Trail Inspection Ride

Today, I decided to ride what I call is a Trail Inspection Ride. Time to look at the Wabash Trace and Manawa MTB trail to see how they fared though the Spring thaw. I rode the FuelEX7. Would have ridden the hardtail, but it still have the studded tires mounted.

The first was heading up the Wabash Trace. Rode up to Margaritaville. The trail surface was damaged by bicycles and ATVs. Basically, the section I rode is rideable. My fat tires did not make marks on the trail surface. It was slow going because of the slightly soft - dropped my climb speed by 1-2 mph. Down the hill, also dropped my speed by some 3-4 mph. Greg and a group are working on the Trace Saturday, including grading.

From the Wabash Trace, it was time to ride over to Lake Manawa. Rode West Sidewinder. That trail was rideable. The only thing was that some idiot had ridden through when the ground was very soft -- leaving deep ruts. From there I went to East Sidewinder. I was able to ride without leaving marks along the doubletrack. But after the crossover, riding near the levee, it was obvious that the trail there is too soft to ride. Walked the bike over to the levee and rode that back to the pavement.

By the time I got back from the bike shop, I had ridden 24 miles. That took me over 100 miles in the last 7 days - my first 100 mile week of the year. Oh, yeh, a couple other statistics - 475 miles so far this year and 1500+ miles now on the FuelEX7.

Just a warning. When I got back from my bike ride, I removed the studded tires from the hardtail. Now, its time for our Spring snow storm.