57.

Sunday, I added yet another section of trail, and this one was about 10miles in total.
Like the section I added on Saturday, I probably hadn't ridden on it since around 1992.
Yup, nearly 20 years ago.
Since considerable time has passed since my last ride on the section, I remembered nearly none of it, with one short part about a hundred feet long ringing a bell in my memory.
This section was more like the typical Pachaug rock pile terrain:
Rocks all over the place, with some occasional brown dirt and more than a couple of water holes to cross, thanks to the heavy rains we got on the previous Sunday and Monday.

As it turns out, I spent a bit of time back-tracking after making a wrong turn or two, as well as having to lift the stuck rear wheel of the bike out of one of those muddy water crossings.
For most of my off-road riding career, I never cared much for getting the bike slimy and filthy with that brown sewage called mud.
The kind of mud that means you may get your bike good and stuck if you make a wrong move.
Well, after getting the bike unstuck, I suddenly felt very tired, to the point that I seriously considered bailing out of the rest of the loop early and riding the road all the way back to the ol' clammy Ranger.
I mean, I hadn't felt that tired in years, and I now wonder if I were perhaps being effected by some kind of 24-hour bug that was trying to manifest itself into fruition.

Well, I decided to dig deep, get with the program, and I finished the loop, with a total of 65 miles, a new high.
I'm glad that I decided to stick with it as I eventually regained a decent amount of energy and strength as I rode along.
Not up to normal standards, but enough to work with.
I backed the pace down about 15% as a safety measure and just plugged away at it.

All-in-all, Sunday's ride wasn't as enjoyable as Saturdays, mainly because of getting so tired and exhausted-feeling after lifting the rear of the bike out of the mud hole.
As long as there is water out on the trails (like after heavy rains), I'd probably be skipping that new section of trail.
When I got home and immediately washed the bike, I could easily see it was probably the muddiest I'd ever gotten it, yet.
It ain't that way as I write this, I'm happy to say. ;)

-John