Training Log Archive: Carbons Offset

Lord of the Squirrels with Carbon and Melissa, plus Rush Hour, Last Call, Happy Hour on my own (this definitely seemed like the correct direction to ride this loop; descending the steep pitches that would not be rideable the other way. Simply start with Rush Hour and the rest of the trails flow right through the junctions or crossovers).
Cloudy, so not great views. Last year it was smoke, this year it was cloud.
Trails were a little wet, some slippery roots or greasy mud on the way down. Still an awesome fun descent.
The added trails were a little less travelled, so a little less packed down.
A pretty full day with quite a bit of climbing.

C • Tires? 8

Mount Benson enduro trails, Nanaimo, with Carbon and Melissa.
Up Social Climber and Bottle Drive, then the road. The road route was an easy gentle grade but would feel mentally tedious for multiple laps; a trade-off versus the exertion of the steeper more direct routes up the other logging roads.
Down FTR and Rollercoaster. Exciting and fun but a little chunky and rough. Some gap jumps. We didn’t fully feel “on” during this descent, either because of the choppy sections of trail or because we were lethargic from the easy spin up the road and needed to get the heart rate up.
Up the nearby logging roads and the black single track. Steep. Had to walk the bike in a couple of sections.
Down Sexy Flanders, Max Power and Hutz. These were the best, a little smoother than the first descent.
Then up logging roads and E&M Connector.
Down Gatekeeper and continued to a bunch of unmapped new trail below that was pretty fun.
Out for almost 4 hours including breaks.

Cumberland second day, with Melissa and Carbon.
Felt like today was an unbeatable link up of great single-black diamond trails.
Climbed up the same way and then up ET Main and Lighthouse Way.
Down Furtherburger, looped Lost Wood, Blockhead, Bucket of Blood to Bear Buns. They were all so good.
Then down all of Teapot. Also really good but not quite as exciting as the black diamond trails we were on. Single black diamond seems to be our level, I might go for some double black when it is dry. In the wet, the roots were slippery but usually they weren’t at an angle that was a problem so we rode them without noticing much; most of the rock still had decent traction.
Up Railroad to Crafty Butcher. Down Double Pumper and 50:1. Some of 50:1 felt like some unnecessary blue cross country when you felt like you just wanted to flow down a nice black trail to the car at the end of a big day. Still good but I think yesterday’s finish on space Nugget was more fun. Maybe next time we should continue further east and come down Spaghetti, Meatballs, Parmesan, Back Rub etc. Or maybe Round Out instead of 50:1 and get back to Space Nugget.
Out for 5 hours including breaks for eating, chatting, checking maps.

C • the island 2

Cumberland with Melissa. It poured yesterday.
Up Two and a Juice, Buggered Pig, the new climb trail (the part that is in so far, then it spits you onto Bear Buns climb), Climax. Upper Climax had several big puddles and slippery roots.
Down Thirsty Beaver (again the upper part was sometimes wet and slippery). Down 42nd Street was fun.
Up Bear Buns climb and down Bear Buns. The first couple of features of Bear Buns were exciting but a little much when they were wet and slippery. The rest of Bear Buns was great.
Across to the Vanillas. Some of Vanilla got almost a little boring but the new Lower Vanilla addition was more playful and good.
Down Crafty Butcher, it had a couple good wooden features.
Up and across No Hole, it climbed well.
Down Space Nugget was fun.
A great day of some old classics plus a few newer ones.
Out for about 3.75 hours including some breaks and views.

Maple Syrup loop with Carbon and Melissa.
Rainy on the drive to the trailhead but it slowed to a light drizzle when we started and eventually stopped later in the ride. The trail handles the moisture well and the riding was good. Used a little caution in case the roots and smooth rocks were slippery but some of the bermy sections were probably as good or better than when they are dry and loose. A good time.
Climbed a bit of Arbutus Ridge on the way up to get around some logging closures.
Jumped over to Phloem on the way down to cut out some of the unnecessary Solar Coaster.