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Thursday, March 15

Muh Woodsen

Doggamit.

Leaf Lyfe and I went out last night to ride the entire Tour duh Charlotte route last night.  A semi-straight forward endeavor to knock out before we bring the rest of the team up to speed this weekend, one week out from the event.  We rolled out after work, prepared to be out for a couple hours mebbe... enough time to cover the 20 or so miles already mapped out... I rode it once weeks ago.  The details fuzzy but burned into the back of my brain from staring at google maps and satellite images since December.

Route to stage one... solid.  well, solid'ish.  "Progress" may have "muddied" things a bit.  Viva duh Tour.

Route to stage two.  The stage that I'm supposed to manage.  The one we've spent many a man/woman hour building.  Scabby old trails in a swamp, down sewer lines, mebbe some game trails... random dirt ribbons in the woods.

As soon as we got to the entrance, we noticed some things had changed.  Bad omen type things.

This is what we eventually found:

That used to be a very cool creek crossing that had a sweet rideable rock line, pretty much the only way across that didn't involve a ravine.  We were going to cross it twice.  Now it's a pile of logs and mud built for heavy equipment.

Progress.  The greenways that we hold so dear to our get-around-town hearts have moved forward a few weeks too early.  We knew it was coming... just not so soon.

Shit.

The dozer tracks run across our route at least five times.  Logs are piled across access roads and trails.  It's like a bully just kicked over our sand castle and took a dump on the lumpy remains... and then shoved our faces in it.

Leaf took it slightly better than I did.  I was pretty much in shock.  I mean, meh.  I've spent countless hours hand-wringing and forehead-cringing, trying to get my head around this stage.  Not to mention all the hours we spent lopping, sawing, digging, blowing and just wandering around trying to connect all the bits.

Shit.

We've almost always planned out five stages but lost one in the lead up to the race for one reason or another.  It's just that this was the kinda stage the Tour is known for, scabby shit trail that no one has ever seen before and will probably never ride again.

So, yeah.

We still got a great Tour on tap, so no worries.  Lots of goodness to look forward to next weekend.

Leaf and I saw a group of twenty plus deer out there who seemed even more upset about the damage to their woods, so mebbe that puts things into perspective.  I bet the race they're promoting is all screwed up now too.

2 comments:

glen said...

sad! sorry about your luck. i am sure you had a plan B.

Bin said...

Tell Leaf he needs molar bigger tyres.