~ Barking Spider ~

Taking advantage of the break in the clouds over the Owyhees, while all of Ada and Canyon Counties were grey, I drove out to the Barking Spider racecourse on Saturday with Josh. The weather was perfect and I got my first sunburn of the year. We were all alone except for some people on dirt bikes...a lot of people on dirt bikes...making a lot of noise with said dirt bikes and kicking up a lot of dirt. From the parking lot, we rode North with a tail wind around the initial part of the course. As I rode around the other side of the first loop, the tail wind turned into a strong head wind, and I performed my first major downshift. The initial part of the course was relatively flat with some gravelly "woop-dees". After crossing a cattle guard, we rode over some inclines, encountered some sandy pits, and I had a skills lab on a few "roller coaster" dealies. This initial part of the course formed a loop which brought us back to the parking lot, at which point we crossed over onto the other side and rode up a steady mild incline with a strong-to-very-strong headwind. We rode up to a point at the top and had a bio and photo break.Then we began the decent. This took us down some rocky steepes, some "woop-dees", some incredibly delightful side-sweep dealies (for which I have failed to remember the term), some sandy pits (in which I lodged my front tire and flipped over my bicycle in slow motion and sustained a deep tissue bruise), some roller coasters, and some canyon-sorts of things.We arrived back at the car after riding this 9-mile course and ate some lunch. Then we headed out once again and rode a variation of the initial loop, followed with an adventure into a section of the trails that neither of us had ever explored. These trails were nice because the wind wasn't as strong. Additionally, the downhill was so much fun that I could have died. I handed Josh the camera and have these amazing photos of me riding.
I now have my first sunburn of the year, on my wrists, marking precisely the location of my gloves. It was such a fun adventure and I'm feeling inarticulate in trying to describe it. With the weather no longer being in the winter vein, I have identified the goal of going on adventures, hopefully weekly.

Posted by jennifer at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)