The ride Saturday rates with the best in a good while. This is due to the location, the weather, and the energy level of the riders.
Beaver Dam is on Falls Lake in Wake County. It is about 40 minutes from my house, but only 20 past the museum where I take my son on Saturday mornings for volunteer duty. The trails make great use of a rolling terrain and have the best section of whoop-de-doos around. There are technical challenges in the form of roots and logs but the best part is the way the trail allows you to work hard for extended stretches to get a great workout. There are about 15 miles of well maintained trails broken up into 4 loops. The best is the South loop which is an extension of the West loop. Off of the South loop is a section marked “Drop Zone” which challenges you to trust your line and not go over the handlebars. As long as you stay back and low, and do not use the front brake or try to steer while on the downslope you feel like you are on a roller coaster. This is where I am glad I have front shocks as the transition from downhill to up is rather abrupt in several places. I had a blast. Maybe it was the fact it was an new trail to me, but this was good stuff.
It took every bit of two hours of riding to cover all 15 miles which is not an impressive average but MPH is gaged differently with the technical thrown in. I do know that the last two mile loop had me gasping and my legs burning every time I had to get out of the saddle to get up a hill.
One of the other riders tried to show me the proper technique for getting over logs. Here is a link that sort of shows the process. pages.prodigy.com/CharlieB/log.htm I need to study if for a while before I try logs over about a foot in diameter.
