The THANG: Two vets and two noobs posted to Dirt Church this morning…but an hour earlier than the usual PAX “winter schedule” which apparently starts at 9… no problem, with an inexperienced DTH and an FNG to boot, an “easier” route was chosen. Brief COP #1 in the Parking Lot: Welcome & F3 DisclaimerDon Quixotes x10 IC (Wilson-speed, as requested by our Whore Daddy Flange) Mount up and ride to COP #2: Warmerama with Gateway 1 Mosey of to COP #3 Blueberry Hill – Down & UpTotal of 5 milesGreen level Difficulty Extra time = extra laps on the Gateway,…
Browsing: Dirt Church
Two Gearheads and one extra credit seeking novice set off on gravel to explore Pocahontas State Park. Twenty to thirtyish miles was the plan or so YHC was told. Thirty minutes into the ride, Q called for a little sidetrack exploration. Terrain was clear and open, no major obstacles it would seem. Somehow YHC caught a root or was snared by a booby trap, either way a spill was taken. After a few minutes shaking off the cobwebs, YHC realized he had some damaged equipment. No Tools and Pullout graciously guided YHC back to his car and off to Dick’s…
Hurricane Michael did a number on the Gulf Coast, that’s for sure. Remnants of the storm came to visit us late in the week but mercifully left quickly. What looked to be a morning on the fire roads miraculously turned into a singletrack day, mostly dry but with a bunch of trees down. At 0800, it was shaping up to be a one man show. Roper’s still broken. Pullout was out: he’s a tree pro, so he was probably doing tree pro things, what with a bunch of trees down, and Profit had to break in a new mower. None…
Yep. They still ride bikes on Sunday at Dirt Church. Unfortunately, they do a poor job of backblasting about it… let’s catch up, shall we? Sunday before last, Pullout and I rode a gravel and road lap in a bit of rain at Gravel Church: Round Four. No Profit — he was Climbing to Beat Cancer. Dunno where Jenny Craig was with his badass bike. It was just the two of us. It was intimate… close… almost loving. And we rode bikes, too. Not going to say much more to say about that. Last week, Pullout was…
Four knuckleheads were undeterred by the forecast, and despite knowing that bands of Florence’s winds and rain may still be part of the equation, sidled out to Pocohantas to ride the only thing available to them: gravel and sand. Making a long-awaited return appearance, Lab Rat posted just in the knick of time to join the same dudes from last week, and immediately he and Profit started what would be a two-hour mind-meld on the topic of brewing beer. Despite not being a brewer, YHC is pretty good at beer — mostly the drinking of it — but stuck to…
Dirt Church took an alternate form this week: a lap of the Park’s fire road with the added bonus of the horse trails across Beach Road. This was actually planned last weekend to grant Profit’s b-day wish, since he’d never done a full lap of the gravel. Nope… none of that pesky singletrack to fly down this Sunday! Three of us brought exactly the right gear for the ride. You don’t know this, but I am and have been for about five years, an avid fan of cyclocross. I am not fit enough to race standard-format ‘cross (45 minutes on…
While most of the congregation was away enjoying the fading last days of summer down at the Rivah, a couple regulars, a newbie, and a test driver started Sunday in the woods. Profit** brought a couple different bikes and a guy who will end up buying one of ’em. And even though we’ve seen him a bunch of times, neither Profit nor I recognized E.F. Hutton, who decided to have his first real mountain bike experience with us. Maybe it was the beard that threw us… maybe the lack of glasses (he wears glasses, doesn’t he?)… either way, there…
Five riders, from age eleven to sixty-two, rocked out this morning’s singletrack-heavy Dirt Church ride. Profit was running a little late but the rest took the gravel warm up to meet him at the top of the trailhead. In just a few minutes, we figured out that Crikey wasn’t gonna get dropped despite the 140mm cranks, and with all five of us together, it was time to get rad. Blue Jay Way is a downhill, super-jumpy, twisty trail second only to Corkscrew in technicality and sketchiness at speed, so naturally, we went that way. Shakedown’s full-rigid Bianchi is about as…
Six F3 brothers made the inaugural “Hey, it’s a thing” edition of Dirt Church, and three other fellers joined along. It was kind of a sh*t show at first, and I’m blaming the Q. Huh? What? We did an excellent job of being prepped and ready for the 0800 rollout. Profit brought a spare bike to be demo’ed by Graham, who attends real Church with Profit, and is/was on the fence about buying a new MTB. And three minutes into the ride, we picked up the Blackburns (Robert Senior and Robert Junior) whom YHC knows from his days as a…
Four of the faithful slid into the last couple of pews for Dirt Church Sunday morning, riding a variety pack of bikes, and running their mouths pretty much the whole time. The usual preamble of Fendley Station gravel loosened us up for Sunsetter’s flow. We chugged up Bell Return to do some socializing at the top with some outa-towners on the world’s cleanest mountain bikes. The requisite Blueberry Hill followed and we all made great time on that before we found a new way back on the long gravel descent on Loop B. Just under thirteen miles and 650′ of…