back in the saddle

After far too much yard work on Saturday (frankly, anything more than a half hour is too much yard work for me), we decided to play on Sunday.  We dragged the mountain bikes up from their winter storage in the basement, dusted them off and loaded them into the truck, and, once the temperatures warmed up from the early morning 40s, headed through Parley's Canyon to Park City.  I had requested a MTB ride at Round Valley: since this was to be my first time back on the bike since last fall, I knew I'd have to relearn/remember everything and needed some gentler trails to ease me back into it.

Nice wide dirt road - perfect for me

We parked at the Prospector Avenue Rail Trail trail-head and rode the paved rail trail out to Quinn's Trail-head, then got off the pavement and onto the dirt.  I really feel comfortable at Round Valley as there are a lot of easy-to-intermediate trails.  I do much better on double-track and jeep roads as the extra width accommodates my wobbling much better; when we ride single-track, I quickly remember that sagebrush smells good when you crash into it.  As this was my 2012 inaugural ride, we stuck to the easier trails for the most part, although we did inadvertently venture off onto the expert portion of Cammy's Trail - where I happily got off my bike and walked it down the rocky, steep, slippy slope.  We ended up on a perimeter jeep road - the Silver Quinn trail - that skirts the Round Valley protected area and it was just nice to be out in the sunshine, admiring the scenery.

We ended up doing a 14-mile ride, which was enough to make my sit-bones sore the next day.  But I didn't crash, and there wasn't any blood, and we wrapped up our excursion with a couple of PBRs in the Deer Valley parking lot, staring at the mountains.  Hell yeah that's a better way to spend the day than working in the yard.