you almost have me convinced to stop, pull out my knife and cut my brake (aka WP TR)
Rolled out and up to Winter Park at a decent time Sunday. None of us had any local knowledge of WP trail system, so we stopped in a shop for a little advice. We weren't looking for the secret downlow super trail or anything along those lines, we were just looking for an epic with a bunch of singletrack. Wish i knew the shop name or the name of the guy so i could thank him here, but i don't. So he put us on the trail to ride the Tipperary Race Course. Riden from town should be about 30 miles.
The crew was all non-mag: Doctor Tom, the Hookster (my usual partner in crime on a bike) and special female guest Star. Once we were geared up, we were on the trail. Started out kind of boring for the first 7 miles, just coasting out of town, then through a bunch of fire roads and singletrack that ran beside some road (Givelo trail), then we were on to the Northwest passage, then back to more fire road. Finally on to the singletrack, which for the first bit was more like doubletrack. Up and through some great scenic meadows on Tipperary trail to the summit after 3 miles of climging (biggest climb of the whole ride), then it was "Game On" for some really fast DH.
Tipperary Climb
http://home.comcast.net/~powderpimp/tipperaryclimb.jpg
On the DH we had some significant technical issues. One flat held Dr. Tom up for a bit, Star waited but gave him an earful when they caught up for stopping in her line :D. A mile later I went into a corner super fast and barely held on as something went flying through my front spokes. Right after that corner i tried to stop and almost couldn't, with no power in the front brake. A stop revealed that I had lost the whole shoe of my front brake (not disk). I had no chance of finding it, so I pulled the shoe from the back brake and went with the "single brake" set-up. Let's see, 15 miles to go and one brake, this should be interesting. By the end of the DH that we were already on, I had a hang of it, just couldn't go full throttle.
Hook goofing around while waiting for the guy with the flat
http://home.comcast.net/~powderpimp/hookster.jpg
Star showing her DH prowess
http://home.comcast.net/~powderpimp/stardh.jpg
Back to riding, we got to hit some nice views and classic singletrack for the remainder of the ride: Flume, Chainsaw, D2, WTB, D4, Blue sky. Great combinations of riding some roots, rocks, creek crossings and unfortunately fire roads connecting between them. The trail runs from the far North side of town all the way back to WP resort. We bailed a few miles closer to the car, since we had already been riding longer than expected and needed to get back to D-town. Which was hell in itself, with super I-70 traffic to deal with.
Crapy view point
http://home.comcast.net/~powderpimp/suckyview.jpg
Along the way we saw tons of secret unmarked trails wandering into the woods, which made us wonder what really lies out there. Maybe one day to get a nice tour of the gems would be nice. As far as one brake riding goes, i think it will be the new standard of lightweight racing. No endos, no crashes, but was barely able to hold on flying around some corners, almost flying out the apex. I kept telling Hook that it was pretty challenging, his response was classic "you almost have me convinced to stop, pull out my knife and cut my brake line"
When i get more pics from the rest of the group, i'll post them if they are any good.
